Surfing Waves

Hello Surfing Community,

New to this sport, environment and hardware etc.

Pretty addictive. Paddling out 2 x week for a year now and just came back from my first surfing hollidays.

After 5 lessons on a 10 feet foamboat, I bought an old battered 9 feet surftech sofftop. Trained the ass off.

Worked amazing to be in the water and learn a completely new set of moves and balance at 43.
Yes I did the neccessairy flexibility excercises and dry pop ups for 2 months too...

Next thing is getting the angled takeoff consistent and getting speed down the line.

Been reading now and then since a couple of months. Very helpful site, hope to contribute.

Greetings Buxtert

PS: gifted with a healthy dose of perseverance in stead of talent...

About:
Surf: North Sea
From: Holland (close out country)
Part of the World: Europe

Welcome Buxtert. Perseverance is important in the long run. Talent only helps as long as the interest is there.

Thanks!

Feel very welcome. Great forum and stuff. Fond of Hawaiian surf clips! The way surfing and bodyboarding is done on the Islands can bring tears to my eyes seeing the joy and talent.

Mahaloos!

Buxtert

look familiar i understand your pain
Reward yourself if you can with Spain, Portugal or France. Take a little time and a long board
A good learners wave in Portugal

Dear Jaffa1949,

Guess you found my homebreak! Where did you find the pic, I'm very curious! Looks very familiar. Bouy and the color of the boards reminds me of 1 of the nowadays 3 surfingschools here. Yes getting busy there, I'm part of it too, I must say.

Just came back from my first surfing hollidays. Just before, I bodyboarded 3 years in the same district: Les Landes and Cote Basque. Totally exhausted this year. Contis-Plage in France provided 1 week small clean surf 1 to 2 feet.
2nd week we were not so lucky and I submerged in mushy, 5-6 feet windy onshore junk. But hey I paddled out daily and became some what of a local legend. Only tourist out back that definately lacked the neccessary skills for the kind of surf... Must have been a rewarding show full of failure for the fellow beachgoers. The stamina this musclepacked body contains provided big time and long sessions, ha ha ha. But it paid off at home in the end.

So again, perseverance was shown in big loads. Succesful surfing for 3 days it wasn't. Tweaked my back on the last 2 waves on difficult waves but made it down the line before returning home. Finally a good feeling after struggling 3 days. Everything I ate and drank past 3 weeks still tasted salty. Yes I was forced to let salt water in, in some kind of way, not gonna tell a beautiful story, but if it had been beer I would have died. Triton showed some mercy I guess.

To wrap it up: upperbody all sore. Spaghetti arms. Pop up wouldn't even go anymore after 11 days of surf for 5 hours a day. Shoulders aching so much I couldn't fall a sleep. Beyond the stage a serious load of beer would help me out sooth the pain or passs out. Everyday I paddled out feeling shipwrecked and I just paddled until the stiffness and pain was gone. Which resulted in being more tired the next day. But hey, greedy to the max. Or should I say stoked?

I knew resting days would pay off. Difficult to accept. So on the 3 resting days we would go go- karting. Not to give the arms some rest. Or go swimming and climbing in a waterpark...

Learned more than a couple things these 2 weeks. Resting is super important, not even a short evening session when the body is too sore, don't surf at least 1 day when the surf is really bad.

End of self reflection and surf diary. Not here for the pity!

Cheers, Bux

Hi Bux and welcome, I will save you some reading through my posts but there is a lot of learning there are there is from other long term forumites.
I am an ancient surfer the 1949 part is my birth year, Aussie surfer since 1958 I now live in Ober Österreich and surf river waves nearby.
I make an occasional trip to the Atlantic coasts The Scheveningen beach and a couple of other surf beaches were as a guest of a German forum surfer. Great exploration trip just pre covid, Hence the picture and others of that trip! Not reall giving us any quality surf chances.
Portugal and Spain were more rewarding surfwise and I went there with my surfing son. A French to a surf camp came as a prize, again disappointment in quality. But fun for my son and me.

Next trip has to be well planned and a lot of fitness and flexibility training needed to bring me back up for surfing 3years out serious illness recovery all to do thoroughly.

So at the moment I advise about Australia pacific islands surf and especially Indonesia, some general design stuff mostly around long boards in keeping with my age profile.

I have a number of writing projects for surf magazines especially Aussie magazines with river surfing.
Main occupation being retired

Ah, that clears some things Jaffa!

Wise words are all over the place to find here, most of them from the oldies, as usual.
Experience allways pays off.

Indonesia, Costa Rica, Maldives, Sri Lanka... Ooph, down under, a dream... These places seem to have good waves and excellent conditions on tap.

Well, familylife and funds restrain me a bit and keep me tied close to the atlantic. Will consider north coast of Spain seriously though. France has great waves but not really in summer and the best waves are still way beyond my skills and will stay there for a while. Hossegorre can be excellent but later in summer/fall. Perhaps in a couple of years if the improvements keep going on, dunno how difficult barrellriding is. I think it wille be. I bungle up lway less challenging waves now.

Have to research some great spots but the needed campsite has it's standards too, like mrs. Bux, ahum. And the kids, double ahum. I will try to improve on the longboard before stepping down on a 'skateboard' to be able to shred premium locations etc. The L plate is here to stick for quite some while.

Wish you the best of health and fitness levels you can achieve. Maintaining them is key too. No garantees unfortunately.

Being a bit risk avers results in being well informed by research (reading). I do not come from a watersports family nor surfing network. But my surfinstructor shared some great tips. All his tips seemlessly confirm the old and wise and experienced forumites share on the forum. Start on a longboard, develop on a longboard, ride bigger waves on a longboard, long story short: become a complete surfer and learn to execute all the maneuvers to be able to surf all occurring sections.

Yes I will be retired too by then.

Bux.

Be patient, things will come, after een great session comes a bad one despite all good foresigns and excellent conditions. The list goes on. Don't go short too soon, don't buy a board because it fits in your car etc. The guy was right...

Recommend looking at Peniche area in Portugal. Talk to me little more

Ha ha ha,

I can go on for hours repeating all the good advise. Like a sponge I'm able to suck it all up. Luckily I can stick to a certain board with ease. But when a used very very cheap good 1 feet step down one comes by, like € 50,- / € 75,- I'll buy the thing and store it after 1 testdrive. Now I'm selftied to the 8'4 bic/tahe and still love it. Feels nice to leave the 9 feet 98 liters foamboat behind and appreciate the better design and performance.

I'll check Peniche, saw some good barrels on the tube. But there will be soft peeling waves also hopefully. A point break would be lovely to experience.

The line up will be intimidating for me seeing those barreling kind of waves. Reef still scares me too.

How can an Ozzy leave the surf country behind for Austria? Love of your life or wintersports? Just don't tell me it was the language that reeled you in...

Bux

buxtert wrote:Next thing is getting the angled takeoff consistent and getting speed down the line.

Focus instead on learning how to a good Bottom Turn versus an angled take off. That will inturn lead to more speed down the line.

waikikikichan wrote:

buxtert wrote:Next thing is getting the angled takeoff consistent and getting speed down the line.

Focus instead on learning how to a good Bottom Turn versus an angled take off. That will inturn lead to more speed down the line.

Ok, that makes 2 main goals now! Thinking about it, makes a lot of sense, thanks.

Need to know that waves are very small and soft here most of the time, so they lack power and they tend to close out quick. 1 to max 2 feet btw. So I thought riding straight away angled would help me at this stage, also as it is a skill I can benefit in (bigger and) quickly jacking up waves.

Bux.

This is a small wave bottom turn it adds speed more than an angled takeoff an if there is alittle power pocket sits you right in it

That's a nice wave and bottom turn sir, yes sir! Now you have me!

Even on a river wave in Austria where I live nw , a bottom really sets up the wave

just moved your topic to surf chat, more people will probably share advice with you