Surfing Waves

Hi There,Im 17 into a lot of extreme sports,have done a bit of everything and am currently doing snowboarding at skating,but a few mates have asked if i fancied starting up surfing with them...
Firstly im not the best of swimmers,how deep ruffly do you have to swim out for a decent wave.
Would it be better to rent or buy gear whilst learning.
Is this a get up and learn it yourself sport,or do you need proffesional lessons.?
sorry for my ignorance
kyle

It helps if you can swim, or are competent in the water in general. A lesson or 2 might help. They're good to get your barrings, but aren't great once you've started to stand....it's pretty much "this is a board, that's a wave, now try to stand up"...thats how it was where I went for a lesson last year! After that if you like it, sure buy the gear. Just search on here for beginners board threads, there's tons of them!

Firstly im not the best of swimmers,how deep ruffly do you have to swim out for a decent wave.

Judging by that comment id suggest getting competant at swimming before hand

If you can't swim out to the lineup and back, you shouldn't be surfing with your buds. Work on that first.

You can surf without being able to swim, but you'll be buggered if you loose your board, I wouldnt have thought it safe at all.

I had researched a lot on the internet and read a lot of things on how to surf and the precautions. Then I went and took a lesson, and to be honest, I learned a couple of little details that helped me, but in general, everything I had already about and did just find standing up and turning the board a little bit. It was a funboard.

Firstly im not the best of swimmers,how deep ruffly do you have to swim out for a decent wave.

I'm a beginner myself, but I've had two leashes break on me already. First time was pretty close to the beach and not too wild. The second time was quite deep and in very choppy water with some fairly big waves. There was hardly anyone out and by the time I had swum back to the beach I was absolutely exhausted. In short, if you can't swim well, then be very very careful.

Like LOLRuss said, anytime you feel you would no longer be able to swim back in if the board got ripped away, you probably should not even be out there...

th ocean is pretty much self regulating in that if you're not able to make the swim back in you probably wont mak thee paddle out. its all about a bit of common sense. im a fairly strong paddler and swimmer these days but the one time i had to swim in from big surf (double overhead) after i lost my board i was exhausted and dehabilitated when i reached the beach.

what im saying is make sure you use som common sense. its all a lot easier with a board.