Day 65

Day 65

One of my favourite days of the trip without doubt.

As I said in my blog yesterday today was surfing day! Loren picked us up at 8:00 and we headed down to Muizenberg beach to meet Mel, Bruce and his wife! Bruce was our instructor for the day and was Mel's friend who she had met 12 years ago whilst working together.

The weather wasn't great to start, quite cloudy with mediocre sized waves however the weather picked up after about an hour which made the view, the sea and the experience ten times as good. We were equipped with wet suits and boards in a shop called Gary's surf shop! Coincidentally the shop owner who greeted us was called Gary, no surprises there! The wetsuit was quite tricky to get on and it literally stuck to your skin! It reminded me of taking your heavy cotton rugby jersey off in Secondary School on a cold wet winters day! Nightmare. We had a little tips and hints session with Bruce before we got in the water, just to make sure we knew the bare essentials and obviously so we were safe! For example, don't swim towards a wave with a board horizontal because the surf board will flip towards your face and smash you in the nose, potentially breaking it. My nose has been broken before and is bent enough so I didn't want it to be damaged anymore!! The next tip was when you go under water after coming off your board, raise your hands above your head so that you don't get hit on the head with the board after it comes back down to the water after flipping.

Of course after 5 minutes in the water Jeff was hit on the head with the board. SWITCH ON JEFF! He was fine though, well he said he was anyway. He probably just braved the pain! His fault. I just laughed and carried on practicing. To be fair to Jeff he was crazily good, standing up on his first attempt and riding the wave like he had done it hundreds of times before! He skateboards a lot at home and he said the whole equilibrium aspect helped him a lot. I was pretty bad, but managed to get up a few times and ride the wave for a few seconds. I hate being defeated and losing so I was a bit frustrated but was having so much fun so I didn't let it get to me.

It was such an awesome day! I can't thank Loren and Mel enough for sorting it for us and Bruce for teaching us to surf! (Me a lot more than Jeff!!). We've been invited to do it next week so hopefully i'll be better then!!

To make the day better, Arsenal won today over their rivals Tottenham Hotspur so Sunday has treated me very, very well!

All the best

Luke