Teaching the kids to surf

I first started surfing back in the early 1990s but gave up about  1995 when  I got into white water kayaking instead. When the kids came along I no longer had the spare time for kayaking either so for the past decade or so have mainly been using my playboat for surf-kayaking and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been on a river in the past few years.

Looking south from Kakanui towards Moeraki

 Over the past 3-4 summers the kids have been doing plenty of boogie boarding at Kakanui and for the past year or so Finn has been asking me to get him a surfboard. At the end of last summer one of my soccer mates gave Finn one of his old boards so he has been very keen to get started. Finn gave it a go the last time we were at Kakanui but wasn’t too successful (he quickly realised it is harder than it looks) and wanted some help. I'd been thinking about getting back into surfing so while we were in Blenheim for his soccer tournament I caught up with a mate who I’d given my old surfboard and arranged to get it back. I picked up the board when I was in CHCH for Conquest but one look at it I realised I’d be struggling to use a short board these days so last week I bought myself a 7’ 9” mini-mal - short enough to be able to control pretty easily, long enough to be able stand up on without too many issues and have “loaned” my short board to Hana to learn on.  

Kakanui- not a bad spot really!

  I took the kids out both yesterday and today and they had a blast. Both were able to get onto their knees and it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be standing. It took me awhile but I managed to catch a few waves. By the end of today Hana had, very briefly, managed to stand a couple of times.  They’ve bruised knees, arms and legs from being hit by the boards but both are rearing to go again next weekend. Tonight they spent their time watching how to surf vids on Youtube to get a few more tips. I’m not sure if they will stick with it, at this stage it looks like they might. They spent about 6 hours in the water over 2 days (not bad since they only have spring suits and the water is a “tropical” 14 degrees celcius!) and were both absolutely buzzing once we’d finished. Surfing is a great sport, so I hope they get bitten by the surfing bug and stick with it. There are a hell of a lot worse things they could be doing.

Alas, this isn't me.

Craig