First Week

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Been in Croyde for just over 1 week now and so far so good. Moved down on Sunday 18th and was greeted by 2-3ft onshore messy waves and cloudy weather. This can't be right, where are the 6ft barrels and sunshine?? Decided that i had to go in for a surf anyway, so hooked up with some of the guys from the surf school and had a pretty good surf considering the conditions. Pitched my tent at the only site in the area doing long stay, which was a bit of a drive out of Croyde on top of a big hill. The facilities were pretty basic, and the tent was blowing all over the place due to the howling winds, but i got a my head down and had a good sleep ready for my first day as a surfing instructor.

Started work at 10am on monday morning. Met Darren who is my new boss and a couple of lads on work experience (which was good for me, as i got out of doing all the usual jobs saved specially for the rookie instructor). Scotty and Rick, who i had met in costa Rica last year were working, so it was good to see a couple of familiar faces. My first group of 'surf students' arrived at 10:15 and they would all be staying for a week long course of surfing tuition. We kitted them out with wetsuits and headed down to the beach. The surf was still 2-3 ft onshore mess :-(

Over the course of the first week i observed how the other instructors conducted their lessons, depending on the ability of their students. Each instructor had slightly different approaches and i learnt alot from them all. After my first couple of days i was confident enough to start taking my own lessons and having my own group of pupils. The highlight of my first week was teaching an 8yr old lad call Brady to surf. We had a couple of young kids in earlier in the week, but they were a bit too young to learn and got cold very quickly in the sea, wanting to get out after 45mins. I took Brady under my wing and had him standing and riding waves all the way up the beach by the end of the session. He spent the whole time we were walking back up the beach to the surf school mithering his dad to take him surfing again. Stoked!!!

Scored myself an eveing job working in the Kitchen of the Manor pub in Croyde and started working there on tuesday night. Lorenzo (Brazilian from the same place as Ronaldinho, as he loves to point out every time Brazil are playing) one of the instructors from the surf school also worked there, so again there was a familiar face. My job is to take the tickets as the orders come through and prepare all the parts of the dish for the chef to send it out. Now, anyone who knows me and has seen my cooking abilities will be thinking that if soup, cereal and pop tarts are not on the menu, then there is no chance i will be able to cook it. I will have all you doubters know that i am now a culinary genious, who's microwave skills rival Jamie Oliver's or Gordon 'Fu*king' Ramsey's.

I spent the evenings i wasn't working on my first week either surfing or in the Manor watching the football with the other instructors and some of the staff. All staff get a discount on beer. £1.80 a pint feels like being a student again. Surf, sunshine and cheap beer, this life will do for me:-) Watched the England V's Sweden game in the Manor with a few of the guys we had been teaching all week. This proved to be a great idea, as they all wanted to buy me a beer for being such an ace teacher (lol), so i didn't even need to raid my piggy bank for £1.80. Added to the fact we get dinner at the surf school and Lorenzo and I have become masters at deliberately getting orders wrong so we can eat them when we are working in the Kitchen, life is pretty cheap at the moment.

Thursday and Friday finally saw the surf get good and clean. Got up at 7am for my first dawn patrol to take advantage. A few of the locals were already on it, and so was Scotty from the surf school. I joined him on a nice little peak we had to all to ourselves in the middle of the beach. Surf was 3ft and approaching low tide, so the set waves were getting pretty heavy. Had the best surf of the trip so far.

On Saturday it has my final assessment to complete my BSA Surf Instructors Certificate. I had to take a lesson with the BSA assessor observing me. I passed with flying colours and as we had a surfer girl weekend booked in at the school, was sent straight back to work. My first task as a fully qualified instructor was to get the largest girl in the group into her wetsuit without causing any offence (she was quite a unit to say the least). After a bit of searching, finally found a xxxl wetsuit (i'm not kiddin) that she could get into....just!!

At the end of the week i was getting pretty sick of having to drive all the way out of Croyde to the campsite on my own. I have now moved to a little farm where Andy (another instructor), Lorenzo and Lorenzo's girlfriend Martina are staying. There is only us 4 staying there, but the showers are good and you can walk into Croyde in 5 minutes so it is all good. There is also the possibility we will all be able to get a house sorted out in a couple of weeks, but as the weather is good, camping is actually good fun.

Come on the England

Ta Ta 4 Now

Johnboy

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Comments

[Gemma]

Sounds Great!!
Am sure you are having an ace time, your adventures have begun :-)) Not sure if I replied to the last message so apologies now... and of course there is a bed for you and your mate when you arrive in Perth, we have some pretty good surf here, will give you free accommodation for some surf lessons.... hope to hear more soon Gem x

[Emma]

glad you've moved campsites in time for my visit next week - first one didn't sound up to much!! hope you've not poisoned anyone yet at the pub, i won't bother learning to cook now you're a masterchef. hope that girl you had to squeeze into a wetsuit never stumbles across this travelblog or she'll be after you, i'm won't be sticking up for you either - see sounds like a whopper em xxxx

[Wes]

G'lad
well mate I see you are well busy buy the sheer volume of this blog entry. If I was to say it was a good read however i'd be lying as i didn't read it at all...i am assuming you are having a wicked time as i read the comments and so i trust you will continue to av it wave stylee. The surf here in landlocked toronto consists of hundreds of koreans packed into a lickle t'internet cafe. Boff squiff n bo didley was a smerf. peace out brethren

[Slag]

Proper good you are down here. proper not good that you are a bummer.