Sutton Bingham & District Canoe Club

Bude Surfing Trip Sunday 14th March 2010 by Dan Brown

The morning of the 14th of March dawned cold, bright and sunny, with the surf forecast to be 1 – 2ft everyone was enthusiastic to get out for a start of season surf – in fact so keen I met Brian Phillips and the other 7 willing victims (oops I meant paddlers!) at 8.15 on a Sunday morning at the Cartgate roundabout for a 2 hour drive cross country to Bude. Led by Brian Phillips, the driving pace got ever and ever quicker the closer we got to Bude, obviously encouraged by the yearnings of his Maverick Surf Kayak.

Not with standing the horse boxes, we arrived at Widemouth Bay – Bude around 10:30 to suvey the surf and gett out for a paddle (well some of us did, some just got lost on route, but arrived eventually!)  The Surf as predicted was quite small – ideal in fact for the dozen or so paddlers that had turned out for the trip.  Having made it to the beach we then stopped for coffee – as the café was open and low tide was still around 1 hour away (the best time to surf is on the incoming tide, the tide's push can add as much as 1ft to the wave height).  So a leisurely start – once our appetites were sated for fresh coffee, we spoke to the paddlers and let them know that we would stay on the beach for a while and coach them (also fish out if necessary –don't worry it happens to us all).

Paddlers included Jim,  two budding youngsters fresh out with their GTs and Pyranha junior kayaks, Brian, Dan, James, Jenny, Simon, Stephanie, Tracey and Wayne.

The informal brief over everyone got on the water and surfed (with the occasional bellowed instruction from the beach).  However, we soon discovered that although standing on the beach is the correct way to coach surf, unless you have a predefined sequence of signals to give the paddles it's rather ineffective – because the paddlers can't hear you!  By now around half and hour had passed and we were satisfied that people were in no danger if they fell in, because the water was only around 3ft deep behind the small breaking waves. So at this point we split up and I got on the water to coach people from my playboat (which was too slow/short to catch the small waves well. However, it was possible to practice some tricks as demonstrated by young Mr Bradley.

Jim distinguished himself by capsizing 4 times (and rolling each time) whilst others used a combination of rolling, builders roll or just plain bail out and walk to the beach.

Fortunately I had made it onto the water – because before long a paddler fell in and couldn't remove their spraydeck

(Dan in very slow playboat to the rescue!), I managed to paddle over – heave up the upturned boat (removing the poor individual from it in the process and escort the poor individual to shore). Aside the odd spill (which whoever you are and whatever you're paddling is inevitable) everyone had a really good time and felt that the trip was well worthwhile.  Although the water was very cold, the sun shone and the normally crowded waves of Bude were left to us alone (aside a somebody on a bodyboard).  A pleasant warmish day all round and suncream was required (as much to prevent windburn as sunburn!).  If anyone is interested in surfing the club organises at least a couple of surf weekends every year (camping behind a pub!).

If you have any photos of this event, please convert to 1024x768 pixels and email to webmaster@sbd.cc