Swell
A surfer riding inside the curl of a large wave.

October to March · eleven degrees · no summer school

We teach in the six months everybody else is shut

The beach faces north, which is why it is empty in August and worth driving to in January. Six-week courses, four people to an instructor, and a van with a kettle in it at the top of the slipway.

See the six-week courses

Why the winter

Between October and March this beach gets the swell that has travelled two thousand miles without hitting anything. In July it gets a millpond and four hundred people. We tried teaching through a summer once. Nobody learned anything and everybody got sunburnt.

Season opensfirst Saturday in October

Season closeslast Sunday in March

Water, October15°C

Water, February8°C

Lessons cancelled last seasonfour, all for wind

Low winter sun over a grey sea.

Three courses, six weeks each

Every course is the same six Saturdays. You keep the same instructor and the same three other people for the whole thing, which is the only reason any of it works.

White surf foam seen from directly above.

Never stood up

Whitewater, waist deep, on a board that is far too big for you on purpose. By week four you will be catching the green face. By week six about half of you will be turning.

£210 · six Saturdays · 09:00

A wave breaking over dark orange sand, from the air.

Stood up, stuck there

For the people who have been popping up and going straight for three years. Six weeks of turning, paddling position and reading where the wave is going to break before it does.

£240 · six Saturdays · 11:30

A long black sand beach under a flat grey sky.

Out the back

Six of the bigger mornings, with a rescue board in the water and someone on the cliff with a radio. You need to be able to swim four hundred metres in a wetsuit to get on this one.

£290 · six Saturdays · dawn, whenever that is

Turquoise sea foam swirling over a pale shore, from the air.

Cold

This is the part of the page most schools leave off. Eight degrees of water is not a detail, it is the whole experience, and it is much better if you know what it does before you are standing in it.

The first ninety seconds
Your breathing goes and you cannot control it. It passes. Everybody thinks something has gone wrong the first time, and nothing has.
What we lend you
5mm winter suit, boots, gloves and a hood, all included, all in your size, all rinsed after every session. Bring a towel and something warm for afterwards.
Hands
Gloves for the whole season. The people who insist they do not need them in November are wearing them by the second Saturday.
Ninety minutes, hard stop
We come in at ninety minutes whatever the conditions are doing. Cold makes people worse at everything, including judging how cold they are.
Afterwards
The van has hot water, a kettle and a bench. Change slowly, drink the tea, and do not drive for twenty minutes.
When we call it off
Over 25 knots onshore, or a swell the size where a lesson stops being a lesson. You get a text by 07:00 and the Saturday moves to the end of your six.
15°COctober
13°CNovember
11°CDecember
9°CJanuary
8°CFebruary
9°CMarch
A woman with salt-dried hair smiling in front of a pale, out-of-focus sea.

Four of us

Two full-time, two who come down for the season. All four hold the coaching and beach lifeguard tickets, all four have been surfing this beach for longer than they will admit, and all four will tell you the same thing about where to sit, because that part is not an opinion.

Groups are four to an instructor. When somebody drops out we do not fill the space mid-course — you get a smaller group and we get a quieter Saturday.

Ask us anything first