Surfing in WA!! Woo! Hoo!

This weekend I went surfing for the first time in my life. Actually a kind of a must-do here in WA. On Saturday early in the morning we went up to Lancelin with 14 other friends to do a 2 day surf camp.
Getting ready to surf:
We were all equipped with wetsuits, hats, blue rashies (so everyone could tell that we are a surf school) and of course surf boards. And they had really nice big soft boards that floated much better than the ‘normal’ hard fibreglass ones – perfect for beginners ;-)
And even more important we got lots of sunscreen and ‘zinc’. [Zinc is a very sticky white sunscreen that is highly water resistant and therefore also hard to get off your skin again :-)]We all had pale white faces, hands and feet. And apparently the sun is the most dangerous thing when learning how to surf.
After a short safety and a ‘How get onto your board in 4 steps’ introduction we were ready for our first surf.
And because I never did bodysurfing or body boarding before it was really great to experience the power of the waves when they push you towards the beach. And once you caught the wave the board was surprisingly stable and getting up is not as difficult as I thought. I actually came quite close to standing up a couple of times ;-) But I can get on my knees and surf all the way to the beach :-) And our surf teacher told me that knee boarding is also a sport and that all great surfers do knee boarding as well, so maybe I am a kneeboarder ;-)
In the evening we were all really tired! So we sat down in front of the TV and watched “Blue Crush” – a rather bad surfing movie.
Sunday morning we got up really early at 5:30am to do dawn surfing. Apparently the waves are best in the morning when the wind blows from the land towards the ocean.
It was great fun and I really enjoyed surfing!!
See some more pictures here!