Thunderstorms and Greek Dancing - Surf lessons in Crete
This day literally started with a bang! Thunder & lightning with heavy rain pouring down from about 4 o'clock in the morning. Observant of the weather as we are at Kalo Surf surf school, we knew about it and had the washed wetsuit hanged up and drying under shelter. Still they had a hard time drying, so some of our guests had the tough job of slipping in a moist wetsuit first thing in the morning. Surf instructor Andy felt for them though, as he strapped the surf boards on the surf van in the pouring rain. By the time we met with all our guests the rain stopped and also the sun was looking through the clouds every now and then. The conditions of the waves could not have been any better: glassy with offshore wind, a real spectacle. We started the lesson with a warm up. Then we headed to the middle of the bay for the first exercises in the water. Catching waves and gliding on a surfboard. When Andy realised that the waves are only getting bigger and even barreling, we quickly moved the course to the right side of the bay, where it is a bit more protected from the weather. There we completed the first portion of the lesson and concluded with a break in the grass of Plaka restaurant. After the break it is time to learn the pop up for our youngsters and correct it for those who have done it before. The wiser participants of the group learned a middle step to the final pop up, which is coming to our knees and balancing, before they tackled the pop up. This worked out really well and we had a lot of fun! We look forward what tomorrow will bring!
Why not shake things up a bit and start the afternoon surf lesson with some Greek dancing? Andy took the lead and we all danced a round of the famous Sirtaki, composed by Mikis Theodorakis specifically for the film "Zorba the Greek". Did you know that this film was partially shot on our beautiful island of Crete?
This afternoon our participants also got a glimpse what it means "live the search", a famous surf phrase. Sometimes (or most of the times) the conditions are as such, that you want to check several surf spots to figure out where you will end up having the best possible session. You see, surfing is a great physical effort and you always want to make it worthwhile! In other places, where there are tides, the search is even more time pressing, as the in and outgoing water completely change where and how the wave will break within mere hours. Luckily we don't have tides in the Mediterranean, but still: the choice of the spot can be challenging. Even Andy, with so many years of experience under his belt, sometimes has a hard time, since he always wants to provide the best possible surf experience for all our guests. Like it happens most of the times the famous search took us to the place we checked first (classic surfer) and we ended up having a great session. The surfers that were more experience got the chance to paddle further out to try and surf unbroken green waves or catching white water waves while paddling. The surfers that started fresh this year, where surfing white water waves in the shallows practicing pushing & jumping as well as the pop up. To be continued...
