This is probably less of an adventure than I'd usually write about but it was great fun and I have some pieces to say about it, so here we are...
My friend Beckie messaged me recently keen to go surfing. We looked at the Magicseaweed forecast and the Sunday that week looked good. How wrong it was.
We set off to the beach and, after an hour in the car, arrived to the most beautiful, blue, perfectly flat ocean. Having sat, eaten our picnic and resigned ourselves to the fact that today's excursion would end up being land based and by foot.
Not 2 minutes in to our wander along the seafront, we spotted a surf hire shop. Having decided the advertised prices were too steep at the shop up the road, we'd ruled out paddleboarding. Oh a whim I asked the woman sweeping out the front how much it'd set us back, fully prepared to make our excuses and continue on our way. However, at £10 for the first hour and just £5 per hour after that, the rates were pretty reasonable!
Changed, after heaving the boards down to the shoreline, we clambered onto them and began to paddle.
I'm in a weird situation where my British Canoeing coaching award allows me to coach all paddlesport - including paddleboarding - while I, until this point, had less than 5 minutes experience on a paddle board.
I think I picked it up fairly quickly, although I can't be sure; I'll have to validate the techniques I applied against some form of reliable source before my next outing. I even managed to give Beckie some pointers.