Arse over feet

The apartments we are staying in have some body boards (or shark biscuits as the apartment owner likes to call them) which are available for patrons to use. For those that don’t know, body boards are half-length surf boards which you never get to stand up on. You just ride the waves lying on your front. I used to do a reasonable amount of it around 10 years ago, and even went on a holiday to the south of France with family and friends where we managed to surf most days. Andrea on the other hand has never had a go. Being a bit of a country bumpkin and growing up out in the sticks she hadn’t even seen the sea or heard of surfing until she got to Australia. So this was a totally new experience for her.

First we had to find a section of beach that we could use. It didn’t take long, near our apartment there is a patrolled section where at least if anything bad does happen there are some lifeguards nearby to save you. We read today that 48 people have already drowned in Australia since January 1st - double last years amount. This is largely because many families and groups overestimate their swimming ability and end up getting caught in dangerous rips which drag you out to sea. Even if you are a strong swimmer you have to be very careful with rips forming all over the Australian coastline. Obviously as Andrea hasn’t done any surfing before we wanted to be safe and stay with our feet always on firm ground and so we stayed in the patrolled section.

The waves weren’t the best though and were crashing down very close to the shore. This presented another problem for Andrea - staying on her feet long enough to catch a wave. Eventually, Andrea did manage to surf a few waves and I think she did actually quite enjoyed it. It was just as we were going though that a massive wave came crashing down on Andrea. All I saw was feet and legs in the air and when Andrea emerged from the water, it was with a few scratches and a snapped body board!! Not quite the successful ending we were hoping for! Maybe body boarding is best left for the UK where the waves are half the size…


Andrea sticking to something she is good at ;)


Sunrise in Noosa