Surfboard, Snowboard, it's all the same, right?

In a word no.

In the months following my last post I decided not to wait until the spring to explore the waves and wanted to get a good start on surfing for when the good weather kicked in, so I jumped straight in and booked a surf lesson at Watergate Beach in Cornwall. I can’t recommend the guys down at Surf Watergate enough, soon as my 2 hour lesson was up I was hooked.

I’ve been coming down to Cornwall every chance I get to grab a board and throw myself in the waves. As long as the wave report is good enough, and to a raw beginner like me, using an app like magic seaweed to judge this before setting off on a 4-hour trip from London has been essential.

I’ve found that surfing and snowboarding are worlds apart and for me to think that I would be getting an advantage being able to snowboard, I now know, is crazy.

The main advantage to being on a snowboard is that the ground that is directly under the board essentially stays the same. You can see the changes in the terrain as you approach and adjust accordingly.

The ocean, as you might have guessed,

Godrevy Beach

is the exact opposite, which is why I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been able to stand up on a surfboard for a nanosecond before being tossed into the surf.

The other major difference is the pop up.

Once you see that wave that you think is going to be the one, being in the right position on the wave, having enough time to get enough power down with your paddling and then being able to simply pop up in the right position is something that I am trying to get again and again.

I have found that there is one thing that is the same with snowboarding as with surfing for me, and that is consistency.

Consistency in getting back on the board each time I fall off.

Consistency in going back down to the ocean to try again weekend after weekend because I remember that it was the same with snowboarding. I never thought I’d get to the stage where I can carve down the slope like I can do now and that thought keeps me getting back on my surfboard, that one day I’ll be able to carve a wave like I carve the slopes.