Hi all and welcome back to Umtentweni
With time winding down till we arrive in Durban and begin the Life Saver and Surf Coaching courses, our crew have been hard at work getting focused and prepared for the coming assessments. Fortunately though, hard work is just another excuse for us to have loads of fun out here in South Africa and that’s exactly what we’ve been up to!
On Monday, with the westerly winds pumping, we decided head down to the south coast in search of a protected bay. We found one a little way down the road and decided to give it a go. The waves were nice and punchy; coming over the hard, sand banks, which made for some nice rides. The conditions held up all morning so we made the most of it and surfed until lunchtime. In the afternoon it was time to get to work on some of the lifeguarding disciplines so we made our way down to Umtentweni beach to run a few drills.
On Tuesday our pre-course workbooks arrived. The pre-course workbook outlines the basic principles and guidelines needed before getting started with the Surf Instructors Course. The group are required to study and research the material given in the pre-course workbook and write out a short test on what they’ve learnt. Some of the chapters include basic surfboard design, different types of surf breaks and safety in surfing. We spent most of the morning going over the workbooks as well as the groups’ presentation topics.
In the afternoon we headed down to the pools with Linley to do a few swimming exercises. Part of the Life Saver award requires the guys to do a timed swim over 400m. It’s tiresome business, but with all the surfing and lifeguard training we’ve been doing lately, the guys look set to post some good times.
After our session in the pool we headed back down to the beach for some more beach running and lifeguard drills. It was no wonder then, that we saw a bunch of tired bodies wondering around the hostel that evening.
Yesterday we decided to give the guys a little respite from all the hard work and took everyone out on a tour of the Wedge surfboard factory. Wedge is a family-run business, which caters for most of the surfers on the south coast. Although the family are known for their sturdy boards, it’s their fin factory that has brought them the greatest acclaim, with Maisch fins being one of the most popular brands in the country. It was really good for the guys to meet the Maisch brothers and get to see how a working surfboard factory operates as well as get an opportunity to ask questions about how all the different components of a board works. Who said surfing wasn’t educational?
In the afternoon we gave the guys a bit of free time to concentrate on whatever they felt needed a bit of work. Nikki took a small crew up the road for a surf while I headed back to the pool with some of the others to do some more swim training.
Today we’ll probably start to iron out all the creases in the presentation topics and pre-course workbooks as we count down to Saturday when we leave for Durban. But more on that next time…
Till then,
Take Care
Bevan and Nikki