Surf Lesson Day: What Actually Happens

Nobody stands up on their first wave. Almost nobody, anyway, and the ones who do are usually the people who spent the whole lesson telling everyone they'd never done it before.

Surf lesson day at Tropicalia is something else: a slow morning, a lot of sand, and one of the few activities where you will fall off something repeatedly and be cheered for it. Here's how it goes.

Early, because the sea is

We leave the villa at seven. The beach is ten minutes away by car, and the water is calmest in the morning, with the glassy shine that comes before the wind picks up. Wear your swimsuit under a shirt. Bring a hat, water and a lot of sunscreen, the reef-friendly kind. Leave your valuables in the cottage.

The instructors meet us on the sand. Ours is Sofia Brenes, who grew up on this coast and moves through the water like she's walking across a kitchen. She hands out boards, long soft ones that are very forgiving, and says the same thing she says every week: "Today you are not trying to surf. Today you are trying to like the ocean."

The sand part

The first half hour happens on the beach. You lie on your board, paddle with your arms, and practise the "pop-up," the move where you go from lying to standing in one motion. It looks absurd. Everyone looks absurd. It's also the only time you can really learn it, because once you're in the water, you'll be too busy trying to breathe.

Sofia teaches the sea, too: how to read where the waves break, which direction the current is pulling, where to wait. She decides each day where we go in, based on the conditions, and that call is hers. If the surf isn't right, we don't force it. We swim, we float, we look for crabs.

In the water

You go in up to your waist, and you push your board toward the shore as a wave arrives. The first dozen attempts you'll be rolled over, rinsed and spat out onto the sand. This is normal. This is the lesson.

Then somewhere around the fifteenth wave, you'll feel it lift the board. A tiny, startling moment when the water starts carrying you instead of the other way round. Even if you're still on your belly, you'll grin. A few people stand. Most don't. All of them want to go again.

Afterwards

The best part of surf lesson day is lunch. We set a long table under the almond trees behind the beach and eat grilled fish with rice, a salad of whatever's ripe, and cold fresh juice that goes down like a blessing. Everyone's skin is salty. Everyone's hair is wild. People who were strangers on Monday are laughing at each other's wipeouts.

Come back to the villa, nap, and don't plan a thing for the afternoon. You'll want a hammock. You'll have earned it.

If you'd like to fit a surf day into your trip, the stay guide shows where it sits in a week.