Just look at the photograph above. Whoosh. (Bodyboarding)

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Product:	Bodyboarding
Date:	06/08/01 (578 review reads)
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Advantages: So much fun, Exercise, The best feeling in the World is landing on the beach, after catching the biggest, fastest wave ever...

Disadvantages: Arms/Legs/Feet ache sooo badly afterwards, Expensive, Having to travel to a beach...

Days at the seaside always used to portray the same image. The old videos you see of people running out of beach huts wearing massive swimming costumes (usually stripy style), accompanied by old plinkity-plonk music. Ice creams, amusement arcades, walks along the promenade and deck chairs for a pound each (of course, with a pound deposit). There were also sandcastles with little flags in them, made traditionally with a bucket and spade and seashells: the best ones even had a moat and a drawbridge around them, and only cool ‘big’ people could make them. There were picnics with warm, sticky drinks, cheese sandwiches, called ‘sandwiches’, obviously because of the sand that got in them. Donkey rides that cost 50pence (I always seemed to get the uncooperative donkey…), and the journey to get to the beach, with the “I can see the sea!” shout, called by the first person to see the sea. Sigh. They weren’t the best of journeys: traffic jams and screaming baby brothers always seemed to get in the way. There are better rides you know, like Space Mountain at Disney Land, or of course, riding the waves. Surfing. Body-boarding.

Body-boarding’s cool. Extra Cool – and you don’t even have to be very good at it to have lots of fun. It is fun; you’ll love it. And in a way, it’s better than Surfing, because you don’t have to wait ages and ages to catch a good wave, and there’s the bonus of not having to stand on your board. There are two types of boards for surfing, a Malibu board, which is the full sized board used by the surfers that stand up on their boards, or Boogie boards, which are the smaller boards, which you sort of lean over, and grip the end. The boards are a lot cheaper than Malibu boards, obviously because they’re smaller than the other boards, and made out of cheaper materials. They start at about £10 from proper surf shops, or sport shops, but I assume you can get th
em from little seaside shops that sell things like buckets and spades.

The first thing about body boarding, is not having a board, but choosing a place to go, because it’s obvious you can’t just body-board anywhere: you really do need waves. The best place to go for body-boarding in England, in my experience, would be in the West Country – Newquay, Croyde, Widemouth Bay etc (I tend to go to Widemouth bay). Of course, it’s the same with normal surfing, these are the places to go – especially Newquay, which is England’s surfing capital, soon to have waves like the USA, or Hawaii, due to an artificial reef (the reef being how the waves are produced, as such) being built using sandbags. Once you’ve chosen where to go, you have to chose when. Try a time when the tide’s low, so you have to check that out, using ceefax if you like, or websites.

If you’re hiring surfing gear, then you should really get to your destination early, as items go quickly. If you don’t already have wet-suits (If you’re going to be surfing for a while, you should really get one, other wise you’ll probably FRReeeEEEzzzEE in English waters) I would recommend you do hire them, mainly because you may not enjoy surfing (seriously, that is very unlikely) They are about £13 a day to hire, obviously depending on where you go. To buy, there are loads of different makes, Zoma-Jay, Gul, Sola, Quik Silver etc, and are about £79.99 onwards. If you want to be really really really, extra super-doopa cool, then you can buy lots of surfing clothes, necklaces, bracelets, watches, bags. However, they can be pretty expensive.

Right – So you’re at the beach, and you have everything – find the lifeguards, get into the water (shut your mouth, salt water tastes disgusting…), and jump over the waves, until you see one just about to break in front of you. Turn your board, to face the beach. People say i
t helps to paddle with your arms to get a bit ‘ahead’ of the waves, but I honestly don’t think it really makes much difference. The wave will sweep you up (it’s easier to keep on the wave if you lean well onto the board) and you’ll sort of go whoosh. It’s great; a wonderful sensation, it’s even better when you see people in front of you having to dive out of the way. Ooh. I love it. If you want to make things harder for yourself, even though it looks soo uncool and everything, try singing a song at the same time. Preferably ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’.

As a bonus, surfing’s a great way of keeping fit. If you’ve ever seen people like Lee Bartlett (Former British Champion) and Llwellin Whittaker, or even just super serious surfers, then you can tell how fit they are, because there’s so much exercise involved in surfing, and what makes it better is that you don’t realise how much exercise you do, because you’re having so much fun.

One more point before I go: Don’t go to far out into the sea, especially not when the tide’s turning; it doesn’t look that good when the lifeguard has to come out and rescue you…

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