Scarborough Surf Camp Report

Running residential surf camps in 2020 has definitely been an interesting and testing project. I’m not going to reflect too much on the negatives, because in the end, we pulled it off, but we wanted to say a huge thanks to all our girls who helped to make it happen!

The camp was set to go ahead starting Friday and ending Monday morning but a 14ft at 10 second swell with 40mph winds were forecast. Far from ideal. We made some calls and we all managed to shift enough around to start the camp on the Sunday and finish Tuesday. This was so perfect as the tail end of the storm was set to leave us with some really nice waves (if you knew where to look for them).

We would usually run camps for six people; we find six to be a great number for a surf camp, or even surf lessons. Because of the ‘rule of six’ in place currently, we stripped things back a bit for this camp and only had four girls, myself and Tom who comes along to help with the logistics and shoot all the photos for the photo feedback sessions.

We packed the van with foamies, mini-mals, wetsuits, food, drink and our camp set-up, which for the first time included our beautiful Glawning we used as a base for the camp. Two girls camped in tents, two had campervans.

This blog is a sort of rundown of one of our camps to give a little insight into our approach to running female surf camps in the UK.

Day One.

The reason we choose to run camps in the Autumn and Spring as opposed to summer is because of our years of surfing experience. Summers are notoriously small in the UK, it’s with Autumn and Winter that we start to get surfable swells. We choose Scarborough as our northern England location as we know it well, and we know the nooks that can hold bigger swells and the more exposed spots that hoover up any available swell. We met at one a beach that provided shelter from the still howling wind at 9am - we always consider the best tides for the days surf sessions too.

We were expecting to start off with some white water waves to surf and then progress onto green waves for the afternoon and day two, but we struck lucky and got some really nice little clean green waves for everyone to surf, tucked right in a corner. We started with 8ft Swell boards and tried to get back-to-basics with technique. We managed five longish sessions over the course of the camp and the intention is to build good technique, confidence and the skills needed for independent surfing for months and years to come.

I knew everyone on the camp through them coming to surf lessons at some point so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to work on with everyone. Everyone caught some amazing waves and really pushed themselves and each other. That’s the nice thing about intimate female surf camps, it’s a really fun, safe and supportive environment to push yourself in whatever way you are comfortable with and to whatever level you are comfortable to do so, everyone is on their own individual surfing journey but shares in each others experience. It’s an amazing atmosphere.

After lunch, we headed a few miles north of town to set up camp, settle in and get ourselves ready for the second session of the day. The campsite was quiet, near to the clean hot showers and toilet block and a short walk to the top of the cliff with incredible views over Scarborough. We set up the Glawning and got the basecamp cozy for our return after a second surf.

Surf two was amazing. Absolutely incredible conditions; the wind had dropped significantly, the swell dropped a touch and the tide was just right. Again, everyone pushed themselves and worked on implementing some of the feedback from the morning. It was really fun and the beach was super quiet meaning we had whatever waves we wanted which is a real luxury.

Post surf, we showered and got the heating on in our Glawning ready for some lovely home-cooked pasta and pesto with roasted veg supplied by our chef Ellie. Tom set up the projector and screen and after dinner we went through the days photos. Tom captured pretty much every movement each guest made on a wave; it’s sometimes hard seeing photos of yourself surfing but it is probably the most useful tool we have to fixing issues, working out what is going on and making micro-adjustments that have a huge impact on our surfing. Again, camps provide an environment where everyone shares in successes and struggles collectively. Everyone whoops at a good wave, everyone helps each other to see that issues are just opportunities to work on. We worked on some theory, drank a little wine and got an early night ready for another great day.

Day Two.

We started the day with some coffee and breakfast and spent a little time filling in our Yonder Surf Journals (everyone get’s one on a camp) to reflect on the previous day and figure out the conditions for the upcoming day. It was back to the same spot for the second day - we switch up and go wherever the waves are best, but it happened to be that the waves were best in the same spot again.

The first session was amazing, 2ft and clean, no wind, great tide. Everyone had a chance to surf a mini-mal and catch lots of great green waves. Tom was shooting photos again to document the session and so many great waves were caught, everyone was doing amazingly and working on the previous days feedback.

After lunch we had a bit of down time and waited for the tide. The surf cleaned up even more and glassed off perfectly for the evening session. There can’t have been more than 10 people in the water as we all caught waves under the pink sky in the shadow of beautiful Victorian Scarborough.

We went back to the campsite, showered, lit the log burner in the Glawning and went through photos with a glass of well deserved wine after another of Ellie’s creations. It was an incredible day of surf and everyone was feeling it! Unfortunately, we waved goodbye to two of our guests but they will get all the photos to keep and had around ten hours in the water over the course of the weekend.

Day Three.

With just two guests left, we packed up the camp, went to the beach and had another great two hours in the water. Brooke and Rachel were trading waves and putting in to practice all of the hard work from the weekend, both of hard boards at this point. We walked to town for a lovely sandwich and coffee and waved each other goodbye mid-afternoon after a memorable surf camp that saw every guest’s surfing and confidence come on leaps and bounds.

We wanted to say a huge thanks to Finisterre for sponsoring the camp. Each guest got some goodies from them, from Yonder and from Stance Socks. All caffeine was supplied by Girls Who Grind Coffee who are just our absolute favourite. Thanks to Ellie for the beautiful food.

The biggest thanks of course goes to Brooke, Rachel, Cat and Sam for being incredible, flexible, listening, hardworking, open minded and so supportive. Every time we do a camp we build a community that is special and share something magical. We can’t wait to see you all in the water soon. x