For the longest while I've been looking for a surf (kayak) coach in my area. Surprisingly this turns out to be difficult despite the fact that there are several world champions nearby. I suppose spending time practicing and not teaching has something to do with why they're champions though.
So I happened upon a mail from Jeff Laxier of Liquid Fusion Kayak that was sent to one of the local paddling clubs announcing a BCU 3* training and assessment coming up. I'm (probably) off of the BCU path but trainings are always fun. So I hit up their website and see that in addition to the 3* training Jeff is also doing a surf (kayak) class. LFK is in Fort Bragg which is about four hours away. So not exactly in my neighborhood but, hell, I drive up to the San Juans several times a year and that's a fourteen hour slog. Four hours would be a cake walk. I'd met Jeff once or twice before but we didn't really speak. I mean he seemed like a nice enough fellow but I was looking for a coach and, for me, that has requirements well beyond just "nice enough fellow".
Getting in touch was a little touch and go. I sent a mail and it took a day or so to hear back. I learned that the 3* training and assessment had been cancelled due to lack of participation (symptomatic, says I, of the paddling culture in my area. But that's another topic). I sent another mail and waited another day or so. I was feeling a little neglected. The Saturday before the surf class was supposed to happen I paddled down to Capitola and called LFK from the beach and got a chance to talk to Jeff. Long story short the surf class was undersubscribed as well but we could do a private lesson. Ok let's do that. While I was willing to drive four hours (eight total) I wanted to spend more than three hours or so on the water, so a surf class on a Monday and a sea boat lesson on Tuesday it would be. Basically if my time on the water is going to be less than the time of a one way drive to the put in I (usually) don't do the trip or whatever it is.
I've never been to Fort Bragg. I'd been to Mendocino before which is a real tourist type place a little ways south of Fort Brag (30 minutes perhaps? I dunno. Not far.) I thought about staying in Mendo. It's a really nice place with good restaurants, nice places to stay and truly iconic California coast scenery. I took a look though at the lodging options in Fort Bragg and was very(!) surprised to learn how cheap things were. At least relative to Mendo. I ended up making reservations at a place called Shoreline Cottages for two nights in the Sun Suite. Nice place.
I arrived in Fort Bragg about 2:45 on a Sunday. My room wasn't quite ready so I decided to take a drive up Highway 1 to see what I could see. I randomly made a left hand turn, towards the ocean, and happened upon a parking area on the side of the road that contained several cars and an obvious path towards the water. I parked and in about 5 minutes I was on a cliff about 15 feet above 2 beaches readily accessible by well cut trails. I wouldn't want to carry, say, my sea boat down the trails by myself but would easily do it with someone else and, if I had really, really had to, by myself. This was my first exposure to how easy it was to get to the water in Fort Bragg. I stopped under the bridge that goes over the Noyo River. Easy access. A little further south, more or less across from the hotel, easy access.
It wasn't clear to me exactly where this surf class was going to be the next day. I sent a mail over to Jeff and he replied that he was going to check conditions later in the day and would let me know where the class would take place. This was a very good sign. Adapting to conditions is sort of a minimal requirement for a class and coach. That evening Jeff called and left a message telling me the course was going to be at place called Caspar Beach. Meeting time was 10:00AM. This, by the way, is a time I find entirely civilized for a class. Oh yah, another student was coming and the private lesson was now just a regular class which was great since it ended up saving me some money.
I arrived at Caspar Beach about 9:40 the next morning. Low and behold it was another easy access site. Incredibly easy actually. The waves were perhaps 2 feet or so which I thought to be a good size for a class like this. Jeff arrived at around 10 as did Sean (sp?) the other student. Jeff brought me a Kaos sit on top surf boat. I'd been in this kind of boat once before and I'd been happy at not having to worry about dealing with spray decks and like that.
Jeff spent quite a few minutes discussing surf stuff. I've been in the surf before so I don't think there was much that was new to me, but I really (really) appreciated how he talked about surf etiquette. Several times he used the words "ambassador to the sport" as in be a good one for surf kayaking. My regular coaches say this quite often and it suggested to me that Jeff was trying to convey a broader view of surfing than just catching waves. I like this.
I won't bore you much with the specifics of the class. Jeff was, I thought, a solid and conscientious coach. It's the little things you know. He would start talking to me and realize he was in the sun and move. Safety. Safety. Safety. Always concerned about safe. See that log there on the beach? What's going to happen to it when the tide comes up? Keep an eye out. Aware. Be aware. Watch the waves. No, keep watching. A little longer. Just well paced absorbable presentation. And not too much verbiage.
The class ended for me when I got slammed pretty hard. I was on a foam pile, bracing into another foam pile and the one I was riding just sort of disappeared. My shore edge caught, I got whipped and dropped right on the top of my helmet onto smallish rocks and coarse sand. I saw stars and when I got up I had one of those sharp headaches you have the morning after drinking a lot of bad scotch. My shoulder had a nice welt and bruise on it from hitting something or other. It was mostly shore break at this point and my head hurt (without the conciliation of being at all drunk) so I decided to just watch. About 20 minutes later we were done.
The next day I was to spend a couple of hours in my sea boat with Jeff. We met at LFK central which is right on the Noyo River perhaps a mile from the ocean. Nice location with (surprise!) easy access to the water. We put in and headed down to the highway 1 bridge. Jeff had me doing some stuff with my feet that was really interesting. I think it's the first time I've paid exclusiveish attention to my feet. Quite eye opening and I took several things away that I want to play with.
While I was happy with how I connected with Jeff in the surf class I was truly pleased at how well I took on his sea boat instruction. I'm not an expert coach or anything but I have some notion of good practice. Things like being quiet. Speak only when looked at. Which is to say, some idea of how to get out of the way when I'm learning, and then how to present so I can learn.
So anyway it was, in the end, a great couple of days. Fort Bragg was a pleasant surprise. It's inexpensive, has great access to a beautiful coast and, evidently, good surfing. It's a shortish drive, one that I'd do after work on a Friday, at least every now and again. I might have found a surf coach. While it's hard for me to say, after such a short time, if Jeff will be a good coach for me I'm confident he won't be a bad coach. I'll be going back to Fort Bragg and LFK for sure.
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