Experience of first reef session

surfjunky

I’ve been surfing beaches for 3 years now and want to step up to reefs. I’d be interested in hearing peoples’ first experience on reefs and advice on what conditions best suit a first attempt.
I'm a fairly competent beach surfer at this stage but my surf-buddy is at the same skill/experience level as me and don’t have more competent mates to go out with. We believe we're ready to give it a go but would appreciate tips from those with experience.

Gone West

Find a reef thats safe, easy to surf, not too heavy, and uncrowded.
Weekday mornings easky left or something.
It's not normally crowded during the mornings, its safe to get on to and to get off of. The access in-out is easy to see.
Don't go too big, 2 foot swells would be grand to start off on.

The main thing is that you don't want to be getting in anybodies way. Thats the biggest safety/vibe concern when you're just moving from a beach to a reef. Remember, its a completely different surf, you're all waiting at the one point.

Remember the obvious things. Get in line, and coming back from a wave or the shore doesn't mean you're head of the queue. Surf the scraps that nobody else is going for at first.
When youre off a wave, paddle around the break, and come back to the lineup the long way at first. You don't want be getting in peoples way on your way back in. I think this is a big reef rookie mistake.

Make sure you're ready for the reefs man, you'd want to be good with crowds, duck diving, powerfuol waves and not be afraid of the auld rocks etc.

surfjunky

Cheers for the advice Fuzzylogic, funny you should mention it but we headed out into Easky Left a few weeks ago when it was nice and manageable 2 foot at most and clean. There were only about 8 or 9 in the water, we paddled around the long way and watched and waited for a wave. To be honest the sets were coming in too few and far between for us to get our wave and as you say the take-off zone is about 3 metres wide. Tried to pick off scraps off that no one else wanted, but they were only breaking in the take off zone and you couldn’t sit nearer to shore as you’d be in the way of the bigger sets. In the end decided that we’d only be a nuiscance if we started to push for our spot in the line up as there was no guarantee we’d make the wave. We decided to leave and go to a local beach break that was working well and we had all to ourselves.
Gonna try mid-week small conditions when I get the chance.

surfjunky

As well as advice I'd be interested in hearing people's first experiences of surfing reefs.

saltrock2007

Hi surfjunky, fuzzylogic is right about the 'etiquette' when surfing reef breaks. Another pointer is that if you find yourself 'caught inside' with sets coming through, don't try to paddle through the waves like you would on a beach, go diagonally around to where others are paddling out from. This way you won't be getting in the way and you'll be using way less energy.

For the first reef, I wouldn't go with Easky left. At low tide there's a nice wall but it can be fast for begineers, so you won't get much of a ride. At high tide, it's a short ride unless you're taking off deep, which I doubt you will do if you're a beginner (i didn't, back in the day). I'd recommend Lahinch reef, or Cornish left. It's a fatter wave, slower and easier to get riding, but it will wall up better at low and high so you'll get a decent ride out of it. I'm not trashing Easky, I love it, but for reef rookies it ain't the best place to start, in my opinion. As you probably know, Lahinch will be crowded unless you get it monday-thursday morning, like 10am.

hope this helps

iceage

+1 lahinch is also a bit more forgiving. Nearly smashed up my Chapter is Easkey:(

surfjunky

Hey Saltrock, cheers for the heads-up regarding Lahinch (and fast versus slow breaking reef options). Pretty freaky as spent the whole of last week in Clare hunting down options. Not enough swell (and wrong swell direction) for Lahinch left to work but I did score a nice beachie with an incredibly long and clean peeling sandbar wave all to myself on Wednesay .