Everyone learns to surf somewhere. Most surfers’ first taste in the water is a white water bash, or on a boog in the shallows — which is enough to set the fire alive, for most anyway.
There are also surf schools, who, for the most part, take learner groms or adults out in controlled conditions to get a taste of the good stuff. But have you ever wondered what happens to these surf schools if your local wave is a throttling, sketchy reefbreak?
Over the weekend, new rules were released for Siargao, an island in the Philippines that houses one of the best waves in the world: Cloud 9. You may recall a few years ago when a cyclone completely decimated Siargao, KO’ing the spot’s lookout tower and causing widespread havoc for the tiny island nation.
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Anyway, these new rules have now banned surf schools from taking beginner surfers out at Cloud 9. And as much as we hate surfing feeling very prescriptivist and top-down, this is surely just common sense? Who is taking their surf school out to what could be a heaving slab. Even when it’s shallow, this is not the place to bring learners.
In a post on Instagram these new rules were laid down: “Beginner lessons are NOT ALLOWED at Cloud 9 Surf Spot.”
And: “Surf shops are NOT ALLOWED to rent out surfboard to beginner surfers without instructor.”
This would be like pushing a weekend warrior into a tube at Pipeline. Nope. There is the argument beginner surfers could be out there when it’s small, but even then, Cloud 9 can be dangerous. So maybe it’s worth leaving it to the experienced surfers, and the beginners surf any other spot away from there. There’s also the danger of just general chaos, with soft boards flying all over the place, while the locals looked to get barrelled. A beginner surfing hitting themselves on the reef is also not good PR.
Comments on the post are generally positive, with a few calls for it being a worldwide thing. What do you think? Should surf schools be allowed to take people out on dangerous, world-class waves? Let us know.
