I strongly recommend not taking lessons from Bolinas Surf Lessons (surfbolinas.com). Here is the review I wrote to the owner after my experience:
From my experience yesterday, I believe this company is negligent in properly assessing conditions for safety and appropriateness for a beginner surf lesson.
The photo of a beginner lesson on the website shows people standing near the edge of the water in shallow depth while practicing standing on a board. This is 100% not what occurred. Online it says that, as beginners, we would potentially ride 20-30 waves in a lesson. We did not ride a single wave because our beginner lesson took place in inappropriate conditions. Having NEVER been on a surfboard, the need to immediately navigate 3.5 - 4ft breaking waves was not only scary but also dangerous. I needed to learn the basics first - attempting to stand up and learning to paddle.
We were taken out at the height of high tide through sharp rocks that cut my feet as strong waves pushed us back into the rocks we were trying to get out of, landing us directly into the break zone. We were then expected to paddle through the break and then quite a bit farther north to get to a beach with smaller waves. I have never been on a surfboard before. I have never paddled before. I did not have the skill or strength to paddle through the break and then further north.
While stuck in the break zone, large (to me) waves relentlessly crashed on me. I had not received any instruction on how to get through those waves other than to push myself up on my board. Many of the waves were too big for that to work and I was continually thrown back, pulled off my board and dragged under the water. After numerous times of being tumbled around I was exhausted from fighting the waves, but they just kept coming. This left me feeling trapped and scared because I couldn't keep handling the waves crashing on me but with rocks and whitewater by the beach, I also didn't know how to get out of the water.
Overall, the conditions were NOT appropriate for a first time beginner surf lesson. In addition to the conditions, there was almost no instruction given about how to be on the board to get through the waves. Someone told me today that I should have been instructed to "duck" the waves with my board when they were too big and crashing down on me. Is this a skill that should be taught before heading into a break zone for the first time? Only when leaving the ocean did the instructor tell me I could bail off the board to get through a wave. Again, is this a skill that should be taught beforehand? Or perhaps it isn't usually taught to beginners as they should not be placed in conditions where they would need these skills.
It seems the company is at fault for not making sure its instructors receive sufficient training in risk management, ability to assess appropriateness of conditions for the skill level of students, as well as explaining basic skills prior to entering the water.
In this experience, the level of challenge grossly exceeded my ability. As an ocean sport, this created a frightening and potentially dangerous situation rather than an opportunity to develop a new skill. Today my body feels as though I was in a car accident after the beating I took being pushed under, knocked over, and dragged around in the water.
With the ever changing nature of water conditions and high risk level, safety must be the primary focus of the lessons, even if it means postponing the lesson. When my sister called for a refund, you repeatedly made statements putting the responsibility for our negative experience onto us, commenting it was too bad we came for a beginner lesson on a day with big waves. Your expertise in matching skill level with current conditions is EXACTLY why we scheduled a lesson instead of renting boards and going out on our own.
As far as I am concerned, if what happened for my lesson yesterday is how you operate, you are running a negligent and dangerous operation and shouldn't be trusted to take inexperienced people into the ocean. read more
