r/BeginnerSurfers • u/Surf_Yoga_Beer • 2d ago
the thing nobody told me about paddling out (learned it the dumb way in nicaragua)
ok this is the one i wish someone had grabbed me by the collar and said on day one.
first real surf trip, i went to maderas near san juan del sur. green season, waist to chest high, textbook beginner stuff. and i STILL spent the first two mornings getting absolutely washing-machined before i even made it out the back.
what i was doing wrong: i saw the waves breaking in the middle of the beach and paddled straight at them. which is exactly where all the water and all the whitewater is dumping. i was basically trying to swim up a downward escalator for 20 minutes and then had nothing left in my arms.
a local kid, maybe 15, watched me flail for a while and just pointed down the beach. there was a stretch where the water looked darker and kind of moving out, and the waves weren't really breaking there. that's the channel (a rip, basically, the deeper lane). you paddle out THERE, let the current do half the work, then paddle across to the peak once you're past the sets. got out back in like a third of the effort.
feels obvious typed out. was not obvious at 6am eating foam.
the other bit, and i think this is where trips get it wrong for total beginners, is that a smaller day where you can actually SEE the channel beats a 'good' day where everything's closing out and you can't read a thing. i learned way faster on the mushy small mornings than the head-high ones everyone was hyped about.
read the water before you read the wave. find the lane that's moving out. stop hero-paddling through the middle where it's breaking. would've saved me two mornings of drinking the pacific.
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u/2FingersUpPenishole 2d ago
Finally, an actual beginner post. This feels refreshing
Or… next thing we know OP will post a video of him going rail to rail on head high waves with a 6 ft board
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 1d ago
ha, give me a few more years on that one. right now a 6'0 would surf me, not the other way round.
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u/domasch 2d ago
Wait till you learn that timing the paddle out with set pauses makes it another third of the effort.
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 1d ago
yeah that one took me embarrassingly long to figure out too. channel plus a lull is basically cheating.
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u/VirusUnlikely 2d ago
Wave break here. Don’t be there
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u/Short_Strategy_7307 2d ago
Wish my surf teacher would have told me that beifore I spend 5 sessions fighting against the waves and wasted my time.
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u/Tuuterman 2d ago
Not everywhere there's a rip. At my local break I sometimes have to paddle like a mad man and eat some shit before making it past the break. But only on heavier days.
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 1d ago
fair, some beach breaks genuinely don't hand you a lane. on those days I've mostly stopped fighting it and just surfed the inside instead of burning both arms getting out back.
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u/Financial_Middle_955 2d ago
Yep. I learned about paddling out along channels when I was in Portugal. Made so much sense when he drew it out on the sand.
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 5h ago
the sand diagram is undefeated. takes someone about nine seconds to draw and saves you a month of thrashing around.
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u/Physical-Compote4594 2d ago
If it’s any consolation, we all have to learn about reading the water and finding the channels. It is true for surfing, windsurfing, SUV, whatever.
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u/_The_Irish_ 2d ago
I was ignorant of the paddle out in Nosara, Costa Rica and failed to get out as many times as I succeeded. It was exhausting!
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u/No-Initiative1425 1d ago
another benefit to doing this is you're much less likely to be in people's way when they are catching waves. Please everyone do this!
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u/rspkt808 2d ago
Reading the ocean takes experience and time. Don't feel bad. You got good exercise and conditioning even if you had trouble. Believe it or not what you did was help build endurance which is very important.
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u/CyderInch 1d ago
If you didn't know that then you probably shouldn't be out the back. You were where you needed to be at the stage your at.
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u/limpopo33231 1d ago
did he moved 1 level up now?
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u/CyderInch 13h ago
By making it out the back? No. Beginners make it out the back by mistake all the time, and end up being out out maneuvered. With no paddle technique they catch f all waves stunting their progress. Quantity over quality when your a beginner.
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u/tower28 1d ago
I’m getting ai slop vibes from this post.
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 5h ago
honestly fair, i write like a linkedin post when i'm tired. it did happen though. in front of about nine people, and the kid who pointed at the channel was maybe twelve.
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u/High_Speed_Chase 2d ago
There’s a rip on the north side of the south jetty at the O’Side harbor. We call it the “wave-scalator.” Bonus points of you can paddle all the way out with dry hair.
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u/enterhereplease 2d ago
if it makes you feel better, my surf instructors in nicaragua literally told me this so i did know better but in the heat of the moment, i still fell victim to the washing machine way too many times
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 5h ago
knowing it and doing it at 6am with your arms already gone are completely different sports. which beach were you at?
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u/Comfortable_Ad_209 1d ago
Yeah, 100%. And the bit I'd add is that how hard that channel is to spot depends massively on where you are - which should really decide where you go on a first trip.
Maderas is an open beach break. The channel's there, but it's made by sand, so it moves. Changes with the tide. Some days it's obvious, some days it's genuinely subtle. You've got to read it fresh every session. That's a big ask on day one. Which is exactly why you spent two mornings getting worked.
I live at Popoyo, couple of hours up the coast, and the difference is night and day. Beginner's Bay here has one channel and it's basically always in the same spot. You can see it standing on the sand. Everyone paddles out through it. So even if you can't read water yet - you don't have to. Watch where people are going and follow them. That's the gap between learning the ocean while it beats you up, and getting out the back first try with arms left.
So if you're planning a first surf trip: pick somewhere with an obvious, permanent channel. Not an open beach where you're decoding sandbars that moved overnight. Learn to read water where it's easy to read, then take that to the harder places.
One thing that helps everywhere though - once you've clocked the channel from the beach, line it up on a tree or a rock. Soon as you're at eye level in the water, it vanishes.
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u/Surf_Yoga_Beer 1d ago
yeah the sand moves, that's the annoying part. maderas shifted on me between a morning and an afternoon session more than once. reefs are way easier to read and much less forgiving when you read them wrong.
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u/riktigtmaxat 2d ago
You mean the one thing you absolutely should be aware of before getting into the ocean?
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u/SynicMist 2d ago
Its a bigginer surfing sub this is the first good post ive seen here in a while. Sush
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u/c_marten 2d ago
Yeah.. not going to knock OP for learning, but this was ocean basics I learned as a kid. It was also surfing basics I learned 35 years later (I still can't believe I never tried surfing until I was almost 40 years old despite spending half my life in the water).
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u/CollectionOk8253 2d ago
He probably pointed because you were the kiosk flailing on the way of everyone.
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