Aloha Surf School

Aloha! West of Ireland Style
You may have heard that West of Ireland skies are a beauty to behold – scudding clouds, fabulous green, blue, grey tones and constantly shifting light. It can be truly magical, and none more so than escaping to Fanore beach to watch the landscape change by the moment. It is here, that we found ourselves, towels in hand, signing up our daughter and her good friend, to Aloha Surf School.

It was windy and a little wild, with little blasts of sunshine in between showers. Aloha surf school set the children up with their wetsuits and booties, sized their surfboards and off they set.

Warm up first – us Mums sat cozily wrapped in blankets, sipping tea out of flasks (is there anything better to make you feel like you’ve finally gotten away from it all?), keeping a close eye on the girls.

They sprinted, jumped up and down, and laughed a lot. The instructors were fun, lively and really good at giving instruction. This pre-surf class, lasted about half and hour, before finally our surfer girls headed to the ocean, waves crashing at their feet as they entered the water.

With a whoop, tossing their hair over their shoulders, they entered the fray, excited to get started. What a blast they had! Falling, rising, shouting for joy as they managed to stand on their surfboards before falling into the foamy surf.
We sat proudly watching, waving and occasionally giving two thumbs up as they managed to surf all the way to the sand. It was wild and wonderful and a brilliant day out. Aloha Surf school at Fanore is well worth a trip, or if you can manage the time, a week-long surf school to really ramp up your surfer skills. Every single day we made the trip, was another day watching our new surfer girls joyfully embrace the Atlantic ocean, even as it churned and spilled and challenged them moment to moment.

The backdrop of those skies, ever magnificent, ever changing made it even more memorable.  There is really nothing quite like the skies here..