Sometimes you can catch a break, Hamish McNeilly reports.
For five glorious seconds I was king of the waves. Just 25 minutes after beginning my first lesson on how to surf, I was doing just that; surfing.
All it took was a learn-to-surf voucher from my partner, a fast-approaching expiry date, a day off work - and a whole lot of tuition from the kind folks at Esplanade Surf School.
I turn to look at my instructor Ben.
He gives me a double thumbs-up, which I gather in the surf world is high praise indeed.
"First time, nice one," he says.
Not wanting to rest on my laurels, I promptly spend the next 10 minutes falling on my face.
The double thumbs-up are nowhere to be seen.
Ben, who has been surfing since he was a teenager and is in fact still a teenager, goes through the basics again.
And those basics do seem basic when you are practising on the St Clair beach.
Arriving at the beach that morning the instructors ask me how I am feeling.
The range of emotions includes excited.
First up, the wet suit - a 4/3, so called because the thickness around the torso is 4mm, and the arms 3mm. They are designed to allow you manoeuvrability to paddle.
And you need that manoeuvrability just to get into the things - and longer arms to do the zips up.
I am handed a form containing small print, which I promptly sign with the flourish of a man who just completed his second ever will that morning, before being given a 9ft foam "Malibu" board.
I tuck the board under my arm, careful not to have it horizontal against the wind now gusting offshore.
"[Goodness] the waves look big", I think to myself, "[Goodness]".
Ben runs down the safety instructions, I hear his lips move but I only hear one word.
"So how common are sharks?
""Not very," he replies, and then his lips move again - which I gather is something not to do with sharks.
Before learning how to stand up, he runs down the parts of the surfboard; including the sides "rails", the front "nose", the rear "tail" and the deck, which is called, thankfully, the "deck".
Lying flat on the centre of the board with feet just over the edge, he shows me how to paddle before using my arms to propel myself upwards while planting my feet on the centre of the board.
After a few practice attempts, and two sizeable holes in the beach where I paddled away enough sand to hide a pair of sea lions, I head into the surf.
Initially apprehensive about the cold water, I am surprised how warm a wetsuit is ... until the first wave hits my face and cascades down my suit.
"You ready?" Ben asks.
"Yip," and no sooner do I answer, than he tells me to get ready and I am off paddling.
Feeling the water surge under my board I stop paddling and push myself up and on to the board, and just like that I am surfing."
It surely can't be this easy, and for the most part it isn't. For every success, I have some titanic face-plants (my own surfing terminology) made worse by the presence of an Otago Daily Times photographer.
But over the next hour, as I wait chest-deep in water for the next wave, I realise I have caught the last nine with little guidance but plenty of encouragement from Ben. We hear a whistle come from near the truck parked at the Esplanade and soon we are heading back to terra firma.
"How was that?" they ask.
"Brilliant," I say while squinting through salt-tinged eyes, as I head for the shower and a 10-minute wrestling match with a wetsuit.
Owner Steve Bennett said he opened the school 13 years ago, after he noticed he was coaching an increasing number of budding surfers through his involvement with South Coast Boardriders.
"Surfing has always been a passion, and I thought there was an opportunity here."
The school may have started off small, but is now capable of taking larger groups such as schools, businesses even the odd stag do.
"There is certainly variety."
Mr Bennett said many people loved to watch surfing when they visited St Clair, with many saying they wished they had "taken it up years ago".
"I think St Clair is the jewel in Dunedin's crown."
I asked what the most common questions would-be surfers asked him and his five fellow-instructors.
"Definitely about sharks. However, I always say there are more on land than there are in the ocean."
Budding surfers have ranged from a 3-year-old to a 67-year-old lady, with all but a few managing to stand up and surf by the end of their lessons, he said.
The key to becoming a good surfer was spending time in the water, he said.
To facilitate this the surf school had hire gear available for those wanting to follow-up lessons at the beach, but who were unwilling yet to invest in their own wetsuit or surfboard.
And I'll be going back next summer, but in the meantime - watch out for those land sharks.
Fact file:
• ESPLANADE SURF SCHOOL
Lessons include beach safety, equipment introduction, stretching, paddling technique, board control, catching the white water, standing and "popping up", wiping out safely, board control, duck diving/eskimo rolls, wave selection and catching and riding a green wave. Equipment, boards, wetsuits, rash tops and sunscreen provided.
• SURF PRICES
- Group price: $60 per person for two hours.
- Individual: $120 for two hours (by appointment only).