The Surf Nationals in Newquay have a tradition of being a messy weekend, and this time it was no exception. The trip started off on the Thursday with a couple of minibuses heading to Cornwall.

Drives down are notorious for their messiness and on one mini-bus the girls were to the point of wetting themselves because Jamie Gatley (President) wouldn’t stop, and the CD player was broken so people had to make do with singing (not very well), so when everyone got to Newquay they went to bed early ready for the days competing ahead… NOT!!! It was anything but a quiet night in!

Surfing on the Friday took place at the famous Fistral beach. The surfing conditions were rubbish, ranging from 1-4 foot choppy waves. Each round is 20 minutes long and the top two wave scores are counted.

It was the men’s competition with Jamie Gatley qualifying to surf in the rounds on the Saturday. Jim Legge surfed extremely well but unfortunately got knocked out in the first round against very tough competition. Simon English was supposed to be competing but he’d qualified for the skim board nationals in Mother Iveys.

The rest of the people arrived in the afternoon to support the surfers on the Saturday. There was a social that night and the lime green t-shirts were worn; no one was going to miss us - Portsmouth was going to make sure they were noticed.

In the hostel there was friendly banter with Bristol university and of course Portsmouth came on top singing ‘Pompey till I die’!
The wave conditions on Saturday still hadn’t improved but the weather was surprisingly mild.

Ella Duran competed for the first time. She got through her three rounds qualifying for the quarter finals on Sunday, very impressive for her first competition.

Jamie Gatley surfed well but the competition was steep and he got knocked out after the second round. Spirits were high and every one was looking forward to another night out.

Starting off at the Fistral backpackers hostel, games were played to get everyone loosened up. Next we moved to on the rocks but not until a game of I have never to embarrass a few people!

We ended up at the beach with a manic night of old school classic tunes and crazy dancing. Of course the night wouldn’t have been complete without some 3am beach antics with a few people being brave enough to go in the sea.

Everybody was cheering for Ella on the Sunday, she’d done so well to make it so far. She surfed four rounds, securing her a position in the top 12 in the UK!

No one was looking forward to the 4hour drive home but it was made easier by reminiscing about the amazing weekend.

Everybody who competed did extremely well especially in the bad conditions.