“I’m happy I don’t live up to my own ideals,” I thought to myself as I drove up to Mellieħa from Żurrieq, the north wind battering my car in a week where I had been actively considering using a bicycle to travel around. Cycling weather, this was not.
It was, however, I thought at the time, just the weather to try my hand at windsurfing, a sport which by its very definition depended on wind – of which we have plenty on our islands. The weather in place, all that was left was the equipment, and, equally importantly, the knowledge of what did what.
This is where Austin Zammit, director of SurfMalta, comes in. Having been a windsurfer for the best part of his life, and having taught during that time too, Austin turned his redundancy last year into an opportunity to set up his own windsurfing school: “Setting up a windsurfing school in Malta has always been a dream of mine. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a good enough service in Malta for people wanting to learn or rent. I’ve been abroad windsurfing, and I’ve seen what kind of service you get when you pay. And I asked myself why I shouldn’t do the same.”
He took his savings, and started scouting around to find equipment and a base from where to operate. He couldn’t afford a place, so he bought a large van instead, and found himself browsing for beginner’s gear online.
Over the years teaching, he attended courses on how to surf and on how to teach it in different countries. Before that fateful afternoon in Għadira, Austin had claimed that he managed to get people surfing within 30 minutes, sometimes even in less.
The way he learnt was different. One summer, he rented out a windsurfer and went to Buġibba to try it out. By the end of the summer, he was hooked. “My friend and I used to buy Windsurf magazine, and we spent a whole summer renting out the windsurfer. After a whole summer, we thought we might as well buy our own equipment,” Austin says.
It’s a full-body workout, like many other aquatic sports
Unlike the way Austin and his friend learnt over the summer when they were 18, the instructor has a step-by-step system to teach his students by – break those rules and, as I found out roughly 1,349,203 times, you’ll probably end up off the board and in the sea, or, in the case of my lesson, on the sandy seabed 60cm below the surface of the sea.
One of the maxims I had to abide by was to always keep the sail at arm’s length – literally. It’s an easy enough rule to follow if you’ve just mounted the board and pulled the sail towards you. It’s once the wind has actually hit the sail that you inadvertently find yourself bending your arms and inevitably consigning yourself to the bosom of the sea.
Despite managing to learn how to stand on the board and draw up the sail pretty quickly, it was the ‘moving’ part I had difficulty with. It turns out that the erratic wind, which was coming in strong gusts, was hardly the best environment to be learning in and, in fact, Austin had actually cancelled a lesson with a young beginner just before that (my interview deadlines, unfortunately, couldn’t wait for more favourable wind).
You see, the last thing you want to deal with when still getting to grips with staying afloat on a board and holding a four-metre sail to move, is a temperamental wind which, whenever it pleases, blows strongly against the sail. This was forcing me to bend my arms, without applying enough counterforce using my own bodyweight and throwing me straight into the sea.
The whole thing is unbelievably hard work on your body.
“It’s a full-body workout, like many other aquatic sports. After a windsurfing session, if you’re not used to it, the following day you’ll start noticing many muscles you didn’t even know you had,” Austin says.
In my case, I didn’t even have to wait until the following day: this new endeavour was tiring, but exhilarating. And in one fateful moment, I followed all the steps, held on to the beginner’s rig Austin provides his students with and, chin held high looked out at the rocks in l-Aħrax. By some miracle the wind was moving me, a sail and a huge board out to sea. Where other attempts had ended within a few seconds, this time I was sailing for minutes, my whole body having gotten used to the sail and how to move it according to the wind.
It was a surreal feeling, and I experienced the adrenaline rush and the “peace” Austin said he felt when out at sea.
Only in our time together, Austin still hadn’t managed to teach me how to turn the board, having instead focused on teaching me how to stay on it. So, when the time came to turn back, I gracefully turned the sail around, lost my footing and tumbled into the deeper end of Għadira.
Getting back on the board, I turned round the sail and tried to lead it with my right hand, a bit like in a waltz or a tango. But there’s no use trying to waltz when the song that’s playing is Chumbawumba’s Tubthumping, which, if you missed it, goes “I get knocked down, but I get up again”, popular in 1998 when windsurfing was still all the rage in Malta. I don’t exactly remember how I actually managed to get back to shore, but I must have, so I’ll assume it was a mixture of windsurfing and falling back into the water.
That lesson was over, but SurfMalta’s beginner courses are made up of three two-hour sessions, meaning I’d still have time to learn if I wanted to. Which, looking back on that evening in Għadira and at the sea surrounding our coasts, I think I do.
www.surfingmalta.com