I Packed up on Friday and left at 2am. It took five and a half hours to get down there and I drove most of it because Wyn's not insured on my car! I arrived on Sunday but couldn't stay in bed past 7am. I got to Fistral about 9am to find a 2ft onshore, wind swell. It was quite overcast too, but at least it wasn't flat so I took a walk into town and hung around the BSA centre until it got underway at 11am.
There were 12 girls of varying ages milling around while the new women's surf flic - 'Blue Crush' played in the background. Some of the younger girls were sitting with Neridah and had started grilling her about her favourite places to surf, what the pro tour was like etc. Tracy Boxall was also there and another coach called Jo. The Gul marketing director and British team manager marshalled us together and introduced us to the day - a casual coaching session aimed at working on some of our surfing problems and getting us out there having fun with some serious girl surfers.
Free Gul rash vest were handed out to us to wear over our suits and we all got ready for a surf. 
After posing for some pictures (and we all just love being photographed in wetsuits, don't we?) we trotted down to the beach behind Tracy, Neridah, Jo and a guy with a big zoom lens! More than a few heads turned at such a display of women surfers, especially when we all started jogging up and down the beach. After a 10 minute warm up, we were sent in for a 20 minute surf so they could check out our standard. Twenty minutes wasn't much in the rather poor conditions - the peaks were shifting all over the place and the waves were hard to read. The sun came out halfway through though! There were a lot more surfers than I'm used to seeing out there (compared to Mid Wales!) and all were vying for the better waves.
I caught a couple myself, but did nothing with them. Still, it was great to be out there with 11 other girls and Tracy, almost surreal. Most of us were able to paddle out the back. There were three or four girls who were better than me, which always spurs me on. They were catching lots of waves and heading down the line with style. A couple of the girls compete and you could tell this by the seriousness with which they treated the 20 minute surf. Most of us, however were just keen to improve our free surfing.
We were given some tips on duck-diving shortboards and rolling longboards and shown the most efficient way to paddle. The onshore demo's from Tracy were backed up with practice in the water, watched by both Tracy and Jo. They told us to make sure we looked for the peak, especially in weaker swell and explained the importance of rail to rail surfing - no bouncing!
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