Summary
The only thing you need to wear to your surf lesson is your bathing suit (and maybe a towel).
But because we have a secure retail space, you can bring all of your things with you and lock them up during the lesson.
Here are the answers to common questions we get:
- We provide free rashguards to all students.
- You should wear sunscreen, but not on the front of your legs.
- You (almost certainly) do not need a wetsuit.
- We discourage wearing water shoes or “reef walkers.”
- You shouldn’t wear swim goggles unless they’re prescription.
- We discourage bringing a GoPro or other digital devices.
Bathing Suit
The only thing you really need to bring to your surf lesson is your bathing suit. For women, this is typically a bikini or a one piece swimsuit. For men, this is typically board shorts or swim trunks. For your upper body, we require students to wear rashguards. We provide them for free to all students. See rashguards below for more information.
Rashguards
We provide long-sleeve rashguards for all students — FREE. The rashguards are used, but cleaned after each use. We also provide new rashguards for purchase.
All of our rashguards are the highest quality. They’re 50-SPF, and hand-made by a US veteran-owned company.
Why You Need a Rashguard
The primary reason we require rashguards is because we use soft-top surfboards. Soft-top surfboards are padded with foam on the deck to reduce injuries and improve friction. The only downside to a soft-top surfboard is that the friction between the foam and bear skin (particularly on the torso) can give you a friction burn — especially when you’re paddling around on it for an hour.
But the secondary benefit to wearing a rashguard is that it’s 50-SPF. It protects your torso against sunburn, and saves you the pain of applying sunscreen to your upper body.
Sunscreen
You should always wear sunscreen — with some caveats.
You should never put sunscreen on the front of your legs. The reason is, you will be lying on your stomach for most of the lesson. If you put sunscreen on the front of your legs, it will rub off onto the board and make it slippery. If the board gets slippery it makes it hard to stand and balance.
We recommend zinc sunscreen. Zinc has the least chance of running into your eyes, and is the most reef-friendly option.
Storage
You can bring everything with you to your surf lesson. We have free lockers and a secure retail space.
However we do not have a space to change your clothes so please come with your bathing suit already on underneath your clothes.
Wetsuit
Hawaii is lucky to have warm waters year-round. It’s so consistently warm that the vast majority of visitors do not need a wetsuit. All year the water temperature only varies between 75°F to 82°F — or 24°C to 28°C.
Wetsuits are more common for places like California where temperatures are much colder. You can see on the chart below Malibu California has water temperatures that vary from 54°F-70°F — or 12°C to 21°C.
Water Shoes or “Reef Walkers”
Where we surf the water depth varies between 4-7 feet (1.2-1.8 meters)
Students occasionally ask us if they can use water shoes or “reef walkers.” Our answer is: “we’d prefer you don’t, but if you insist we’ll allow it.” There are a few reasons we ask customers not to use them.
First, standing on the reef destroys the ecosystem. Anytime you’re exploring a coral reef, you should not touch it. Reef is living coral that supports the plants and animals around it.
Second, we spend time on land teaching students how to properly fall and not touch the reef. Avoiding touching the ocean floor is a normal part of surfing. Advanced surfers can ride waves in water as shallow as 2 feet because they know how to fall gently.
Third, water shoes destroy our surf boards. The rubber soles rip the foam, wax, and epoxy that hold the deck together.
We do make exceptions. If students are truly terrified of touching the ocean floor, we will allow them to wear water shoes. However, we will still scold students for standing on the ocean floor — even with water shoes — because of the damage to the reef.
Swim Goggles
Another request we sometimes hear is to use swim goggles on the surf lesson.
Students usually request this because they think the salt water burns their eyes.
But that’s actually a misunderstanding!
The ocean is about the same salinity as your eyes, and doesn’t (at least in Waikiki) have any chemical properties that burn your eyes. If your eyes burn while you’re in the ocean, 99% of the time it’s because your sunscreen or other skin/hair products are running into your eyes. Non-zinc sunscreens burn your eyes quite a bit if they run.
So if you don’t want your eyes to burn, use thick (very sticky) zinc sunscreen.
We do allow eyewear under one exception: you are very blind without prescription swim goggles. In this case, we will allow you to wear them but with the following warning: be very careful not to lose them. It takes very little wave energy to wash them off of your face, and once they fall off it will be very hard to find them.
GoPro’s, Phones, and Other Devices
We don’t prohibit cameras and other electronic devices, but we discourage it.
First, they are very difficult to carry. Most devices will not fit in boardshort pockets. If you carry it in your hands, you won’t be able to paddle. And if you leave it on your board it will be swept off by the first wave you paddle through.
When students insist on bringing them, they often slow down the entire lesson because of the complications caused by the device.
Second, it’s really unlikely you’re going to be in a spot to capture good content. You certainly won’t be able to film yourself. You likely won’t be in a good spot to film others in your party. And further, pausing or moving to capture content will use time you could be spending on surfing.
If you’re worried about capturing the moment, don’t worry! We have a photographer that goes out on every lesson. They’ll be in the water with you the whole time capturing every moment with a water-housed DSLR and top-mounted GoPro.
Conclusion
In summary, you can wear anything you’d like to your surf lesson, and bring all of your things with you. But you really only need a bathing suit — we provide everything else you need!