On our trip to Oahu we decided to take some surf lessons after our shark dive in Haleiwa. after reading the reviews on Tripadvisor we went with Sunset Suzy.
I setup our lesson via email and were scheduled to meet with Suzy at 10am. However, we were not able to lock down a specific location as Suzy does lessons at two different locations, Waimea Bay Beach and Haleiwa Beach Park, depending on the conditions. We called Suzy several times between 8:30, after our shark dive, and 10am to find out where we should meet her. We did not hear back from her until about 5 minutes to 10. She has mistakenly scheduled us for the following day. Needless to say I was a bit perturbed as we had a pretty tight activity schedule and wouldn't be able to have our lesson on a different day on the North Shore.
To Suzy's credit she shuffled her schedule around and took us out for our semi-private lesson at 10:30. All my irritation disappeared once the lesson started.
Since it was winter and the surf was really big on the North Shore we had our lesson at Haleiwa Beach Park in a small protected cove. There were a handful of other surfers and paddle surfers there but there was plenty of room for us newbies. We practiced some skills on shore like where to position ourselves on the board, how to paddle, standing up on one knee, and then standing up all the way. Then we took the boards out in the water. This is where we able to see what a good instructor Suzy is.
She was able to discern the different learning styles my girlfriend and I had. I liked to kind of figure it out on my own while my girlfriend appreciated more direct instruction. Suzy helped me catch a couple of waves by telling me when to paddle and giving me a little push. Though I wasn't quite able to get up for very long. From there on out I would just paddle back out and give it another go on my own. Suzy would be watching me and give me tips each time I paddled back out. Soon I was catching waves on my own and standing up with no problem. All the while she was giving my girlfriend the attention she wanted in helping her learn and catch waves with ease. With Suzy's help she was able to get up and ride waves with no problem. Before long Suzy was giving us tips on how to speed up, slow down, and turn on the waves.
Even with the rocky start it was a fantastic experience. We thoroughly enjoyed our experience with Suzy and would highly recommend lessons with Suzy.