FEEL Surf Camp Las Palmas

The camp

FEEL is a Las Palmas travel agency, Siete Alisios, that puts your week together with two addresses in the Guanarteme district. You sleep at La Ventana Azul, a three-storey townhouse turned hostel on Calle El Salvador, thirty metres from the Las Canteras promenade: dorms of four to eight beds, lockers, a common room where people work on laptops, and a roof terrace with a kitchen that looks down on the beach. Lessons are taught by Brisa Surf School, a school on Calle Numancia, a short walk from La Cícer. Each does its own job, and FEEL books the rest: private rooms and studios in apartments ten minutes along the promenade, a partner hotel, and houses in the Agaete valley if you want to end the week in the countryside.

The lesson runs every morning from 10:00 to noon at La Cícer, the sand end of Las Canteras: a warm-up on the beach, an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half in the water, then a stretch. The bottom is sand, the wave breaks left and right at every tide. On an ordinary day it is a steady line of whitewater where a beginner can take one wave after another. When a north-north-westerly swell lines up with an offshore wind, peaks form along the sand and the shoulders get long enough to learn to turn. December is the best month, clean a little more than every other day; in summer the coast goes quiet and the school works with what is left. The water runs from 19 °C to 23 °C. If you already surf, guided trips, paid on top, go out to the city's reefs: La Barra, El Lloret, El Confital.

Everything is on one street. The board and wetsuit are yours all week, the beach is at the end of the pavement, and there is no shuttle to wait for and no car to hire: you go back in the water in the afternoon whenever you like, with nothing to arrange. The airport is about twenty minutes by road.

No meals are served. You cook on the roof, often with the others, and coffee and tea are free there. In the evening Las Palmas does the rest, and the house has its own programme: a sunset walk above El Confital on Monday, live music at Talleres Palermo on Wednesday, tapas in the old town of Vegueta on Thursday, karaoke on Saturday, and taco nights and barbecues on the roof. Most guests are between 24 and 35, and half come alone. Bars close around 2 a.m., clubs around 6. It is a week for learning to surf in a city with a crowd around you, and for people who would rather have a lively dorm than a quiet room.