Oceanside Gran Canaria

The camp

Oceanside is a surf school, and the school is what you book. It sits on the promenade at La Cícer, the southern end of Las Canteras, a few steps from the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, and teaches under the Quiksilver and Roxy names. Ocean Side Travel, the licensed travel agency behind it, sells the lessons together with a bed at one of its neighbours: you choose where you sleep, and the lesson stays the same. The range runs from a dorm in a hostel facing the beach to a surf house with a roof over the sea, by way of a studio two hundred metres from the school or a room in a four-star hotel with a pool. None of these places belongs to the school, which is exactly what lets you set the week to your budget and to the company you are after.

Lessons are in front of the school, on La Cícer, where the rock bar that shelters the rest of the beach comes to an end. Sand, lefts and rights, every tide. On an ordinary day beginners spend the morning in the white water, seven at most to an instructor, and the beach breaks on most days of the season. When a north-north-westerly swell turns up in winter with a south-south-easterly wind, the green waves hold up long enough for an intermediate to work on turns, five to an instructor. In December, the best month, count on roughly four good days in a week. The water does not drop below 18 °C. In summer this coast is flat and the school works with whatever is left; if Las Canteras gets dangerous, the intermediate group moves to a beach nearby.

The city is the advantage. You walk to the lesson, with no pick-up to wait for and no car to hire: most of the houses are under three hundred metres away, the furthest 1.3 km. The school is open seven days a week, has lockers and showers, and the two-hour lesson runs at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 or 16:00 on weekdays, so you can plan the day around it. When the lesson ends, you cross the promenade and you are at a café table.

In the evening the school organises nothing, and the house you picked makes the difference. Agüita House runs barbecues on its roof and a weekly trip round the island; Ventana Azul has its roof with an outdoor kitchen. No meals are served: you cook at the house, or eat along the promenade, which is lined with bars and restaurants, and Vegueta, the old town, is fifteen minutes away by car. Right for someone who wants to learn in a city, pick a bed to suit their budget and company, and does not expect a school to fill their evenings.