Four hundred metres to the sand · Open all year
Surfers need things ordinary accommodation never provides: somewhere to put a dripping wetsuit that is not a bathroom radiator, a lockable rack for boards, hot water at seven in the morning and again at nine at night, breakfast before dawn when the tide demands it, and somebody who knows whether tomorrow is worth the early alarm. We are four hundred metres from a beach break that works most of the year, and everything here is arranged around the sea rather than around a check-in desk.
About us
The house was bought and converted by a couple who had spent the best part of a decade following swell around the coast in a van, and who knew precisely what was missing from every place they had stayed. Not luxury — surfers do not care about luxury at seven in the morning — but drying space, secure storage, a kitchen you are allowed to use properly, an unreasonable quantity of hot water, and staff who surf and can therefore give you an honest answer about conditions.
It is deliberately small. Twenty-eight beds across bunk rooms and a handful of private doubles means everybody ends up in the same kitchen in the evening, and that mixture — beginners on their first week, people who have surfed for thirty years, a few long-stay winter guests working remotely — is what makes the place worth returning to. We have no bar, no scheduled entertainment and no party reputation, because our guests are trying to be in the water at first light.
The beach in front works for beginners on a small summer swell and turns into something considerably more serious in an autumn groundswell, and within half an hour by road there are half a dozen alternatives covering almost every wind direction. Knowing which of them to drive to on a given morning is local knowledge accumulated over fifteen years, and it is given away freely at breakfast every day.
Advantages
Six unglamorous details that decide whether a trip is good or merely wet.
A heated, ventilated drying room with hangers for wetsuits, boots, gloves and hoods, so tomorrow's suit is dry rather than cold and damp — which, in February, is the single difference between a good week and a miserable one. Nothing hangs in bedrooms, nothing drips down a stairwell and the whole building does not smell of neoprene. It sounds trivial until you have pulled on a wet suit at seven in the morning four days running.
A secure ground-floor board room with padded racks, right beside the door, so nothing travels through the building and nothing sleeps in a bedroom or on a car roof overnight. There is a freshwater hose outside for boards and suits, a repair bench with resin and sanding kit available to guests, and space to work on a ding without being told off. Guests who arrive with three boards have somewhere sensible to put all three.
Two solar thermal arrays and a large backup cylinder feed indoor showers and two hot outdoor showers by the board room, sized so that twelve people coming out of a winter sea at once do not exhaust it. Anyone who has queued for a lukewarm trickle after a January session understands exactly why we spent the money here rather than on furniture. The outdoor showers mean sand stays outside where it belongs.
Tides do not respect breakfast service, so the kitchen is open at all hours with proper equipment, plenty of fridge space labelled by room, and coffee, bread, eggs and fruit available from five in the morning. Guests cook for themselves and frequently for each other, and a communal dinner happens most evenings without anybody organising it. Nobody is locked out of the food they bought because a member of staff has gone home.
Every morning somebody who has already looked at the sea explains what it is doing, which spot suits the wind and tide, what it will be like this afternoon and whether it is appropriate for your level. That includes telling beginners plainly that today is not their day, which occasionally disappoints and has kept a great many people out of situations they were not equipped for. Swell charts are on the wall and explained to anyone who asks.
Twenty-eight beds, no bar, quiet from eleven, and open every month of the year including the winter when the waves are best and most places have closed. Long stays are welcome and discounted, there is decent internet and a proper table for people working remotely, and the winter crowd of a dozen regulars is the reason many guests come back in January rather than August.
Services
Bunks and private rooms, surf packages, lessons and coaching, hire and repairs, transport and trips, long stays and group bookings.
Bunk rooms of four and six beds with solid wooden bunks, individual lights, sockets and lockers big enough for a rucksack, plus five private double rooms for couples and anyone who has stopped enjoying dormitories. Bedding and towels are included, rooms are cleaned daily, and there is a female-only dormitory available year round. Prices drop substantially outside the summer months, which is also when the surf is best.
Week-long packages combining accommodation, board and wetsuit hire, five coached sessions, video review and transport to whichever beach is working, priced well below the same components bought separately. Groups are kept to six per coach and split by ability, and the schedule is rearranged daily around the forecast rather than fixed in advance, because a lesson at the wrong time of tide teaches almost nothing.
Beginner lessons on the beach in front of the house, improver coaching for people who can stand but cannot turn, and video analysis sessions for surfers stuck at the same level for years. All the coaches live here and surf every day, lessons are booked by the session rather than only as part of a package, and guests staying with us pay less. Longer coaching blocks are available for those staying several weeks.
A hire fleet covering soft tops, funboards, mid-lengths, shortboards and a few fish and longboards, so people can try a different volume before buying one, along with wetsuits from three to five millimetres, boots and gloves for winter. Ding repairs are done in-house within a day, and boards can be stored here between trips for regulars who return several times a year rather than dragged home each time.
A van runs daily to whichever break the forecast favours, from twenty minutes away to two hours when something unusual arrives, with board racks and space for everybody's kit. Airport transfers are arranged for guests without cars, and on flat spells we drive to the mountains, the cliffs or the river instead, because a week of no waves is better spent somewhere than staring at the sea.
Monthly rates for winter guests and remote workers, with a proper desk, reliable internet and a quiet room to take calls in, plus whole-house bookings for surf clubs, university groups and families, with catering arranged if wanted. Groups get the drying room, the board store and the kitchen to themselves, and we will happily build a week around a mixed-ability party that would otherwise be impossible to schedule.
Contacts
Tell us your dates, how long you have surfed and whether you are bringing boards, and we will say honestly what conditions to expect in that period — including when a different month would serve you far better. Winter bookings are usually available at short notice; August is not.
Whole-house and group enquiries should include numbers, ability range and whether you want coaching included.