New Year- the beginning of the next chapter

Date... New Years Day 2012
Location... Spot Km 11, Morocco
Paddler... Claire O’Hara

My life of late has been amazing filled with fun and adventure with some great people in some incredible places across the world.

Starting of the year, the next chapter in a memorable way that sets the pace from the year ahead is important to me. I am known for living my life to the full between the hours of 10am and 10pm, not really being into the drinking and late nights of the party scene. So New Years Eve tends to be pretty chilled and instead I prefer to celebrate the start of the New Year on New Year’s Day. For as long as I can remember I have spent New Year’s day kayaking somewhere exciting and different, with good white water, surf or sun, with a group of friends. This year was no different. This year started in Morocco, kayak surfing on the Atlantic waves.

Paddling my brand new Airtime Alushe kayak I spent the week surfing twice a day every day on the beaches along the coast of Morocco. The conditions were perfect. Starting small the waves built throughout the week and were unbelievably clean. It was interesting learning how to ride the waves in a different style of boat to what I am used too. It took awhile to get the hang of using the boats edges and I got many beat downs as I learnt how to adapt to carving across, as opposed to bouncing down, the face of the wave. During the week I jumped into a play boat for some quality airtime sessions and had the chance to go surfing and body boarding.

Morocco was a great destination for kayak surfing. Its wide variety of surf breaks, warm weather, beautiful sunshine, Moroccan culture, people and food made it a great boating destination and one to which I will return.

Happy New Year all.

I hope you have a successful, adventure and fun filled 2012.

Photos by Louise Turner