At These Luxe Hotels, Pro Surfers Will Teach You How to Hang Ten on Gnarly Waves
- Jamie O’Brien offers a unique "Surf with a Pro" experience for seasoned surfers, providing one-on-one coaching and the opportunity to hunt for waves around Oahu.
"This one. This one. Start paddling!" shouted Jamie O'Brien as a set wave came through on Oahu's South Shore. O'Brien is more famous on the island's North Shore, as one of the greatest Pipeline surfers of all time. But he and I were in Waikiki because "Town," as Hawaiians call it, pumped six- to eight-foot faces during the North Shore's quiet summer. And the waves just kept getting bigger.
The inside reef flashed its teeth as the wave sucked up and prepared to break. Waikiki spat barrels. This was no ordinary surf lesson; it was just one element of the Jamie O'Brien Surf Experience , which operates out of the Ritz-Carlton O'ahu, Turtle Bay .
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In the last decade, several hotels around the world have positioned themselves as "surf hotels" by buying a few beater boards or teaming with a surf school that only offers lessons in playful waves. Though diehard amateurs, from golfers to tennis players, love to turn vacation into a chance to train with a hotel's hired pro, it's harder to find the equivalent session for intermediate surfers. Sure, weeklong surf camps exist, yet they're often in more remote places that aren't a fit for everyone's travel schedule. And in a family like mine, where most members are afraid of the water, a weeklong surf camp is a pipe dream.
I'd met O'Brien that morning in front of the hotel, where his surf school had an O'Brien museum of sorts. Inside is a selection of his old boards that introduced him to the Pipeline and made him renowned. While most tourists come to the school for lessons on the gentle rights peeling off the point break below the Ritz, where waves typically reach a few feet, O'Brien and I loaded into his truck and headed to Waikiki. This was his "Surf with a Pro" experience, where a professional surfer, often another Pipemaster who's probably secured big wins on the North Shore or full spreads in glossy magazines, will take a (seasoned) amateur around the island to hunt for waves. Through the experience, surfers receive one-on-one coaching that far surpasses a typical beginner lesson.
After I caught a wave and paddled back out, O'Brien shared advice on how to better position myself in the crowded lineup and attack a wave. When he saw that I was slow to commit to a wave, he told me that I needed to be less hesitant. "Be more explosive." The overthinking was affecting my timing. I'd been surfing for more than two decades, but I was certainly not above feedback from one of the world's greatest surfers.
Surfers can catch a break off the coast of the Ritz-Carlton in Turtle Bay.
Given that most of the world's best surfers live in Hawaii or visit the archipelago each year, the islands—specifically Oahu—have some of the best learning options for more advanced wave riders. The Ritz- Carlton in Turtle Bay also puts together exclusive packages like Camp Laird , where 20 guests can spend five days with famed big wave surfer Laird Hamilton, learning how to train for and ride giants. The camp covers everything from guided breathwork to underwater rock running to actually surfing big waves.
Few professional (active) surfers run surf schools. Besides O'Brien, Kai Sallas, a longboard champion surfer, runs the school bearing his name out of the Kaimana Beach Hotel in Waikiki . Sallas offers a similar experience to O'Brien, but for riders looking to elevate their deftness on a longboard. Sallas also invites you to design a longboard with him—he has his own branded longboard company .
Across the Pacific, at the Ranch at Laguna Beach —more of a golf destination than a surf paradise—the Ranch offers one of the most unique surf experiences for seasoned wave riders. Through a partnership with the iconic surfboard company Hobie, hotel guests meet with shaper Gary Larson in the Dana Point, Calif., shop in a small foam dust–covered room where Larson works. He and the guest discuss everything from wave preference to riding style to home break before beginning work on the board.
While custom shaping typically involves this one-to-one discussion with the shaper, it often ends there. The Ranch-Hobie experience allows the customer to be a part of the process, helping Larson to transform the foam blank into a wave-riding machine—shaping, designing, even cutting the foam.
"It's a really good opportunity to see how the cake's made," said Larson, revealing other little secrets of the craft. He showed me his surf tools, which are all woodworking tools or things found in a kitchen, like micro-planers, that every shaper adapts to their liking.
"Surfers today are losing the roots of [the sport]," said Larson, alluding to the fact that most boards are just printed out by a computer and, at best, fine-tuned from there. "When you're getting [a computer-engineered surfboard] overseas, you're often getting it from someone who has no relationship with the ocean."
Like computer-made boards that transform the art of surfboard making into mass production, many hotels are trying to offer surf experiences for the masses. But at places like the Ritz, Kaimana, and the Ranch, more advanced wave riders have opportunities to fine-tune their sport on vacation.
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