Las Olas Surf Camp

OK, while you're waiting for my wetsuit, here's a review I wrote of my experience at the Las Olas surf camp for women in Sayulita, Mexico, last June.

I went there because I thought a surf camp just for women would be a good idea, and because I've had bad experiences with men surf instructors. Boy, was I ever wrong!

The short version: Don’t go to Las Olas unless you’re an absolute beginner thrilled just to be pushed into a small wave on a beginner board, i.e., a surf tourist, not a surfer. There is a crucial difference. Las Olas has way too many people, both at the break and in the classes, and “Lessons” consist mostly of crowd control.

Longer version: First the good part. The hotel where we stayed was great, or at least my room was. It faced the ocean and I could hear the waves and see the surfers from the room. The setting is beautiful. The mosquitoes mercifully left me alone. If not for these blessings, a frustrating and disappointing week would have turned into a miserable or even unbearable experience. However, this was just luck, as others complained of hot stuffy rooms and got eaten by mosquitoes.

You might be happy to pay 2000-2500 bucks if you like to stay in a nice place, but if you care more about surfing, the instruction is not worth the money.

You can stay in a hotel room in town double occupancy for $25, eat the same food we did for $30 a day, get a private lesson and a board for $30 a day. The six days would cost you $510. So you’re paying at least $1500 for the surf instructors of Las Olas. What you get are five group lessons of one hour each, with six people to each instructor. What this consists of, mostly, is waiting your turn for a wave over on the shoulder. Because you’re not allowed to try for a wave when it’s not your turn. “Instruction” consists of being placed and pushed on a wave. You might get two or three waves. The priority of the instructors is rationing waves: keeping you away from the peak where the locals are, keeping you from taking waves from the other women in the group. The reason for this, I guess, is that the break is too crowded; there just aren’t enough waves for everybody. But a break like that is the last place on earth anybody should put a surf camp!

When it’s not your lesson time, but the two hours when other groups are having lessons, you’re not allowed to go in the water----because you’d be taking “their” waves and “it would be disrespectful” Hell, if you were there by yourself and not in Las Olas, no one could keep you out of the water! Seems like everytime I tried to go in someone was stopping me; and everytime I got near the peak, one of the SurfNazis was yelling at me to get onto the shoulder because the peak belongs to the locals and I might get in their way and get hurt. After years of surfing NYC breaks as crowded as this one, I found that hilarious, but not in a good way.

You get one private lesson during the week. Mine did not result in any improvement in my ability. I asked about additional private lessons, but they’re not allowed: again, on the theory that it wouldn’t be fair to everybody else. (?) So I took two private lessons, at $30 each, from the boys at the Tigre surf school. That was the only fun I had all week.

Frankly, it was a relief just to be around men again! The Las Olas women were, overwhelmingly, girlie girls, more interested in jibberjabbering on the beach and buying every worthless trinket offered by the local vendors than going in the water. Not surprisingly, most of them said they found out about the camp through a puff piece in Lucky magazine. Now I’ve never heard of Lucky, but was told it’s “a magazine about shopping”. That tells you what type of women you’ll meet here. I tried hard, but couldn’t relate.

To make things worse, there were no waves to speak of; they were about the same size and quality as in Rockaway, two feet. I don’t blame Las Olas for this, however I do blame them for pushing the season into when they know the waves can be crap just to make more money. And I do blame them for not giving us the option to seek out spots where the waves might have been better. Those of us not thrilled with the 2 footers should have been assisted with transporation and logistics to seek out other spots, even if there were only a couple of us (most of the guests wouldn’t have known the difference between a closeout and a barrel). In the end, I travelled across the country to find waves I could have found at home. I paid nearly three grand and I have yet to ride my first wave.

I regret my choice of Las Olas, and don’t recommend it.