Words:
Photography: Mike Guest
Lisistarion & Design: Slow Press
Funded by: Slow Ways Walking Network
Sam’s Surf School:Coast to Coast Surf School
Belhaven Bay is an expansive beach stretching between the mouth of the River Tyne to the west and Dunbar to the east. Set in the John Muir Country Park, looking out at Bass Rock and home to photographers’ favourite “the bridge to nowhere”, Belhaven feels a world away from Edinburgh, but is just one hour by train and bus from Scotland’s capital.
Thanks to Sam Christopherson’s Coast to Coast Surf School, based at the Dunbar end of the bay, Belhaven is the closest beach to Edinburgh with a surf school. Sam says the community surf centre which now houses Coast to Coast is a significant upgrade from the surf school’s original home in 2004:
Sam’s decision to base Coast to Coast at Belhaven was made because of, rather than despite, its place in the pecking order of east coast surfing beaches: “Pease Bay is better known for quality of waves, but at the time Momentum and Clan were teaching there and Belhaven was much less popular. It’s a perfect beginner beach because it has loads of space, it’s really user friendly and we have offshore winds as a predominant feature.” After outgrowing the Ford Concerto, Coast to Coast graduated to a van for 10 years before moving into a base by Dunbar train station with a skate ramp and a cafe. Later, the school moved into a site at the John Muir Country Park’s car park.
The increase in popularity of the beach in general, and surfing in particular, was the inspiration for the building of the community surf centre which Coast to Coast now calls home. Sam says: “We were approached by the council in 2015, because they wanted to manage growth in use of the country park. They offered us the space and we jumped at the chance.”
Originally planned as just a surf school, the centre has evolved to be home to a range of different organisations. Also based in the surf centre are surf therapy charity Wave Project’s Scottish headquarters, Dunbar Surf Lifesaving Club, Belhaven Surf Club, Wilder Outdoor Education and Kosa Yoga. Sam says: “The centre offers lifesaving courses, watersports, high-performance surfing, outdoor learning and holistic learning and has housed meditation, pilates, fitness and yoga. It’s a pretty rad place.”
Having led its development, Sam hopes the surf centre can serve as a focal point for establishing a positive, sustainable relationship between the local community and the beach: “With all these things happening from the one space, they cross fertilise ideas; so in the future we’ll have lots of local kids that grew up to have good knowledge of the sea and are looking after their environment. There’s a lot of people that have come with a lot of knowledge that are all feeding the same kind of culture, so hopefully when I finally retire and hang my boots up, there’s a good community left to look after and manage what is a beautiful coastline.”
The number of surfers in Scotland has been rapidly growing. As the most accessible surf school for Edinburgh and much of the central belt, Coast to Coast has played a key role in introducing people to the sport. Sam is always trying to develop a positive community, both at Belhaven Bay and for surfers along this coast in general. It’s clear he’s conscious of his role as a custodian of surfing culture:
“The thing I think about is how to make sure everyone is safe and educated when they’re getting in the water. I try to teach people to think about when they’re going surfing, going to a beach with great waves that’s crowded isn’t necessarily the best thing. Sometimes it’s better to go to a beach two-thirds as good in terms of wave quality, so you have space to surf.”
More than helping people develop into elite-level surfers, Sam’s focus at Belhaven is on getting people out in the water, enjoying nature and approaching surfing with an attitude of consideration to each other and their environment:
Mentioned in this episode
East Lothians Countryside Rangers
Share this post