5. Surf – Santa Cruz is home to some of the best surf spots on the West coast such as Pleasure Point, Steamer Lane and Mavericks. Despite the lack of wind, we had no shortage of perfect glassy waves while we were there and the AWT were quick to capitalise on this holding an informal SUP contest every day.

Competing alongside top SUP World Tour competitors such Bernd Roediger and Fiona Wylde in perfect conditions was a real eyeopener as to how far the sport has come. Bernd’s board was absolutely tiny (70ltrs) and he was using it to devastating effect ripping every wave to pieces and eventually taking the SUP event win. It was also great to see the girls ripping so hard making all the finals in mixed heats.

There’s a lot of wildlife in the water at the event site in Waddell Creek and sharing an evening surf session with the local dolphins was definitely not an experience that I’ll forget.