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Mallorca is not an obvious place to nurture a taste for surf, but one unexpectedly stormy day last summer I attempted to cheer up Johnny, my long-faced seven-year old son, by buying him a bodyboard. A couple of hours later he was sparring with the last kicks of waves that were large enough to have sent most people scurrying inland. And I was standing beside him, a smile masking a mass of parental anxiety, ready to fish him out should he go under. Later, when he tired, he suggested that I have a go. I did, and I loved it until I cut my knee on some protruding rock. And that in part explains why we are driving into Newquay, almost a year later, past the surf shops and Australian bars and several people in wetsuits heading for the beach. We have come to capitalise on that initial enthusiasm for bodyboarding by taking lessons from Rob Barber, one of our island’s best boogers.

From the balcony of our room, we look out at the deep blue Atlantic. The storms we drove through in Devon have not followed us down, the sun is out and a breeze is blowing off the sea, kicking up some fine old waves. The surf on Fistral Beach, just below us, is speckled with wave riders on body and surfboards. We go to join them but quickly discover that the water is too cold for any sane, warm-blooded creature to enter willingly without a wet suit. So we lie back in the sand with the lifeguards and surf babes to watch the black figures get picked up by the waves and weave and cut and curl their way towards the beach.

The next morning we meet Barber at a nearby surf shop to get kitted out. The choice is important. If the wetsuit doesn’t fit snugly it leaks and you get cold. Too tight and you go blue for other reasons. Then the board, not the tomb-stone-shaped polystyrene slab I bought Johnny last year, but a high-tech, multi-fibre, flexible and curvaceous board that comes up to my navel. It has, I am told, a "memory" which allows it to return to shape no matter how much I bend and abuse it. Johnny has to make do with a full-size board, up to his neck not his navel. Add a pair of flippers and, for my son, some wet-suit socks to pad out the flippers and keep his feet warm, and we are ready.

Barber is a sympathetic young guy, born and bred within sight of Newquay’s surf, and Johnny takes to him immediately. He is also the only British Surf Association-accredited bodyboard teacher in the country. He coaches our current bodyboard champions, for God’s sake. Some days he has six or eight people in a session, but today there are just the three of us who jog up Fistral Beach and go through a series of stretches and exercises designed to warm up our muscles for the coming effort.

Bodyboarding is sometimes seen as surfing’s lesser relative, the upstart little older than my son, but that doesn’t do it justice. Barber, who excels at both, has just as much enthusiasm for the short boards. He also makes the point that it is much easier to learn to use a bodyboard than to get up on a surfboard - he reckons he can teach us in one or two lessons what it took him six months to pick up. Instant gratification beckons. But first there is something of a tutorial as we lie on our boards in the wet sand and listen, over the roaring of the Atlantic, the cawing of gulls, and the PA system set up for a surfing competition that is just getting warmed up, to Barber laying out the basics.

Johnny’s concentration starts to wane after about five minutes. He was patient enough when it came to bodyboard safety and Rob’s odd comment about ripping curls. But when the conversation moves on to how best to ride over waves when you are trying to get out into the water - and how to duck-dive under the big ones if they are breaking - Johnny is elsewhere. As a result, when we hit the water he has trouble getting over the peaks of breaking waves. Barber gets the point and instead of talking, he shows him how to pull the front of his board a fraction out of the water just as the wave is on him. The three of us ride the surf and kick and paddle our way beyond the breaking waves, to the area boogers call the outback.

The water isn’t particularly deep in the outback and Johnny is a good swimmer, but everything looks larger in the water and from where I am floating the waves look big enough to cause him trouble if he gets tumbled. I mention this to Rob.

“Don’t worry. He can swim well enough. And if he goes under, his wetsuit and board will help him back up.” Johnny seems to have none of these concerns. Instead, he is lying flat on his outsize board, peering over his shoulder, waiting for a set of waves to present themselves. I watch as he goes, Rob by his side. But then I too feel the tug and swell of the next one rising behind me, and I start kicking and doing a crawl as fast as I can, though I don’t seem to be moving at all. What happens next catches me by surprise. It is one of those experiences, like first-time sex and driving at great speed, which will stay in the memory. There is a burst of power, a surging, swelling roar of water, a rush of adrenaline and I hurtle towards the shore on the crest of a wave, moved beyond my usual element, mixing water and air and thinking, where are the cameras, where are the lights? Because I’ve got the action.

Let down gently near the beach, I find Johnny just as exhilarated and Rob looking pleased. He knows enough to slip in a compliment -

“Not everyone gets on so quickly. Tomorrow I’m going to show you how to do 360 degree turns. And later, when you’re really good, you might get to do reverse spins, ride tubes, do all sorts of things.” First he is going to show us how to trim a wave - how to cut across it as it breaks…

After a couple of hours of this, Johnny is getting cold and I am tired, so Rob leaves us on the beach with our gear and an appointment for the next morning. We have a late lunch, hang around on the beach watching the continuing competition, stroll through Newquay and then head out of town to Watergate Bay, which a friend had recommended for its great sunset views Johnny is keen to get back on the boards, but I am tired and in the car I dampen his enthusiasm. When we get there, I stand for a moment and look out over the bay. At seven o’clock the sun is still up, the surf isn’t too high and Johnny has that ‘please Papa’ look on his face. We struggle into our wetsuits in the car park and join a dozen people in the outback. They know more than we the importance of waiting for the right set of waves. There is a sense of camaraderie out here. Johnny sits up on his board, I float on top of mine. It’s June in the Atlantic, my son is beside me and I can still feel my fingers and toes. Over at the beachside bistro, the night’s first grilled bass and tuna are being served. In my heart I’m as happy as can be and some forty-five minutes later, after the surf has defeated us, we head tired, dripping and exhilarated towards food.

Later, in the car on the way back to the hotel, Johnny flicks through some bodyboarding magazines, admires the photos of Rob, who seems to appear on every page, and then suggests that we move to Newquay. “I can go to a local school and surf every evening.” I laugh off the idea. But after I have tucked him in, I sit out on the balcony, watching waves roll onto Fistral Beach and making plans to get back to Newquay after the summer, when the surf picks up and the crowds die down. And then I go to sleep, with the sound of the ocean in my ears, and a smile on my salty face.

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