The rain advances towards my window across the sandy bay, splattering against the glass in heavy bursts carried by periodic surges of wind.
When I had accepted an invitation to go surfing – half an hour before – the sun had been out, although even then it was just providing weak heat. This was an Irish spring after all.
It just seemed a deliciously ridiculous thing to do. To venture into a winter-cooled sea and learn something new. The rest of my party wasn’t keen – and with whale watching and facials in the Inchydoney Thallasotherapy spa on offer as alternatives, I could understand why.
But that human need to try new things and also relive spectacular past moments nagged: my childhood Christmas plunges into the sea – with a clutch of siblings and cousins – were obviously calling. The best childhood memories involve the sea and yet, as adults, most of us steer clear of the briney.
Rod was waiting for me at the West Cork Surf School hut. He was standing in for the owner Colum, who had made a snap decision to surf in Bali for three weeks. News was out that the surf was up out east.

Rod had just finished his day job in Cork and driven down here to finish the working week instructing me to ride waves.
“I thought we’d have to call it off for a moment there,” said Rod, referring to the recently departed rain storm. It’s good to know that even seasoned surfers don’t feel the need to brave the sharpest of elements.

Having rolled rubber up over our bodies – to defy the cold sea – we waddled in our wetsuits over to the surfboards. The only other natural substance I’ve slid across is snow and the equipment – in the form of skis and snow boards – doesn’t come much taller than the person they’re attached to. So when a nine-foot surfboard is handed to me I wonder how I’ll ever control the thing both in the water and out. If you carry one on your own the wind turns you into a human sand-yacht.

The only other natural substance I’ve slid across is snow and the equipment – in the form of skis and snowboards – doesn’t come much taller than the person they’re attached to. So when a nine-foot surfboard is handed to me I wonder how I’ll ever control the thing both in the water and out. If you carry one on your own the wind turns you into a human sand-yacht.

The two of us carry one end each and walk past the front of the Inchydoney hotel – and its decently dressed clients – in our black skin-tight suits and head calmly down a slipway into the sea. As we descend into the water I discover that wetsuits work wonderfully.

The waves are small, which is a relief. I hop up onto the board, lying tummy down with my toes tucked over the back. Lesson one is on how to catch a wave. “Paddle, paddle, “says Rod as a breaker comes my way and I do a pathetic front crawl – arms outstretched across the board – happy in the knowledge that Rod will give me a push to assist propulsion. I instantly understand the appeal of surfing as I glide into shore on substantial wave power. Exhilarated I grab the board and head straight back out to sea. I really, really want to do that again……and again.

After four tries Rod breaks the news that I really should try to stand up. We wade out onto the beach, lie the board onto the sand (digging a hole for its rudder-thingy) and he demonstrates. “You lie on your tummy like this. You tuck your toes under like this and then you….” Flip, suddenly he’s standing up.

“Some people,” he smiles indulgently, “cheat and get onto their knees first, before standing.”
I don’t feel ready to mock such a two-phase advancement to an upright position. Had I had about six month’s warning I could have toned my stomach and arm muscles to aid the upward propulsion. Instead I just lay on my stomach, on a board, on a beach – watch by a fit surfing instructor – wondering how I was going to get my body from down to up in nought to two seconds.
It happened – with a lot of effort – but it can’t have been a beautiful sight because Rod was soon eating his mocking works. “You might want to try kneeling first,” he suggested.
Back into the sea, wave comes, I pretend to paddle, Rod pushes the board and I’m off. Crawl onto knees and then up, a bit too late, just standing on a motion-free board long after thee wave has broken.

Determination takes over – I go again. Stand up, fall off, go through a spin cycle under water, find feet, back out to sea and again. I’m torn now; Rod is getting colder and colder but insists I carry on. “You have a go and warm up,” I say, but he won’t.

As I get churned under water, struggle to stand up and wade endlessly back out to sea I’m having the best time. I haven’t laughed so consistently for ages – probably due to weakness and helplessness as well as the feel good negative ions being hurled around by the sea.
Climbing back onto the board becomes more and more of a fish flop – if the whale watchers came by now they’d surely think they’d found a prize (albeit beached) specimen. I’m drenched, I’m exhausted and pathetically giggly and gliding helplessly along on waves. I don’t really crack the standing – only ever getting to my feet long after the wave has gone.
Eventually Rod is beginning to turn blue with cold and I’m turning to jelly, so we head back to the hut. Then the cold hits and luxury, I pad next door to the Inchydoney hotel, run a very deep hot bath and bliss out – happy that I pushed myself to do something that was bit of a struggle.
For all the relaxation treatments available to stressed out office workers – the best antidotes to everyday life are up mountains and in the sea.

Gulping and snorting saltwater while tumbling over and over, I thought about the one piece of advice Colm – aka Big Red – had given us back on the beach: never turn your surfboard between you and the waves. Because if a wave hits you, the board could knock you out and under.

As seawater streamed from my nose and stung my eyes, I’d like to say I thought about getting right back up on that goddamn board. But mostly I just thought about the pain in my nostrils – which were burning like I’d snorted caustic soda – and whether my hair was a mess.

Taking three steps forward and two steps back, I battled back from the shore to the implacable Colm. He was waiting waist-deep in water, dressed in a wetsuit, yellow cagoule and green woolly hat.

Big Red: “One more go then?”
Wee Blondie: “One more go then.”

And another and another until finally I was up, riding my first wave. Surfing coach Colm McAuley runs the burgeoning surf school on Inchydoney Beach, just two miles from Clonakilty in west Cork. Although, you wouldn’t think it when you see the car he’s driving. Colm trundles down the drive to his surf hut, past the Mercs, Beamers and Audis parked outside the Inchydoney Lodge & Spa, where I am staying for the weekend. In his rusting white Ford Escort estate, tail lights missing and a window permanently down, he seems more Del Boy than Big Kahuna.

But Colm is a fully-insured ISA qualified instructor and lifeguard. His strong sinewy frame and mess of red hair speak of a life lived out of doors. “It’s hard to keep a car with all this saltwater around,” he says laconically. I glance up to the car park above and have a wee smirk, thinking about the guests bent on rejuvenation while their swanky vehicles are being devoured by the grey mist of the sea.

Standing barefoot in a puddle, I prise on a damp, smelly layer of neoprene and wonder if, after only one night in Inchydoney, I could be turning soft. Because for the first time in years, I’m not really looking forward to getting into the sea.

The day before I had driven from a frenetic, pre-Christmas Dublin to the very tip of west Cork. It seemed like the edge of the world.

The Lodge & Spa sits on a headland on Inchydoney Island, and each room looks out over the pale crescent beaches to the Atlantic and beyond.

Inchydoney promises relaxation, rejuvenation, excellent food and wine and yes, unadulterated luxury; my every whim catered for. But, unusually for a member of the female species, luxurious surroundings make me a little nervous.

Claustrophobic, even. I had come to West Cork to look out to the sea and not back at the land.

My usual holiday trips consist of waking up and crawling out a tent door, not waking up, slipping on my complimentary robe and switching on the cable TV. I’d be more likely to be found showering under a cold pump than being hydro-massaged by automatic multi-jets.

But walking into the foyer of Inchydoney Lodge & Spa, the open fire and proffered glass of port is hard to resist.

The old Alsatian guarding the doorway winks and snuffles his approval. Just this once, I decide to give in and be pampered.

My travelling companion is a bit harder to convince.

En route to our bedroom we pass smiling men and women wearing nothing but towelling robes and slippers. “It’s not very. . .manly,” he hisses.

By the next day, he’s in his own robe and slippers and making his way to the hotel’s thalassotherapy centre. The centre is divided into private rooms where you can have aeromarine baths, a seawater jet shower, algae application, cryotherapy (leg wrap of marine algae to improve circulation), pressotherapy (promotes lymphatic drainage), marine brumisation (inhalation of ionised seawater mist to improve breathing) and physiotherapy.

There is also a steam room, sauna, gymnasium, beauty clinic, and a relaxation room overlooking the ocean. Below, a heated seawater pool has counter current swimming, waterfalls, geyser spas, microbubble seats, underwater massage seats, neck showers and an aqua-gymnastic area.For Inchydoney guests willing to step outside the spa, the surrounding area offers much to explore. The hotel staff can arrange excursions to the Old Head of Kinsale golf links course, horse riding and deep sea fishing and diving. Shoppers can while away the afternoon in Clonakilty, and the nearby villages of Timoleague and Courtmacsherry provide a good day out for families. Timoleague is known for its impressive ruined Franciscan Abbey which was sacked in 1649.

The more active can arrange to go deep-sea angling or shark fishing, or book horse riding at the Courtmacsherry Hotel. Watch the windsurfers bob like Subbuteo players in the grey green seas of Courtmacsherry’s Ardigeen firth; one flick of a finger of wind and they are off, careering across the waves.

If watching this high-octane living is too much exertion for you, head to the pier house pub – known locally as John Young’s – and meet the locals: Dutch, Belgians, Austrians, Swedes, British and, if you’re lucky, maybe even a few Irish. Contemplating the spa treatments ahead of us, we decide to stay indoors and take the plunge in the seawater pool. We marvel at the luxury of swimming in the sea, inside, while looking at the sea, outside.

Then my companion begins to look shifty. “I was thinking, well, with all this wind, it would be a waste not to get my kite up on the beach – you go on ahead and get wrapped in seaweed,” he says.

But I am adamant; I’m not going into the breach alone.

And to convince him that spas are not just for girls, I have lined up an afternoon of ‘manly’ spa treatments, including a deep tissue massage – with a masseuse, of course. I decide to avoid all the pummelling, prodding and pasting the spa has to offer, and go for a Reiki session and an Elemis facial with Anna, my therapist. I ask Anna if Reiki involves all sorts of spooky goings on with body energy and spirits, while secretly believing that it’s a load of hokum.

She just smiles. I discover that Reiki is a completely calming, destressing hour, where Anna’s hands act like a mini solar panel on different parts of the body. She concentrates on ‘aligning the energies’ in my head and shoulders, where she says I have a lot of stress.

Anna also works around my heart, which she says “needs nurturing’‘. At the end of the session, I remark at the warmth of her hands.

“They’re freezing,” she says, holding them out. “The heat was your energy.” The spooky feeling about Reiki returns when I touch her hands and they are indeed stone cold.

The entire session, including a facial, lasts three hours and I emerge from the room in a bubble of calm. I find my companion back in our room, supine, and still wearing the ubiquitous cotton robe. He ouches about the rigours of an unrelenting massage while I ooh and ahh about my reiki and facial. We both realise that all this relaxing doesn’t stop you working up an appetite, and rush to dress for dinner.

Sating that appetite is where Inchydoney excels.

From the first hors d’oeuvre to the last petit feure, Inchydoney is culinary heaven.

As we watch the ocean crashing from behind the panoramic windows of the Gulfstream Restaurant, I am sure Anna must be putting her magic hands to work in the kitchen too.

Inchydoney uses fresh local produce to create a fusion of modern French and light Mediterranean cuisine.

Head chef Mark Kirby excels with coastal seafood – turbot, sole and shellfish – made all the more enjoyable by the fact that the calories of each meal are kept to a minimum. And so, when I step out of the hotel the next morning for my appointment with Colm the surfer, I’m not quite the girl I was. After only one day, Inchydoney living has softened me up.

Or maybe I’m not merely put off by the rain, cold and waves. Having swam, bodyboarded, dived and snorkelled in the sea for years, maybe this waterbaby is just afraid of failure.

But then we’re on the beach practising the one swift movement that brings you from paddling to surfing: pushing up with your arms, drawing your knees into your chest, slamming your feet down spread apart, knees bent, arms out. And then we’re in the sea, doing it for real.

After the lesson I run shivering from the beach in my swimsuit, dripping triumphantly through the hotel lobby. Would I swap my wetsuit for a cotton robe? No thanks. Luckily, at Inchydoney, you can have both.