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We are on the beach at Cayton Bay, south of Scarborough, listening to James Turner, the tutor from Scarborough Surf School: "This is the nose and this is the tail." He's talking about the surf board. "These are the rails ... " The sides in other words.

I love all the surf talk. I want to get good in surf talk. After all, it's a lifestyle, isn't it? A surf shop owner told me once that a customer bought a top-of-the-range board, then asked him to drill eight holes through it. He didn't want to go near the sea, just bolt it permanently to his car roof-rack.

I've a sneaking suspicion that I fall into this "lifestyle surfer" category. Last summer I wore a T-shirt that read "Enter the Realm". It was something to do with surfing, I knew that much, and it made me feel good. I was in the Realm. Except I wasn't. Now I'm in the realm. The greyish-brown North Sea, with a sharp wind bowling in from the Baltic. Can this really be the next big thing in British surfing?

"Yes," says James emphatically. "With modern suits, the cold is not an issue out here, and we've got some fantastic surf. I've had water five times as tall as me in some spots. Barrel-rolls that you could fit a van inside."

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