A Sri Lankan surf camp helped me overcome the grief of my father’s death

Bam! An immense wall of water hits me in the chest, knocking the breath from me and forcing me backwards, off my feet. A strong tug on my right ankle pulls me sideways now, as the leash anchoring me to my surfboard draws taut, the board straining and thrashing to get away.

Coughing and spluttering I fight to regain my footing, using a brief respite from the onslaught to gather my senses, rub salt water from my eyes and pull my board closer before… Bam! Another, bigger, wave hits me and I’m back to square one.

The waves (a “set” in surfer lingo) are relentless, and I think of nothing but staying upright and trying to find a moment to jump onto my board and paddle out behind the so-called “impact zone”, the very spot where the waves are breaking.

It is 7am on Weligama Beach in Sri Lanka, the morning after a full moon and the tail end of a once-a-year storm. The sea seems angry – no, livid. Always at its most charged after a full moon, the ocean delivers wave after wave of torrid, salty water and it’s pounding me in the same way that life has dealt me blow after relentless blow over the past 18 months.

In early 2023 my world fell apart when my beloved father died. He was my person, and he was cruelly ripped from our close family by cancer, a lymphoma that should have been highly treatable but instead seemed determined to claim him; turning a fit, active 78-year-old into a shadow almost overnight.

The terminal diagnosis came just three weeks before the end; a death that none of us wanted and that dad fought till his last, bitter breath. I still can’t bear to recall those days, the pain remains too much.

For 18 months I have smothered my grief with busy-ness. Trying to adjust to the new shape of life while burying myself in dealing with his affairs, my own work and finishing the complex renovation on my home.

In September, as his birthday loomed into view, I could no longer tread water; overwhelmed by the monstrous weight of my responsibilities, unable to prioritise nor, crucially, to give his memory the time it deserved.

As the tears started flowing again, I knew I needed to get away: my solution to most things in life is to bolt, preferably onto a plane, and I knew I needed to get physically away from everyday life to digest this immense loss.

Travel has always been my re-set, reminding me of the tiny place in the world that I occupy, especially when surrounded by the heat, bustle and humidity of Asia. I craved sunrises and sunsets, to feel awakened from the grey, pallid existence of rainy October in the UK, to meet new people, surround myself with a different culture and eat different foods. I also needed the sea.

So one Sunday I booked flights to Colombo and flew out just five days later to join a retreat at Soul & Surf in Ahangama on Sri Lanka’s south coast. It promised good food, good company, good surfing for beginners and a safe, nurturing environment that would afford me the space I needed to do as little or as much as I wanted. And right then, all I wanted was a week without pressure.

Soul & Surf’s pretty pink and white, eight-room hotel sits just metres from the Indian Ocean. I could open the shutters of my room and look straight out onto a small bay, waves breaking over a reef, a view framed by palm trees.

“I feel alive,” I texted my partner after our first sunrise surf. I’d caught every single wave and felt exhilarated, lighter and more confident. Granted, I’d had some help being placed onto the waves, but I’d stood up and surfed along, remembering how to turn from a few lessons I’d had in Sumba, Indonesia, in 2017.

Our international group of 11 – all female, from Lebanon to Switzerland, all aged between 23 and 49 – had begun with a warm-up on the beach that included meditative “box breathing”.

Surfing involves a lot of breath holding (when you’re tumbling through a wave, waiting to find the surface, the longer you can hold your breath the better) and head coach Sangeeth asked us to breathe in for a count of four, hold it, breathe out and hold it, all for a count of four – while sitting on the sand looking out to sea.

I sat cross legged, breathing slowly and consciously while wrestling my busy mind – until some stray dogs broke the spell by trying to copulate, providing much-needed levity to the situation and our apprehensive gang.

Weligama, just along the coast from Soul & Surf, is perfect for beginners with a clean, 1m swell on most days (except during stormy full moons). Sri Lanka has only opened up to surfing tourism in the past couple of decades but now it’s a popular spot for learning thanks to kind, warm water and welcoming people.

But it’s taken time – the country lost 30,000 inhabitants in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 and in its aftermath, explained 26-year-old Sangeeth, many were terrified of the ocean, including his parents.

The night of the full moon I’d had horribly vivid dreams. As well as sunrise and sunset surf and a video analysis session, the retreat includes yoga every afternoon on the hotel’s open air yoga shala.

During the previous evening’s yin session I’d been entirely unable to get my body to stretch. I can normally force myself to do something – whether physical or emotional – but this time, my body resolutely refused. Perhaps it was the busy schedule or perhaps I was just tuning in.

Some 70 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population are Buddhist, and bar manager Asanka had taken every opportunity to teach me snippets of his people’s philosophy – like presenting me with a king coconut to drink with two hands, indicative of giving without expectation of receiving. And he spoke a lot about acceptance.

Frustrated at my inability to bend at first, I’d given in and just lay on my back in the dark listening to the sound of the waves crashing beneath the deck and let acceptance wash over me.

Acceptance that it was OK to not constantly achieve, that it was OK to be here, that losing my father didn’t need to be a barrier to happiness. But afterwards I was restless and wakeful all night long – full moon craziness. At one point I got up to watch the stormy sea raging beneath my balcony lit by the heavy, milky moon hanging low in the sky, pulling away the water and my sleep.

I’d dragged myself out of bed at 6am feeling dazed and melancholy. I don’t often dream of my dad and while lovely at the time, it’s miserable to wake up and remember he is gone.

But standing in the warm, foamy white waters of the Indian Ocean, I let the wildness of that sea quite literally beat the emotions out of me. I couldn’t fail to feel entirely present right there in that very moment, nowhere else.

Eventually, I inched my way out of the impact zone, paddling as strongly as I could to the “outside” – the area behind where the waves were breaking.

Sangeeth knew I just wanted to get on a wave and surf my way in.

“Paddle, paddle, paddle,” he urged while pushing me onto a wave, then whooped with joy as I popped up, simultaneously pushing my body off the board and landing with two feet at the same time. I surfed that wave all the way to the beach, enjoying the childish thrill that everything had finally aligned. It’s only possible to surf a wave when you give yourself the headspace to feel and forget all expectations.

That this pummelling of my senses happened on “Poya” (the name given by Sri Lankans for the monthly full-moon holiday) is all the more auspicious.

As I tucked into my rice and curry that evening, I felt the beginning of a new acceptance and calmness that I hoped to carry with me on my return home to winter and the relentless barrage of busy-ness. An acceptance that dad is with me, but in a different way to before, and that it is OK for life to be happy again.

How to do it

Abigail Butcher was a guest of Soul & Surf (01273 931282), which offers seven-night retreats from £945pp, including five sessions of surf tuition, five video analysis sessions, six group yoga sessions, four evening meals, six breakfasts and lunches. Ahangama is a two to three-hour drive from Colombo Airport. Sri Lankan Airlines operates daily direct flights from LHR.