Now that we are moving into winter, it's time for a reflection on some of the highlights of Blue Coast's third season running.
It was again a challenging year in terms of weather with some unusual weather patterns throughout the summer. It was great to see a consistent stretch of nice weather to close out our season in October, and despite the ever-changing weather throughout the year, we are grateful to all of our customers for their continued support and bookings. The weather doesn't matter when you're in the sea though, and often adds an additional element of adventure to the experience! It was a pleasure delivering activities to all this year and we are looking forward to the 2025 season already.
We would like to say thank you to the communities of Cullen & Portknockie for their continued support of Blue Coast. We are a part of these places and hope to continue to contribute positively in the years to come.
We are also ever grateful for the positive reviews we receive on Tripadvisor, Google, and Facebook, keeping us right and letting us know we are doing a good job. We are proud to be one of the consistently highest reviewed surf schools in Scotland and our focus is always on delivering a top-quality experience for every customer.
Some news and highlights from our season:
.png)
Blue Lighthouse
Blue Lighthouse is a not-for-profit social enterprise delivering surfing sessions as a wellbeing initiative for public sector workers, including NHS, emergency services, military, social workers, and teachers. It has long been a project I've personally wanted to get up and running, inspired by programmes like Op Surfwell for Devon and Cornwall Police and Operation Surf in California for military veterans.
This year with some great partners we put together the plans for our programme and ran a Crowdfunder campaign to raise funds to run our pilot programme in 2025. We were fully funded, raising £1140 donated by 32 generous pledgers. This in addition to our other fundraising efforts and the generous support of dryrobe supplying us with some warm gear for participants will allow us to run a 2 session pilot programme for 16 participants in 2025, gathering evidence of the impact on personal and organisational wellbeing and helping secure a sustainable future for the initiative.
I'm personally very grateful to everyone who has believed in, shown enthusiasm for, and donated to this project, helping bring it to life. I can't wait to run the first sessions next year!
Our Surf Shack
The Blue Coast fleet expanded this year to include our new mobile surf shack based at Cullen Beach, leaving our original trailer free to move between Cullen Harbour and Portknockie Harbour to deliver Coasteering and Paddleboard activities. This has been a crucial part of our development as a business and solves a number of logistical problems for us - we're very happy! We have big plans to make the shack more surf-shack like, which we didn't quite get round to in 2024. Look out for this next season!
Coasteering Adventures
2024 was our first full season of delivering Coasteering after getting set up in 2023. From scrambling the cliffs and feeling the power of the waves, to exploring caves and jumping in to the North Sea, it's been brilliant to offer a new activity to visitors to the area, encompassing the stunning coastline around the iconic Bow Fiddle Rock. We've welcomed families, couples and large groups as Coasteering proved to be one of our most popular offerings this year. We're looking forward to building on this next year with increased staff capabilities!
The Blue Coast Team
Our team this year was bolstered by a full-time instructor (Keir) in summer, helping us expand capacity as we added Coasteering to our full-time activities. Keir was a great addition to the summer team and we wish him all the best in his new role at the Lost Shore Surf Resort!
A big thanks to the rest of the team this year, including EmmieJo and AdamM who have been a great help all season, and the various freelance instructors that supported our delivery this year. We are developing an in-house training programme for next year to keep our team's training top-notch and continually developing and to reduce our reliance on external training providers. If you're interested in joining the Blue Coast Team on a casual or freelance basis, please keep an eye on our jobs page. We will also be recruiting in January for a 2025 full-time summer instructor.
Moray Digital Development Grant
We were delighted to receive grant funding from The Moray Council Moray Digital Development Grant, funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and would like to extend a big thanks you to The Moray Council and Moray Business Gateway for making this possible. This grant partially funds an ambitious software application that will greatly improve our customer communications and operational procedures. We're very excited about this project which is currently in development, and can't wait to see the result!
Group Bookings
Large group bookings have continued to be an important part of our offering in 2024. We're grateful to have delivered feel-good coastal adventures for a wide variety of groups this year, including NHS, RAF, Police, Ellon Academy, NESCOL, Gordonstoun School, and many others. It's great to see the group dynamic change and develop when taking part in adventurous and fun activities in the coastal environment, and we believe this is an ideal way to bring your team or students together in a positive way.
We are accepting group bookings for 2025 with our calendar already filling up for April and May. If you would like to get your workplace or school or youth group involved, please contact us to enquire.
The Blue Coast Shop
Due to customer demand, we have expanded the range of offerings in our online shop to include a range of quality winter wetsuits and accessories from Alder, as well as more options for quality tried & tested surfboards and paddleboards. If you're in the market for a gift or even a treat for yourself, all of our board/wetsuit purchases come with free UK-wide delivery and a free lesson voucher for board purchases! All of the kit we sell is high-quality and instructor recommended with everything you need to get in the water in the box. Have a browse of the shop and look out for our Black Friday deals!
We also offer gift vouchers for all of our activities which are delivered digitally and are also posted out as card gift vouchers once a week. An ideal Christmas gift - a feel-good coastal adventure!
As we wrap up 2024, we’re already looking forward to Blue Coast Season 4! We’re excited to continue evolving and sharing the joy of the sea with all of you.
Thank you for being part of our journey this year. Whether you joined us on the water, supported our initiatives, or simply followed along online, your support is hugely appreciated. Here's to adventures ahead!
See you at the beach,
Adam & The Blue Coast Team 🤙
