Large numbers of children and young people spend their weekends and holidays engaged in the activities of over 300 surf clubs across Australia each summer. Long term membership in these clubs, beginning from as young as five years of age, forms a significant part of children's and young people's development yet surf clubs have yet to receive recognition from researchers in either the education or physical education fields as significant learning sites. Within the context of growing recognition of learning as an ongoing, multidimensional and life-long process this represents an oversight in the literature that this paper sets out to redress. Employing the concepts of communities of practice and situated learning (Lave & Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998) it examines four young people's experiences as members of a Victorian surf club as a community of practice. It also compares the experiences of these young people in the surf club with those arising from membership in their schools and sports clubs.