Sugar Rush

The winters in Holland often feel numbing with half cold, half rainy days. The blood is pumped through the veins at a slower pace. Everything seems to slow down and come to a rest. To me the Christmas holidays are the peak of that period. Everybody comes together to embrace the the laziness to it's full extend. Then people go and celebrate the new year. Big parties and big resolutions. Personally, I like to skip the new years chaos. In my opinion there is no better way of getting the blood pumping through the veins again, than with some very strong Moroccan mint tea (lots of sugar of course). Hope the waves will be as good as two years ago.

Coffee Addiction

I used to be a real morning person, the type of guy who would sit in the line-up before anybody else. Since I am living together with my girlfriend things have changed a little though. In stead of jumping up as soon as my alarm goes off, I can now barely open my eyes without a proper cup of coffee. Every morning I wake up to the hypnotizing sound of my Senseo machine. It feels as though the sound is massaging my brain into an alert state, before I even get to take the first sip of that sweet black life elixir...I love coffee!

Autumn Waves

You know winter is near when the last leafs have fallen off the trees and the first bigger swells find their way to the dutch beaches. In Holland bigger swells usually come with a lot of wind, but sometimes everything is perfect and you might think you are looking at the Atlantic (except of that the water is coffee brown, rather than blue). This clip was shot on one of these days, where seals join you and you think that they most be as excited as you are. Enjoy!

Indo Part 2

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I always liked to explore places off the beaten track, but I never was the kind of traveler who would jump into complete uncertainty. Before my last trip to Indonesia and especially the Mentawai Islands, I would make an effort to get away from the crowds, but the way I did that was in a huge four wheel drive Suzuki Jeep. This trip really made me appreciate traveling by more unconventional means. I am talking about riding little fisher boats, constantly busy scooping out the water with a little bucket, or driving through mainland Sumatra with a Soviet time bus. These are the kind of moments that you look back to and start smiling...

Indo Part 1

Finally, I managed to put together a little clip from my trip to Indo this summer. The first part was shot on Simeulue Island and features some footage from Dylan's right. Part 2 of my trip will follow shortly. Enjoy!

Simeulue

Simeulue

As promised some first glimpses from my trip with Ben to Sumatra this summer. The first stop of our journey was the sleepy island of Simeulue, where people spend their days chilling around rather than doing actual work. Apparently, there are vast resources of gold which is why people don't bother making their money any other way. During our time on Simeulue, we stayed at the surf camp of a friendly local women called Nanik. Her camp offered everything a surfer could ask for, including scooters, delicious food, and a very non-threatening watch dog called Bulley. The best feature of her place was that it was only a 5 minute bike ride from a spot called Dylan's right, which is a classic Indonesian wave, with plenty of barrels if the swell hits it right. Besides Dylan's there was a spot called Teabags, which you could reach by fisher boat for 5$ a ride. This is a very fast rolling right hander, which curls over razor sharp reef on a remote island. We surfed it the first day and we scored some nice head-high barrels. Other than those two spots there are only some mediocre spots, not really what I expected from Indonesia.

Going back in time - Seppel the Seperation

The other day when I was busy cataloging some of my old pictures I stumbled upon a few movie clips that I have edited back in the days. This one dates back to 2005 when I spend a month with my buddy Markus (who filmed all the footage) down at the Cote the Landes. During that trip I crossed off two important milestones in every surfers life. First and most importantly I pulled into the first barrel (closeout) of my life and secondly I broke my first board. The sad thing was that it was not just some surfboard (by now I have broken quite a few of those), but it was my first and last custom made board. It was a sad moment and I sometimes still shed a tear when I look at the two peaces of my beautiful Fatum surfboard. Enjoy!

Costa Caparica

After a couple of weeks of behind the desk, saltwater shots is finally back with some action from Lisbon Portugal. In fact this was a very special trip for me, because I was able to meet up with my good friend Malte who is doing a semester abroad there. Together with Florian, I took a super cheap flight down to Porto, from where we took a train to Lisbon. I was super psyched, two of my best friends and the opportunity to score some great waves. Unfortunately, Flo managed to cripple his hand when he fell on a bottle, dancing drunkenly in the club, just a couple of weeks before the trip. On the bright side, I was able to take one extra board and probably nobody would have taken any pictures, if not Florian ;p. All these pictures were taken at the beautiful Costa Caparica, just outside of Lisbon. Overall, it was a great trip with great friends, great food, and great waves. 

Wind Chop - Noordwijk

I know, I know it's slowly getting old that I keep on posting clips and pictures of some crappy waves, but unfortunately we haven't been blessed with any substantial swell in Holland lately (OR I just couldn't convince my camera team aka Yasmine to come). Although the surf sucks and the action sucks even harder I hope I can make up for it with some chilled out tunes and keep everybody psyched about my blog till I start posting some more interesting stuff (I am going to Portugal and Sumatra this summer, which should be sickkk!!!). Alright enough excuses....Enjoy!

Jesus Freaks

One cool thing about surfing in Holland is that you can find a webcam at almost every beach in the country. I am not sure how many hours I've spend monitoring the water surface, always in the hope to spot some nice clean lines at one of the nearby spots. What I slowly come to realize is that this little electronic eye can be quiet deceiving at times, and even though it looks like clean 3 ft lines rolling towards the shore, you have to realize that the situation at the beach might be a little bit less encouraging. Usually, it is the moment that I drive down the promenade of Katwijk spotting some figures with long paddles and even longer boards, floating around like Jesus Christ, that I realize that I have been fooled once again...

Easter waves - Katwijk aan Zee

This is a little clip from my session on easter sunday. The previous day it was quiet windy so I was hoping for some cleaned out waist-high waves. Unfortunately, as so often most of the energy already faded out and the waves were only knee high and without any power. Still it was a fun session and living in the Netherlands I learned that you can't be too picky. Enjoy!