the september sessions
hey folks,
its been a while since i wrote something down, but what happened in jena and the rest fo germany isnt interesting at all. and for the reason that i didnt blog in english lately during my new zealand visit i will go on practising my english from now on right here. anyway.
'the september sessions' is actually a very good surf-trip-documentation made by jack johnson (yeah the singer jack johnson) in the early years of this century. but for the reason that i stayed for about three weeks on the beach doing nothing else but surfing, sleeping and eating awesome food this can easily be called the september sessions. and you wont believe just how incredible the weather down there has been during this early autumn days. we had 25-30 degrees pretty much all the time. just about 3-4 cloudy and only 2 rainy days which still allowed you to run around in short and hoody. and i didnt evan start to talk about the french girls yet ;) the heat was so intense that a had to run out of the sun pretty much every days at midday cause you risk a headache or a sunburn which meant not going back in the water later the day. but it was not warm all the time, most of the nights were very cold. maybe at about 6-8 degrees and the whole camp was freezing all night. oh yeah i will talk about the camp later. but the good thing about the cold night was the water temperature at 7.30 or at 8 when i mostly hit the water. it was way warmer than the air. so in pretty much all of my morning sessions - and i had a lot - at first it was ugly getting in a cold and wet wetsuit and i had to run to the beach to get a little warm. but the sand was evan colder or at least it appeared colder. but once i was getting a warm from jogging up the long hill to the beach and hit the water it felt so warm, that i was pretty sure to dont get back out of the water until the sun rose and warmed up the rest of the world around me. but it was always a very special moment, cause the frenchies are not keen to go surfing that early. so i was always sitting by myself and maybe a few other keen foreigners in a glassy lake-like ocean with waves that sometimes peel so perfect that it was worth getting up so early evan if i didnt evan surfed one wave yet. if you looked to the right you got a clear view to the mountains in the south which made the view evan better. they rise from the shore not too far away and actually always seemed like think and dark clouds just with a clear outline.
by the way, how did i got in this situation?! i wanna go back surfing since i arrived in germany in april. but i always had problems to find travelmates or a car or both. but in the last days of august i got the name of a guy who is gonna travel down south soon from jena. so i picked up my board and jumped in on 5th and we were first heading west. we slept the first night on an old castle which provided a laser- and lightshow for us at night and went on the next days to a city voted as the most beautiful in france for the last years. the city was old, built in the midages and still had the same look like 1000 years. by the way it smelled like the midages too... we went out for dinner and enjoyed the touristic nightlife which seemed more fittet to tourist above 50. anyway it was a good and kind of romantic day. the next day we went to the ocean and enthusiasticly awaited the first smell or sound of the salty atlantic ocean. and what can i tell you we arrived, went in the water right away and had very clean offshore-wind conditions and the banks were pumping. the people later told me that this was the best surf in about two weeks. we finished and built up the tent right when the leftovers from a hurricane came over and an incredible strong wind was pretty much blowing of the roof or better our tent. you couldnt evan go up the sand dunes to watch it. the next day it settled and i was dropped of a surf camp in vieux boucau which was my destination for the following 18 days. although it wasnt as cheap as my usual trips and in a surfcamp which i dont like that much at all - it was good to be somewhere where i can take a bigger board if necessary, talk to the surfcoaches or get some tips and of cause enjoy amazing food without evan cooking one time. i might eat more than necessary every day because it was available all day and yummy. the following days were just about settling and getting back the fitness and surf as much as possible of cause.
the funny thing was actually that as i left the weather starts shifting, it went from warm to cold and it starts to rain from time to time. although we never really had a long stretch of summer so it appeared that fall had begun. silvios birthday party was my last night and i went down to do some of the good drugs in life. the good thing was that right now as i sit back here in jena, the rain and cold doesnt matter to me at all so i guess the mood is gonna be good for a long time. plans are already made for a short marocco visit during christmas and costa rica is definatly booked for april if anybody is keen to join me.
the september sessions went on with also shifting wave conditions. they were different from the weather. we had onshore waves, big 2-2.5m waves and evan funny and good 0.5m waves. but the surfconditions might not be that interesting. i faced once again the situation that without a bunch of travelguys as i was used to surf with. this became more important than it should be. it is the fact that you get somewhere to have a good time and make the most of it, instead i was there just for improving and drown the thurst for more waves specially during the dry spell of german winter. so if there is nothing to surf, there is once again nothing else to do, which ends up in hanging around and killing every hour. i hate this. but dont get me wrong, its still an awesome time and place to be. but its that state of mind that you doesnt really lose yourself in the situation and the moment, because the one thing on a trip - surfing - matter too much. for example matthias, frank and i played endless one-on-one battles during lack of swell. anyway. the group in the camp was mostly pretty funny, its just that there are 25 new people every week and all of them are beginners. so no session together. some where almost teenies and some just weird. actually none was there just for the surf but for holiday and party. which made me explain and justify myself pretty much every day for not going out until 3 in the morning and drinking heaps of alcohol, cause i dont wanna miss 7.30 offshore sessions for something i can do the rest of the year. but they didnt depend on surfing as much as i did, just a few are gonna understand when the rush and thrill of surfing has occupied them completly as it did to me. but as i remember there were about two guys altogether that made it out in the lineup with me - evan in the morning - cause they already got that thirst in there eyes for experience moments like sunrises or the calmness of the ocean just before its raw and furious power is gonna explode with or wothout me on the next wave - the waves that rises out of nothing and lift you up so you wont get life straight for a while, because you are high as a junkie or they are gonna take you down and role you over and over and over to make you feel your breakfast from the day before yesterday. these guys were fun cause they dont pull back they like me let it happen whatever is gonna happen if you devote youself to the probably most powerful thing a human beeing can explore.
on two days during my second week the waves were flat. pretty flat. about 0.5m high so there was no way of getting my shortboard ready. but i remembered kelly slaters words that i already explained to you in an early blog. so i went out to catch "20". i took a malibu, a way longer and thicker board. during those cold nights we had, the sun needed much longer than usual to warm up the atmosphere. that meant that the morning offshore wind conditions last much longer than before. you could easily get some offshore bombies at 1pm. so i went down with this massive board and there were already some local longboarders in the water riding smoothly and soft the left sandbar i was gonna surf too. they walked up and down these long boards twisting themselfes and bringing the board always in the right position of the wave which actually seemed to go for ages - just incredible long. it was like an artform and everybody was smiling and made jokes. sure i didnt understand cause it was french. they evan rode waves together - three guys on one waves - yelling like little kids and the german fellow was sitting right in between and watch this spectacle smiling. of cause i had some really good and very long rides too, walking a little foward and back and bringing my board in the perfect position of the small but constantly breaking waves. what a session.
just one day later a new swell fresh born from iceland appeared at the horizon and roled its way through the sandbanks to the shoreline. 1.5-2m and no wind for the most of the following days. the same lefthander i just surfed on a malibu was pumping and some chest to headhigh hollow ones coming through. i was out on my shortboard just overcome the already really heavy shorebreak and now faced the current that try to suck me too deep in the waves breaking zone. there was one on the right coming towards me. looked big. i swallowed and thought for a second but finally overcame the respect and paddled for it. right on the shoulder of the wave with the collapsing lip on my right side i stood up. no soft waves like the day before. i almost freefalled for a second, cause the lips was through over so fast and in a little tube. bottom turn and up the wall racing down the line with several little bottom- and topturns. "just dont fall off but dont be scared too. risk as much as possible and try to make good and solid turns" i said to myself. just right before the heavy shorbreak i jumped off and paddled back completley stoked and full of "YEAH YEAH"s. it was kind of a breakout for my backside surfing, i was so fullfilled with happiness und pride of not pulling back anymore and of feeling more confident. i wasnt scared of any other wave after this one. i took a lot more in this session and the next days and everything in the whole wide world was just fine.
so days passed by, conditions and weather getting a little more fall like and were changing. so it happened that there was a day where the waves were just too big for the spots i surfed, maxing out the whole beach. it was a stormy and rainy day, one of 3 alltogether. my good mate jannis came over from spain, where he and his girlfriend - who was the reason he left new zealand in the first place - made romantic holiday in a campervan for about two weeks. they were on their way back and i was really looking forward to see him after half a year and half of the world in between. we didnt had a surfsession together but we were chatting about things changing and things remaining the same - kind of an update as usual in situations like that. but it was a very special moment. at night they left and moved on to wine and sightseeing and finally home. i was in the water the next day, it was sunny, big and challenging. damn for jannis.
in my last week i was somehow kind of surfed out. didnt really got the feeling like earlier or usual when i come to the ocean. usually i cant wait to wake up and run on top of the sand dunes every hour after sunrise to check the surf and once i was in my wetsuit every second and meter to the water seemed endless, so that i was running pretty much every time. no matter who i want to go surfing with, i never waited never looked back, met them in the water later - didnt care. kind of unsocial but i had other priorities ;) this week was different. it was still amazing and once i was in the water beeing challenged by the conditions which sometimes made me think twice getting wet, the burnout was gone. a gnarly shorebreak mostly scared me a little. but i think it were the undone things back home that kind of distracted me. but thats alright cause it was already a gift evan beeing there for such a long time with other responsibilities waiting back home and i am thankful for this.
the last weeks also offered some great conditions and still warm and sunny weather. unfortunatly i couldnt travel to any other place to see biarritz, the mountains or anything else. but there aint much to see at the coast anyway. every town looks the same and pinetrees and dunes in the backcountry and all over the place. nothing i havent seen a thousand times. but i still feel a little sorry to have such a straight way of holiday where everything is connected to the water and nothing else. but the few who experienced the same are gonna understand that nothing else matters, cause its gonna be gone soon for maybe a quite long time. still, i didnt wanna to be a mono-focused surfer, who just cared about party and surf. but i hadnt any other opportunity anyway.
the last days. i surfed my last session on thursday afternoon. somehow it went offshore and the tide pushed some incredible waves into the bay. it didnt look the way in the morning at all. and there it was back again: the thrill. i was back on. on tilt. whatever. keen to surf my heart out. i was honestly running back, put my wetsuit on as fast as i could and run back to the water. grining. the rest of the camp saw me running down the hill and somehow cheered me on. just for kicks, but they must have seen the smile and the expectations in my big eyes and wished me luck. it looked really good and got bigger and bigger. i surfed for 2-3 hours until i couldnt move my arms anymore and frozen so much that i started to shake. blue fingers and feet, but a happy face. an incredible last session. not really succesfully, because it was just one of those days where thing didnt happen the way you want to, but that really didnt bother me for a second. the last day, saturday came and it supposed to be the day the quiksilver pro france started about 20km down the coast. the 45 top surfer are gonna be battling for barrels. me and the surfcoach heike took the bikes. a quiet long ride with these old ones. anyway the contest was not on that day. just the u14 were surfing for an hour. as we went back we saw the worldchamp mick fanning (aus) and topten surfer damien hobgood (usa) at the carpark and i was like: "hey are you guys gonna go surf right now?" "yeah sure, right over there." they said grining. "cool i'm gonna watch you. thanx." "nice" it sounded back. they ran down the beach jump in the water and we had just 10min left to watch them. if we hadnt had ears we would be smiling in a circle. we were just stoked. the way they rip these messy shitty waves apart was just unbelievable. what an ending. we rode back and my bus was going back home right as i came back. i sat there still smiling and a little sad, but not too much. but here are a little footages of the pros.
its been a while since i wrote something down, but what happened in jena and the rest fo germany isnt interesting at all. and for the reason that i didnt blog in english lately during my new zealand visit i will go on practising my english from now on right here. anyway.
'the september sessions' is actually a very good surf-trip-documentation made by jack johnson (yeah the singer jack johnson) in the early years of this century. but for the reason that i stayed for about three weeks on the beach doing nothing else but surfing, sleeping and eating awesome food this can easily be called the september sessions. and you wont believe just how incredible the weather down there has been during this early autumn days. we had 25-30 degrees pretty much all the time. just about 3-4 cloudy and only 2 rainy days which still allowed you to run around in short and hoody. and i didnt evan start to talk about the french girls yet ;) the heat was so intense that a had to run out of the sun pretty much every days at midday cause you risk a headache or a sunburn which meant not going back in the water later the day. but it was not warm all the time, most of the nights were very cold. maybe at about 6-8 degrees and the whole camp was freezing all night. oh yeah i will talk about the camp later. but the good thing about the cold night was the water temperature at 7.30 or at 8 when i mostly hit the water. it was way warmer than the air. so in pretty much all of my morning sessions - and i had a lot - at first it was ugly getting in a cold and wet wetsuit and i had to run to the beach to get a little warm. but the sand was evan colder or at least it appeared colder. but once i was getting a warm from jogging up the long hill to the beach and hit the water it felt so warm, that i was pretty sure to dont get back out of the water until the sun rose and warmed up the rest of the world around me. but it was always a very special moment, cause the frenchies are not keen to go surfing that early. so i was always sitting by myself and maybe a few other keen foreigners in a glassy lake-like ocean with waves that sometimes peel so perfect that it was worth getting up so early evan if i didnt evan surfed one wave yet. if you looked to the right you got a clear view to the mountains in the south which made the view evan better. they rise from the shore not too far away and actually always seemed like think and dark clouds just with a clear outline.
by the way, how did i got in this situation?! i wanna go back surfing since i arrived in germany in april. but i always had problems to find travelmates or a car or both. but in the last days of august i got the name of a guy who is gonna travel down south soon from jena. so i picked up my board and jumped in on 5th and we were first heading west. we slept the first night on an old castle which provided a laser- and lightshow for us at night and went on the next days to a city voted as the most beautiful in france for the last years. the city was old, built in the midages and still had the same look like 1000 years. by the way it smelled like the midages too... we went out for dinner and enjoyed the touristic nightlife which seemed more fittet to tourist above 50. anyway it was a good and kind of romantic day. the next day we went to the ocean and enthusiasticly awaited the first smell or sound of the salty atlantic ocean. and what can i tell you we arrived, went in the water right away and had very clean offshore-wind conditions and the banks were pumping. the people later told me that this was the best surf in about two weeks. we finished and built up the tent right when the leftovers from a hurricane came over and an incredible strong wind was pretty much blowing of the roof or better our tent. you couldnt evan go up the sand dunes to watch it. the next day it settled and i was dropped of a surf camp in vieux boucau which was my destination for the following 18 days. although it wasnt as cheap as my usual trips and in a surfcamp which i dont like that much at all - it was good to be somewhere where i can take a bigger board if necessary, talk to the surfcoaches or get some tips and of cause enjoy amazing food without evan cooking one time. i might eat more than necessary every day because it was available all day and yummy. the following days were just about settling and getting back the fitness and surf as much as possible of cause.
the funny thing was actually that as i left the weather starts shifting, it went from warm to cold and it starts to rain from time to time. although we never really had a long stretch of summer so it appeared that fall had begun. silvios birthday party was my last night and i went down to do some of the good drugs in life. the good thing was that right now as i sit back here in jena, the rain and cold doesnt matter to me at all so i guess the mood is gonna be good for a long time. plans are already made for a short marocco visit during christmas and costa rica is definatly booked for april if anybody is keen to join me.
the september sessions went on with also shifting wave conditions. they were different from the weather. we had onshore waves, big 2-2.5m waves and evan funny and good 0.5m waves. but the surfconditions might not be that interesting. i faced once again the situation that without a bunch of travelguys as i was used to surf with. this became more important than it should be. it is the fact that you get somewhere to have a good time and make the most of it, instead i was there just for improving and drown the thurst for more waves specially during the dry spell of german winter. so if there is nothing to surf, there is once again nothing else to do, which ends up in hanging around and killing every hour. i hate this. but dont get me wrong, its still an awesome time and place to be. but its that state of mind that you doesnt really lose yourself in the situation and the moment, because the one thing on a trip - surfing - matter too much. for example matthias, frank and i played endless one-on-one battles during lack of swell. anyway. the group in the camp was mostly pretty funny, its just that there are 25 new people every week and all of them are beginners. so no session together. some where almost teenies and some just weird. actually none was there just for the surf but for holiday and party. which made me explain and justify myself pretty much every day for not going out until 3 in the morning and drinking heaps of alcohol, cause i dont wanna miss 7.30 offshore sessions for something i can do the rest of the year. but they didnt depend on surfing as much as i did, just a few are gonna understand when the rush and thrill of surfing has occupied them completly as it did to me. but as i remember there were about two guys altogether that made it out in the lineup with me - evan in the morning - cause they already got that thirst in there eyes for experience moments like sunrises or the calmness of the ocean just before its raw and furious power is gonna explode with or wothout me on the next wave - the waves that rises out of nothing and lift you up so you wont get life straight for a while, because you are high as a junkie or they are gonna take you down and role you over and over and over to make you feel your breakfast from the day before yesterday. these guys were fun cause they dont pull back they like me let it happen whatever is gonna happen if you devote youself to the probably most powerful thing a human beeing can explore.
on two days during my second week the waves were flat. pretty flat. about 0.5m high so there was no way of getting my shortboard ready. but i remembered kelly slaters words that i already explained to you in an early blog. so i went out to catch "20". i took a malibu, a way longer and thicker board. during those cold nights we had, the sun needed much longer than usual to warm up the atmosphere. that meant that the morning offshore wind conditions last much longer than before. you could easily get some offshore bombies at 1pm. so i went down with this massive board and there were already some local longboarders in the water riding smoothly and soft the left sandbar i was gonna surf too. they walked up and down these long boards twisting themselfes and bringing the board always in the right position of the wave which actually seemed to go for ages - just incredible long. it was like an artform and everybody was smiling and made jokes. sure i didnt understand cause it was french. they evan rode waves together - three guys on one waves - yelling like little kids and the german fellow was sitting right in between and watch this spectacle smiling. of cause i had some really good and very long rides too, walking a little foward and back and bringing my board in the perfect position of the small but constantly breaking waves. what a session.
just one day later a new swell fresh born from iceland appeared at the horizon and roled its way through the sandbanks to the shoreline. 1.5-2m and no wind for the most of the following days. the same lefthander i just surfed on a malibu was pumping and some chest to headhigh hollow ones coming through. i was out on my shortboard just overcome the already really heavy shorebreak and now faced the current that try to suck me too deep in the waves breaking zone. there was one on the right coming towards me. looked big. i swallowed and thought for a second but finally overcame the respect and paddled for it. right on the shoulder of the wave with the collapsing lip on my right side i stood up. no soft waves like the day before. i almost freefalled for a second, cause the lips was through over so fast and in a little tube. bottom turn and up the wall racing down the line with several little bottom- and topturns. "just dont fall off but dont be scared too. risk as much as possible and try to make good and solid turns" i said to myself. just right before the heavy shorbreak i jumped off and paddled back completley stoked and full of "YEAH YEAH"s. it was kind of a breakout for my backside surfing, i was so fullfilled with happiness und pride of not pulling back anymore and of feeling more confident. i wasnt scared of any other wave after this one. i took a lot more in this session and the next days and everything in the whole wide world was just fine.
so days passed by, conditions and weather getting a little more fall like and were changing. so it happened that there was a day where the waves were just too big for the spots i surfed, maxing out the whole beach. it was a stormy and rainy day, one of 3 alltogether. my good mate jannis came over from spain, where he and his girlfriend - who was the reason he left new zealand in the first place - made romantic holiday in a campervan for about two weeks. they were on their way back and i was really looking forward to see him after half a year and half of the world in between. we didnt had a surfsession together but we were chatting about things changing and things remaining the same - kind of an update as usual in situations like that. but it was a very special moment. at night they left and moved on to wine and sightseeing and finally home. i was in the water the next day, it was sunny, big and challenging. damn for jannis.
in my last week i was somehow kind of surfed out. didnt really got the feeling like earlier or usual when i come to the ocean. usually i cant wait to wake up and run on top of the sand dunes every hour after sunrise to check the surf and once i was in my wetsuit every second and meter to the water seemed endless, so that i was running pretty much every time. no matter who i want to go surfing with, i never waited never looked back, met them in the water later - didnt care. kind of unsocial but i had other priorities ;) this week was different. it was still amazing and once i was in the water beeing challenged by the conditions which sometimes made me think twice getting wet, the burnout was gone. a gnarly shorebreak mostly scared me a little. but i think it were the undone things back home that kind of distracted me. but thats alright cause it was already a gift evan beeing there for such a long time with other responsibilities waiting back home and i am thankful for this.
the last weeks also offered some great conditions and still warm and sunny weather. unfortunatly i couldnt travel to any other place to see biarritz, the mountains or anything else. but there aint much to see at the coast anyway. every town looks the same and pinetrees and dunes in the backcountry and all over the place. nothing i havent seen a thousand times. but i still feel a little sorry to have such a straight way of holiday where everything is connected to the water and nothing else. but the few who experienced the same are gonna understand that nothing else matters, cause its gonna be gone soon for maybe a quite long time. still, i didnt wanna to be a mono-focused surfer, who just cared about party and surf. but i hadnt any other opportunity anyway.
the last days. i surfed my last session on thursday afternoon. somehow it went offshore and the tide pushed some incredible waves into the bay. it didnt look the way in the morning at all. and there it was back again: the thrill. i was back on. on tilt. whatever. keen to surf my heart out. i was honestly running back, put my wetsuit on as fast as i could and run back to the water. grining. the rest of the camp saw me running down the hill and somehow cheered me on. just for kicks, but they must have seen the smile and the expectations in my big eyes and wished me luck. it looked really good and got bigger and bigger. i surfed for 2-3 hours until i couldnt move my arms anymore and frozen so much that i started to shake. blue fingers and feet, but a happy face. an incredible last session. not really succesfully, because it was just one of those days where thing didnt happen the way you want to, but that really didnt bother me for a second. the last day, saturday came and it supposed to be the day the quiksilver pro france started about 20km down the coast. the 45 top surfer are gonna be battling for barrels. me and the surfcoach heike took the bikes. a quiet long ride with these old ones. anyway the contest was not on that day. just the u14 were surfing for an hour. as we went back we saw the worldchamp mick fanning (aus) and topten surfer damien hobgood (usa) at the carpark and i was like: "hey are you guys gonna go surf right now?" "yeah sure, right over there." they said grining. "cool i'm gonna watch you. thanx." "nice" it sounded back. they ran down the beach jump in the water and we had just 10min left to watch them. if we hadnt had ears we would be smiling in a circle. we were just stoked. the way they rip these messy shitty waves apart was just unbelievable. what an ending. we rode back and my bus was going back home right as i came back. i sat there still smiling and a little sad, but not too much. but here are a little footages of the pros.
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