Great day!

*UPDATE#2*
























*UPDATE*













(Johan) We got it good today! Rat, Jay, Andrew and I had a smooth winter session. Story and pics to follow...

Here´s a few teasers though....

updated for sat night 12 o'clock

check this out now..woooohjoooo

check out this for sat 1/12/07!

It's gunna crank if the prognosis holds..who's in?? 6m swell hitting ...I'm definitely going ..RAT

What would you be thinking!?

(Jay) Seriously, I wonder what this guy was thinking when this picture was taken!

The rules of surfing, revisited...

(Johan) Surfing rules Midnight Runners style, courtesy of Troy Johnson, SURFERmag.

1. Cut someone off once and you get a look; twice and you get a talking to; three times and you get banished, plus you have the word “douchebag” stitched into your wetsuit. (Unless, of course, you rip, in which case you can do whatever you want. (That, by the way, was a joke.)

2. Cities will be mandated to erect “wax stations” on local beaches that will offer free bars of wax to surfers who’ve forgotten theirs. Hey, if nightclubs provide free tampons in women’s restrooms, we can get a little wax, right?

3. The Department of Fish & Game will finally take action, and Stingrays will be eradicated from the face of the earth forever. (Dear PETA: Please send your angry email to letters@surfermag.com).

4. It will be illegal for Hawaiians to estimate a wave’s height using the back of a wave. That is, unless they start to actually ride the backs of waves. (Dear Hawaii: Please direct all “false crack” threats to letters@surfermag.com, and no, we don’t got beef.)

5. All surf schools will just stop it. Seriously.

6. Longboarders will be required to adhere to the “Fair Use Wave Count Act of 2007.” If spotted sitting a mile offshore and paddling into an obscene amount of waves, lifeguards will confiscate the offender’s longboard and use an on-site chainsaw to remove four feet from the board length.

7. If a “surfer” is spotted walking down the beach with nine feet of leash dragging behind him in the sand, that leash will be taken from him. He will be whipped with it, and forced to surf at a hopeless beginners’ break, leashless, until he can swim, and thus earn it back.

8. If you cannot appropriately attach a surfboard to the roof of your car, you cannot ride it. Sorry.

9. The combination of spring suit and booties at a beachbreak will result in the automatic and indiscriminate confiscation of your surfboard. Period.

10. Kelly Slater will be ruled a “monopoly” under the United States’ Anti-Trust Act and banned from entering any further professional surf competitions. He will, however, be permitted to “cavort with smoking hot chicks.”

Midnight Runners strike... naah, we didn´t... It generally sucked.

(Johan) Jay and me made the world’s longest road trip for the worlds shortest surf sesh..

(Jay)
Johan arrived at my house, a little later than he'd planned. I didn't care because I had no other agenda than to tag along and enjoy the company. When he arrived to my house, he let his dog Rusty hop out the back to relieve his natural pressures. I thought it was ample time to let my dog, Nanuq, get out and show Rusty around.
While they were frolicking Johan and I packed up my gear into his car. When that was done he came in and greeted my wife and checked out the work we were in the middle of doing to our living room. Once we finally got hold of our dogs again, we were off.

The long drive started with some good conversation and guy talk, which is usually a prelude to some good music and obnoxious singing which we did almost the whole way to the destination. This trip was only made possible because Johan had some "business" to do in Sundsvall. The roads were much better than what Grant and Andrew had experienced a week before but they were still too icy for subsonic speeds. This of course subtracted time from our surf trip with every kilometer we drove.

We finally arrived to a secret location (as are all of our surf spots). We took a look and it was pretty but not quite what we were looking for. So we continued to the next spot. We've so far been calling this place "Lefties" just to differentiate between breaks. When Johan parked the car he said to me, "Dude, I think our time for surfing has come up to be a lot shorter than I had planned." I asked approximately how much time did he think was sufficient to surf and make it back in time to pick up his son from day care. He replied, "Like 30 minutes!" Right.. I booked and before he blinked his eyes 5 times, I was suited up and ready to go. This was a first since I'm always the last one to the beach. At this time, Johan was still fully clothed so I took the opportunity to run over and check the surf out.

Two minutes later I came back and told him, "It's about head high and blown out. Looks like we have a good chance of catching something!" So we booked to the spot. It's probably pretty safe to say that no one has ever surfed this spot before, including us. It's a rocky bottom and the water was churning so badly, we couldn't really tell where it was safe to paddle out. To add to a new surf spot, both Johan and I had new boards, which neither of us had ever ridden before. So we baptized our new boards and the new surf spot with our warm presence in the sleet that was horizontal, blinding and shredding our faces with each gust. It was a struggle to paddle out even though the boards paddled very nicely. The mix of wind, chop and relentless flows of white water made the paddle more of a struggle than either Johan and I needed in our time constraining session. Finally we were out in the line up.

My first wave was nothing to call home about. It was a left and petered out after the first bottom turn. Because the wave interval is so short here, it's really hard to watch a friend get a ride. The second wave I caught, Johan went right and I went left. By the time I made it to the base of the wave, the water surged up and I dug my board's nose (what we surfers call "Pearling"). I actually got pretty worked and when I finally surfaced, I saw Johan beside me about 15 feet away. I guess he dug a rail but neither of us made it. So we struggled back out into the line up once again and said, "Ok dude, one last wave and we should get going". So that's what we did. Johan caught a descent wave and rode it almost all the way in. I was still out there and was feeling the pressure that we needed to go so I paddled in and caught a smaller wave. I rode down the line a bit and did a weak re-entry.

We ran back to the car, changed into our civies as quickly as we could (mostly due to the cold) packed up the gear and bolted.

We discussed our new boards and the performance we felt in the few crummy waves we caught. The conclusion was we were both satisfied and it was money well spent.

We made time to go to Max's (a burger joint with a large menu) and order some grub. We immediately were back on the road and I steered now and then while Johan ate and switched gears. The stress level was high for Johan at this time and we had discussed that it would be in his son's best interest if we took a shorter route home. So I called my wife and she offered to drive 50km to come and pick me up which was a regal thing for her to do. That's why I married her. Anyway, the drive back was less exciting but we had many serious discussions, which I don't often participate in. I suppose Johan’s more intellectual side inspired me even if what I contributed to the conversation made no sense.

We finally arrived in Östersund and I called my wife and we determined a location to meet. By the time we had unloaded my gear she arrived. We exchanged our bro farewells and Johan was off.

My wife and my daughter and I stopped off at McDonald's and I had some nugs with BBQ sauce. My daughter was on my lap and was totally fixated on my cup of Coke so I let her put the straw in her mouth. Would you believe it! She actually sucked some Coke up and I immediately broke the connection. I was horrified that my five and a half month old daughter had her first taste of Coke. This made her little eyes water and she was hooked and was even more fixated on getting another taste of heaven. Of course I refused but I gave her a pacifier as a cancellation prize, which seemed to do the trick.

As always, even if it is for only 30 minutes, it's worth the trip. 6 hours in the car plus an hour home for me for only 30 minutes of crappy, sloppy waves is more satisfying than staying at home doing anything. We surfers up here in the North live to surf and we have to surf to live. We may never be pros like Kelly Slater but we have big balls, dedication and determination to do that which we love. Unfortunately, big balls, dedication and determination are prerequisites to be a surfer up here. So here's to all you HARDCORE surfers! Keep praying for surf!

Midnight Runners strike black gold 9/11

Well we finally did it..we got filthy offshore 6ft tubes in Sweden..Only for about an 1½ hrs because we couldn't leave earlier in the morning because of complete darkness, a raging snowstorm and totally unplowed roads. This meant that we missed about 1½ hrs of perfect untouched 6ft plus surf..not another soul around..Sad but that's life..the 1½ hrs we got was insane though before it dropped off the about 4ft and stayed that way getting more and more inconsistent..After 4hrs we decided
we were surfed out.

the wall shots are taken with zoom from about 100m away

the peak shots are taken without zoom from about 100m away

Jay had to work and Johan had to go to some fancy business dinner and get totally trashed which he did with honours and slept all day..haha.He slept and we got this....

It was SMOKIN' for 4 hrs. Both Andrew and I got tubed a number of times..at last a classic classic surf day.cold as crap but totally alone..who'd be stupid enough to surf in Sweden hey!!?? haha

it was 6 degs in the water and 2 degs out when we got there and full on snowing when we got out

What more can I say but it was great.This pic was of the start of the drive home.Not much snow here but in Östersund it had snowed about 15cms and that's what we had to try to drive thru in the dark..It was worth it..video clip being edited now and we'll pu it out on the blog soon.Peace friends..DA RAT and ANDREW.

Yoohoo, it looks good for the weekend

If the prognosis holds we are in for a really great surfing weekend this weekend..could be big and OFFSHORE for the first time since I started surfing here..yaahoooo. Above you can see what sort of temps we are expecting friday,sat,sun.. +3 fri, +2 and snow sat and zero on sunday hahaha.

In the pic under you can see the red arrows (swell) pointing towards the coast in the northern half of the coloured map and the wind is the black flag like things..the long part of the flag is the direction the wind is blowing in. There's a size code in metres on the side of the diagram..that means friday afternoon will be 2.5-3 metres and offshore if the prognosis doesn't change

Under you can see the water temps for friday..the date is wrong but it IS friday! The half moon dark blue spot on the left about 3cm from the top of the pic is where we surf..It will be 6-7 degs in the water..haha

This is the swell prediction for friday morning at 8am..starting to build!!

This pic shows 2-3m swell from 12am on thursnite/frimorn..yahoo it's gunna pump if the prognosis holds.

Cross your fingers and pray !!

Cool link and hairy photos from teahupoo

(Johan) This link was really cool, I got it of my buddy Robs site. I use my right side by the way..
Here´s a couple of photos from one of the hairiest waves on earth.. You can check the rest of the photos here. Peace out.

Well, this sucks...

Ratman´s dying from the flu

And me and Emil are too poor to go on our own...
Jay has to put up wall paper..

Which means, No surf tomorrow...

Too bad there was no trip to Norway. Everyone was stoked as hell, but it just wasn´t meant to be.

Emil´s first lake surf session!