Midnight runners find gold from heaven

(Johan & Ratman, 070430) We had checked the swell and wind charts at least 30 times and saw that, FINALLY, there would be swell up our way, good swell! But we only had a really small swell window to try and nail, somewhere between 3.00 and 9.00 am. Besides that, it was Valborg, which is kind of a big deal when you´ve got toddlers. Ratman had an exam, and Johan had a 7-year anniversary with the girlfriend. Hence we had little or poor chances to even try to get away.

At 23.14, after a movie and a quickie to the pub with my girlfriend I called Ratman. He sounded sceptical to the fact that we could make a 400 km round trip just to MAYBE score knee high surf. To tell ya the truth I wasn’t all that stoked my self.
Anyways, after a couple of minutes of hesitation we decided it was worth the chance. But then we had to leave NOW. Ratman packed up his car with boards, food and coffee and the most essential ingredient of any night mission, BEER.
He came and got me and at 00.45 we left Östersund. The idea was that we´d drive down, get to the spot at 3am, sleep a little and then hit the surf at sunrise. After a two and half hour drive we got to Sundsvall. It was pitch black outside. The sea was completely flat and glassy when we got our first glimpse, and we started to get really, really depressed.. A road trip is always fun, but not in the middle of the night, when all you wanna do is surf… We continued out towards the open sea and finally arrived. We got out of the car, ran over the cliffs and there was actually swell, but about knee high, with an irritating onshore breeze that chopped up the surf.


- O well, whatever.. we thought and drove to another spot to park the car, drink some beer and sleep for an hour. When we got to the other spot the disappointment continued. Knee high, onshore and pretty much uninspiring.
So, we popped open a beer and soaked a little. All of a sudden we had to make a choice! Do we sleep for an hour and risk the knee highs to get ankle high? Or do we suit up and paddle out in the crappy surf? We decided to solve the problem with a quick game of scissors,paper,rock. If Ratman won we´d paddle out in the crap, and if I won we´d sleep for a while and see what happened. Ratmans paper beat my rock, so we suited up.

To get naked in when it´s 2 degrees out, is rarely an inspiring thing to do, and less so when the waves are crap. When we stood there outside the car, we suddenly realized that the onshore wind had stopped. All of a sudden knee high surf felt like a really good idea, and the disappointment turned into STOKE!
We brought our malibus and skipped down the beach. At 4.52am, the second our boards hit the water the wind picked up again, but this time it was a light OFFSHORE breeze! We looked at each other and couldn´t stop smiling. We were in the line-up, all alone and we had offshore winds! Nothing could be better, right? WRONG..







All of a sudden a head high set pounded in, and screaming we paddled for the waves. God is good! Our knee high onshore slop had turned in to head high, slightly golden glassy offshore spraying walls! Nothing could get better now right?





Damn sure it could!!! All of a sudden, in 5 degree water at 05.12 in the morning in Norrland, the waves started TUBING!! I surfed the mal in to the beach and ran to the car to get my fish.. I got slotted again, and again, and again! Ratman, who must have had struck of genius, surfed in to land and started taking some pictures. He stood there hooting like a madman with stoke!





















He got his newly bought 1975 Hot Buttered Terry Fitzgerald and paddled out and started RIPPING! The waves got even bigger for about an hour up around double overhead takeoffs and there was some solid sets coming in.. Unfortunately we didn't get any photos of the sets because we were in the water surfing them, hahaha!




After 3 hours of SUPERSURF with a Norrland tube record, we got out of the ocean, happy and surfed out. What do ya think happened then? Well, the swell dropped back to knee high and the wind switched back to onshore…
We had counted on the swell window coming... but to have the luck that EXACTLY the moment we paddled out the wind would swing offshore, the swell would more than double in size and start tubing and then swing onshore and drop back to shitty slop again EXACTLY the moment we got out was too freaky to be true. Even luckier... imagine what would have happened if the paper scissors game had gone a different way and we had folded our seats back and gone to sleep and missed the whole fucken lot!!!??
We grinned like madmen and got in the car to drive back to Östersund, and our duties as fathers (play with firecrackers, light fires with gasoline and other responsible stuff) The trip was indeed one to remember, and a fantastic start of Valborg. The rest of the day was a haze of offshore wind and golden tubes on a completely empty line-up AGAIN... rolling around in the minds of 2 surfed out lads after having been awake for 36 hours in a row.