Surfing Swedish Winter Style

(Ratty)
A taste of what we sometimes do just to get wet...
This surf was solid 5-6ft but the only problem was that it was snowing sideways straight into our eyes and it hurt sooo much! It was like small ice needles hitting you in the eyeballs ALL the time so it made it incredibly hard to see the waves approaching. Once you were up and riding it was totally ok to surf..
Although it looks unbearably cold it actually isn't that bad..you are actually quite warm inside the thermos effect of the neoprene.....it's only bad AFTER you have surfed and you have to take your wetty OFF.....THEN IT'S BAD.....
Because you're already wet, even if you do it in stages and get dressed in stages along the way you still freeze immediately once you have taken whatever part of your wetsuit gear off. eg wetty gloves off.....fingers frozen in 10 secs flat! etc..Even if you put normal gloves on asap it's already too late so by the time you've 'section by section' changed and dressed you're still a total iceblock by the time you get to getting your feet out of your 6/5/4 wetty..it's AGONY..HAHAHAHA but still heaps of fun and a total adventure!! enjoy the pics..R.I.P AI.

One man down

The Midnight runners crew

From left, Woodsy (alias Postman Pat (and his black and white cat), Grant Ratman, Jay Han Solo, Heath Sheath (alias cutts cutter)..Johan (alias kojak, not in pic)..

As of last week the guy on the right Heath Sheath bailed out and headed home to Oz..boohoo..we are now one man down and have to try harder to motivate each other to go surfing in 4 deg water and howling snowstorms..it was fun will it lasted mate.. ;-) peace from the midnight runners!

some old time photos of a life before crowds

solomon islands

little narrabeen firing on all cylinders

have dreads will travel

south oz me and mick mendoza ..... no-one else out anywhere, 86

henio (on the left) on the way to Lisbon airport 91, coyt and sappy... darkness

our van, note the plastic doll parts) we collected them off the beaches and then tied them onto other surfers cars.. eurotrip 89-91

secret sydney, 4 days straight no-one out

secret sydney as above

glassing the board i made in england...lacanau 89 with the french guy coyt and sappy

my surf shop manly oz 91

rat, dreads and filthy slab death pits@ 86-87

one of the early boards i made

monkey on shoulder,bali 85

rat and kids, oz '06

van life eurotrip with coyt 89-90-91

view of nats shop @84

huge ulu's, that's me paddling in the circle!

have didge will travel, coyt playing my didge somewhere in asia, 87-89

rat at nats shop @84-85

mundaca 89 with coyt

nats shop, the final chapter 89 before leaving for europe, note the jah board on the ground to the right..one of my shapes and one of my favourite boards ever

one of the first ever simon anderson 'thrusters' bought from the man himself

the 'chiba surf team' chiba japan 87

proudly holding a gun i shaped in newquay england '89, i wrapped it in a blanket and took it to lacanau and glassed it in the first ever surfboard shop there, a small shed. We couldn't communicate at all 'cause he couldn't speak english and we couldn't speak one word of french so we drank wine and had a blast together. the pic of us standing in his shed is further up in the earlier pics.

biiig ulus, it was an epic day with just me and a few brave,(stupid) souls out..It got bigger and bigger and bigger as the day went on with no breaks at all in the waves..just one continuous never ending, ever growing SET..when the tide came up it made it extremely dificult,with the 30km/hr sweep happening, to time the return into the cave to get out of the water..if you missed the cave you were well and truly stuffed!!

Swedish Surfing Associations 1st ever training camp

Sweden's first ever training camp was held in Norway. I was the leader for the weekend, first I fixed a pile of damaged boards that had flown off a car then we did some theory, did some beach training and had some fun, here's some pics finishing with a crossover hang five by the rat..yehooo

hahaha the old man wins the race..yeeeeesssss

the team