(Johan) We had a fuckin' blast yesterday. The story goes as follows: We´d been checking the sights all day again, and saw that there was a tiny, tiny chance that we might get some midnight swell.
Jay got off work at 20:00, so IF we were going to go, (and we really wanted to get Jay in the water for the first time in Sweden), we couldn´t do it before he got off work!!! Jay has been missing out! (What, first with the baby being on the way and then BORN and the rest of all the family obligations that are then included) and hasn't had a surf in Sweden EVER before....... AND had not surfed since July last year when he was home in the States.
(Note the beer cans opened on the beach at 1:40 in the morning)...They are called Norrlands guld (Northland's gold)..quite appropriate really !!!
Ratman and I spoke on the phone a couple of times, debated at great length (and were both really whining about the fact that the prognosis was so wobbly).. Finally I convinced him to go.!!. All of a sudden he just said...(at 10 past 8 at night mind you,.... on a thursday when we all had to work the next day AND with a 2½ hour drive in front of us) ...`FUCK IT, you only live once, LET'S GO......I'll be there in 10 minutes..get your shit together ...we're going NOW´...so off we went. Then it was the panic 'pack the boards and all the gear and fill the car up with juice'.....and by the time we got away it was 9pm...THANK GOD FOR THE NEVER ENDING MIDNIGHT SUN UP HERE IN SUMMER:...it's light 24 hrs a day hahahaha...We were on the way to our second Midnight Runners `midnight surf´..yeeeehaaaaaaaa...
We went by Stugun to pick up Jay (from his `PINK´ house!!!) and he stood there on the porch with about 200 gallons of coffee and a huge smile on his face. He hasn´t been in the water in Sweden since he moved here and was stoked as hell to get wet over here for the first time. The drive out to the spot was full of good stories and loads of laughs and great music blaring at full volume. As we caught our first glimpse of the ocean it was almost completley flat!!!.. Ratman cursed the winds and we prepared ourselves for a paddle in a totally flat ocean.
But as you might know by now, we always strike gold! The surf was small, but definitely rideable, and we had a super session with clean ankle slappers at first with light offshores and a colour spackelled sky.. and then gradually building sideshore slop in the midnight sun.
We surfed from 23:40 till 2:30 in the morning and as you can see from the pics it was a spectacular `sunset and sunrise´. It never gets dark ..cool huh...The water is getting much warmer now, and there's gonna be a lot of nice summer surf sessions soon.
We headed off home and dropped Jay off at his `PINK´ house around 04:10, and got back to Östersund at 04.30 in the morning. (side note by Jay: "I didn't paint my house pink! It was just born that way!")
It's been hell having to work today with such little sleep, but compared to Jay who started work at 06:00 this morning and works til 19:00, I guess I´m quite lucky..(he got 45 mins sleep
today hahaha...Ratman got 3hrs and I got about the same as Rat !!!) (Jay: "I wouldn't consider 3 hours beauty sleep. You guys probably had it rougher than I did. I was in a euphoric state of fatigue which was actually a nice high") Lack of sleep or not, everytime there's surf it's always worth it...As we say over here in the land of the never setting summer sun...`BEGGERS CAN'T BE CHOOSERS´! Peace to you all..Life is good!!
The Midnight runners...
A crowd showed up and at one point there were 9(!!!!) people in the water in knee to waist high waves hahaha...Johan got the shits with the amateur crew and plowed his fantastic plastic machine into one poor grommets board causing grievous 'boardily' harm hahahaaha...both Johan and frexi got heaps of little peelers ..I just veged out caught a few and enjoyed the weather..It was sunny and warm and nice to float around.(note the 10pm sun in the background..
