Surfing Finland

I dont think i have ever associated these two words together before..

But yes its true, the myths have been proved correct, there are waves in finland.

According to My surf guide marko, the season has begun, and it all depends on the wind variations which involve howling onshores, bringing a few feet of wind swell. Similar to surfing the great lakes i guess. Wind swell is totally different than ground swell, in the fact it has no push, which most normal surfers are used to. Wind swell is an aquired style, the finnish surfing community have locked down. After a 300km drive, during the rush hour on a friday, we caught our first glimps of the coast, and totally to my suprise i saw what resmebled a rough looking right hand point.

Before paddling out to this secret spot, marko warned me of the dangers; dark water means you cant see the bottom. Its really rocky and shallow with rocks popping up all over the place. Also glass, and the heavy localism of these spots. The line up was like a frenzy of thrashing seals.

I didnt listen or actually, i went into auto drive as i caught my first wave, and cruised into shore, and upon jumping off the wave was met by a big boulder to the ankle inches below the water, and the howling onshores sending the board rocketing at my face.

Apart from this i witnessed some of the most wave hungry commited surfers, who were getting stoked on some nice peaks, that without the search for the glide would probably just roll through unridden as the mythical water mountains of the baltic sea.

This was truly an exotic experience for a kiwi, and one of the random greatest things i have experienced in finland, laying my head down to sleep arriving back home in helsinki at 2:30am with the satisfied feeling you only get from a good session.

Hers some shots to get you frothing about your next arctic surf adventures....


My first glimps of the point..


A very strange sight, driving through the streets of helsinki..

Uruguay Hip Shaking Sessions

Uruguay...

We have spent the last week or so in a little slice of Uruguayan perfection.

We have been staying in Punta Del Diablo, which is rather pleasant during the winter, no crowds and off shores every day with perfect shoulder hight peelers rolling into the bay.

The only boards available where some sexy foam funboards in fluro colors. The best and shortest (8ft) of the 3 was dubbed hip shaker(orange), and the others were 10ft tanks.

We had so many epic sessions on the beasts, that sam decided to get a job in town, and the drop in tranny carressed the Hip shaker through some nice waves, i was hip shaking on whatever was available, dubbed the hip shaker because of the trade mark pumping action produced when trying to work the orange beast down the line.

Heres some shots of the epic sessions, shot by petra braving the howling offshores.





Punta Del Diablo point.

Drama, about to attempt the impossible duck dive..





The Albino Rhino -

Party Wave.



Tranny Tague on the ¨hip shaker¨ -





Hip Shaker -




Hip shaking ninja.


Heres another day when the sun was shining.

The Legend of chico

We spent an eerie couple of days in the tiny ghost town/surf spot of Porto fino. The only permanent inhabitant being the loco chico christian, who after a few beers made us lunch and fed us beers from 9:30 in the morning. He was a great host, if not a little wild, along with his troop of 5 dogs, i spent 3 days with waves all to myself.. and a few for chico.


Porto fino is a classic right hander, that can have rides of 500m or more, this is really similar to mangamanu style wave back in NZ.. scored this place at 3-6ft over a couple of days, and ther is tonnes, of other epic spots minutes from here..

enjoying the peaks all to myself


whos hiding inside there?

chico dropped in for a few of the bigger ones

this spot was insane, 8ft at least..

a left just round the corner

Logriding in chile..

We have been travelling around the north of argentina, bolivia and peru, so it was a welcome sight when we hit chile to see and smell the ocean.

Not so many shots of arica, but scored Iquique at a good solid 4ft with perfect barreling peaks 100m from where we are staying.

Iquique is like wave paradise, ther is about 10km of reef coastline with perfect breaks and sunny days CONSISTANTLY all year. Our hostal didnt even have a roof, thats how frequently it rains.

These are a few shots from what has become known as "toms reef". ´Nick named after one of the californians i have been surfing with who took his first nasty reef beating. Props to the veggie sam for surfing this place on a fun board with only one fin left... It was a ganrly right over shallow rock bottom..







The next few days we surfed the actual surfers spot, toms reef, is pretty much a body board wave.. This other one, is pretty famous in front of the Vertical surf shop and competition tower ,a punchy left that has spitting barrels that swallowed me occaisionally.

It doesnt look it but the set waves were easily stand up overhead classic blue barrels..

Arica

Home of the famous chillean pipeline "El Gringo" and big wave spot "El buey".

We manage to find the beautiful town of Arica, at a time when thankfully the swell was only a measly 6ft or somthing? This spot usually holds up to 20 ft, so i dont think i would be tackling that. The place we were staying at was as epic as the waves, and funny enough the guy who ran it was a big wave charger. His smallest board was a 6´6" gun. Actually he didnt own any other boards than guns.

heres a shot of el gringo doing its thing, there wasnt a wave that came through that didnt have a frothing spitting barrel. It was soo intense, and i read after that, its dangerous to surf it when its too small as this is a board breaking shallow beast.

Taking it to extremes, 100 on the other side of the tiny island that this wave breaks on, the swell pilters out and wraps around to La Isla with long perfect lefts peeling off into the bay.

Shakas

The super talented Ryan Tatar has a great blog i cant help but check out daily, Shakas and Single Fins.


I was feeling a bit uninspired, so i thought i would make him a few doodles for his header, there have been a few great blog headers floating around and a couple of my favourites are:

Adrian Knott, shakas and single fins:



and Jeff Canham for the swallow tail society: