Surfing in Sweden

To the eyes of many surfing means walking on the beach in swimwear under the tropical sun with their board. The interesting part of all of this is that for a lot of other realities (like in Europe for example), surfing is a completely different thing!

Due to the weather conditions, to water temperature and to winter swells, surfing for me means wearing a thick wetsuit for most of the time accompanied by a good pair of booties.

So, I was pretty much intrigued when I talked to Angelica from Surfsyster, a Swedish girl who doesn't fear the cold.

Today she is telling us her way of surfing in Sweden.

Enjoy it!

"When I first started surfing in Sweden I hated it. It was nothing at all as the surfing I had fallen in love with in Bali, Tenerife and Morocco. Instead of playing around in bikini and boardshorts I had to get use to wear a thick wetsuit with gloves, boots and hoodie for most of the year. It was cold, windy and the waves were far from world class. In Sweden we don't get any groundswell so instead I have to rely on heavy onshore winds, which usualy occurs during the winter months, to build up some surfable waves for me and my fellow surfers.

At first I had such a hard time to learn how to read the windwaves, I also felt so restricted from all the layers of neopren and I don't think I got one single wave the first 4-5 times I tried surfing in my homecountry. I got more and more stressed out by the fact that the other surfers in the line-up were able to catch wave after wave. Myself I just sat there on my board and felt my surfing confidence decrease for every wave I tried to paddle for and didn't catch. If I got a wave I fell right off my board. Surfing in Sweden sucked. I sucked.

But shame on those who give up. One day everything changed. Maybe it was because my expectations on my surfing skills and the waves were gone. Everything just started to fall into place. And that's where I am today, one year later. I still catch many more waves when I'm abroad and can get into that bikini and surf that ground swell again but I've actually started to love the surf in Sweden as well. 

I just had to realise that it's a bit different from what I was used to and now I've learned to embrace that difference.

Just because the days with surf are rare makes me appreciate them so much more. It really makes me feel alive when I sit on my dear surfboard in a stormy and dark grey ocean, when the duck dives makes my head ache and when the wind howls. It's just something raw to the surf here that makes it a bit more special. And once in a while we do get those magical days, often after storms, when the waves are headhigh, clean and with a bit of push to them. Those days are pure stoke and helps me to forget the 15 other sessions with heavy rains, plenty of jellyfish, frozen limbs and crappy waves."

Thanks Angelica for sharing your story with us.

Don't forget to pass by Surfsyster and say hi!

If you guys want to share your story on Surfragette, don't hesitate to write at 

surfragette@gmail.com

M.