bit windy today

With a seven meter swell and winds of over 60 kph, we just had to take a short break from the Xmas shopping to experience the weather at Bore beach. We were not disappointed, it was wild.
Sitting in a café now, using a double espresso to rinse the sand out of my mouth.

point perfect

Just finished a short and sweet one hour session at Point Perfect. In case you're wondering: no, the tip of my board is not on fire, that is the moon.

Left work at 14:00 as planned and drove out to Sele beach. It was a bit too messy there so I followed another surfer to Point Perfect, just South of Orre beach. Look for the signpost to the Skeie Flystripe (airstrip) if you're not sure where to turn off the main road (Rv 509). The spot is a short 150 meter jog to the North from the car park.

The waves were big and slow and thus not too hard to catch. The challenge was getting out past them. Knowing that I could only spend an hour in the water, I used up all my energy pretty quickly. Had to paddle out beyond the break and just bob around for a while to recover. Managed to get on a great wave but lost my balance immediately. Made up for it a bit later with three not-too-shabby rides.

I'm glad to have been shown another spot to add to my ever growing list. I'll be back!

Merry Christmas to Family and Friends!

what was i thinking?

It had crossed my mind on the drive out to the beach that I may have set my alarm a little too early for the time of year. But it wasn't until I arrived at Bore beach at 07:01 and turned off the car ignition and headlights that I realised how very very dark it was.

A quick Google search confirmed that sunrise was some time after 09:00 with first light at 08:20. What was I thinking, getting up this early on a Saturday?

Even though it was too dark to see anything, I could hear the waves dumping so to kill some time I drove to Sele and stumbled around in the dark for a while, listening to the waves; they sounded cleaner than at Bore. Still way too dark to see much at all so I drove to the nearest petrol station for coffee and some empty calories.

By 08:00 visibility was nearly good enough so I drove back to Sele. As I pulled up to the car park I noticed a couple of cars on their way out, leaving just one other car besides me. Out jumped a surfer and asked if I was planning on going out. She mentioned that she had spotted me earlier - must have been when I had my stumble in the dark. On returning home later in the day, I found out that Elisabeth knew her as they studied teaching at the University in Stavanger. So if you are reading this Ingy: "hi from Tim and thanks for the words of encouragement"!

We were in the water by 08:30 and a few minutes later, several others turned up, The waves were quite small, very clean and fairly easy to catch for a beginner like me. As the water began to fill up with more and more surfers, I moved away from the group to another spot about 50 meters further South. I was glad I did because I could soon hear angry noises from the Northern spot as several surfers caught the same wave and tried to claim it as their own.

They mentioned the "right of way" on the surfing course, but I find it easier to find another spot rather than fight it out with the others.

As I was thinking about calling it a day, I spotted a familiar group of four surfers on their way down to the beach: it was Esben with friends Magnus, Petter and Emil from the Jæren Folkehøgskole! With the promise of some tips from the "experts", I decided to stay out a bit longer. Glad I did too as the advice given helped me to catch my best wave of the day; no, the bet wave since I bought my surfboard!

I finally managed to drag myself out of the water at midday, leaving Esben & co. to it.

Note to self: check the calendar for estimated time of sunrise the night before getting up for an early morning surf.

last day of the first winter

The forecast for tomorrow is wet and warm so Tara and Iselin are making the most of the snow before it melts. It could be several weeks, or even months, until the next Winter.

two snow girls ready for the slopes

Tara and Tordis are on their way to the local sledging hill with their Stigas.

snow day for tara

It started snowing yesterday evening and continued through the night. Luckily for Tara, her school was closed today so she had all day to play in the snow.

fun with magnifying glasses

Tara and Ida just monkeying around.

enya has cut her first haircut

And here she is with one very satisfied customer.

enya's first model

Here Enya welcomes Tara as her first model at her hairdressing school.

a walk on the beach

I was interested to see what a 5 meter swell combined with 50 kmph winds looked like so I took Tara & Tordis for a walk on Bore beach. It was pretty wild - the wind was strong enought to almost blow both girls off their feet!
Believe it or not, but those three black dots in the background are swimmers in wet-suits. Looked like they were having fun but this time I was happy to just watch them jumping waves and body-surfing.

surf camp in the algarve

As Elisabeth wakes up to her first day in Barcelona, Esben is waking up to his last day in Portugal. He has been on a surf camp in the Algarve (Carrapateira) for a week now with his class, enjoying better waves, less wind and warmer temperatures than we have had back home.

He sent me a text last Sunday:

just got back from the beach, surf owns! Shorter boards, a lot more manouverable :-)

He sent me another text a day later which made me giggle. It was the classic "having fun, send more money". Hope to hear more reports from him after his return to Jæren (via Oslo) tomorrow.

girlie trip to barcelona

After aprox 15 years of talking about it, the very serious club "the needle's rest", is about to take on a new adventure. We're going to Barcelona, for some of us it will be like coming home and for others it will be a first visit. Our plans are to have fun and not to have too many plans... and loong lazy breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Not to mention enjoying a cafe con leche at a cafe and do some people watching. I hope to re-visit the Picasso museum and see the wonderful works of Antoni Gaudi again

The weather forecast is promising - sunny and +20. Time to dig out some of the summer wear again...

watch this space..

Elisabeth :O)

surf buddy

The surf forecast was not great today: swell height 3.8m with a period of 12 seconds and a NE wind at 18 kph, giving 4 stars on the MagicSeaweed swell rating, with 2 subtracted for bad winds.

But it has been quite a while since I was last out in the waves, so I headed out to Bore beach to have a look.

When I arrived I was disappointed to see just one surfer in the car park who looked as though he was about to leave. I asked him (in Norwegian) what the surf had been like and he replied (in English) that he hadn't been out because it looked too messy and there was no one else in the water. We chatted for a bit and then decided to head North to Hellestø to see if it was any better there.

It was better: slightly smaller, but cleaner, waves. So we suited up and headed out into the sea, with no other surfers in sight. Before long we had both caught several good waves without having to fight too hard. But after only an hour in the water (and about 30 minutes after sunset) we decided to call it a day.

Despite the short time in the water I drove home with a big grin on my face: it was the best surf for several weeks. Plus I now have a surf buddy in Callum who, like me, is interested in surfing all through the Winter.

Cheers Callum!

tarmac

Tara seems pleased with her iMac that she has just taken over from us since we bought a new one recently.

on my way to work today

After my early morning swim (no, not in the pond), I met Tara, Iselin and Ida saying hi to the swans and cygnets.

fishing in Mandal

Saule and Tara don't like the look of the 'swordfish' that Dainius just caught.

enya the hairdresser

enya has got herself a Saturday job. it's at the hair salon where she has just finished two weeks of work experience- well done.

she will need willing victims with long hair to practice on.... anyone?? i think tara will be the first to help out her big sister :O)

haircut of the century?

** STOP PRESS ** As I write this, Esben is finally getting his hair cut, for the first time in 381 days! This is what he looks like right now.

Update: this is what he looks like a couple of hours later.

surf school

Today was Elisabeth's turn to have a go at surfing, with me as her instructor. I think she did very well given the low quality of instruction and the pathetically small waves.

I think I can spot the problem in the first shot: the surfboard is facing out to sea!

new iMac up and running

Got the new iMac this week but have been too busy with other things to really get it going. My first priority is to copy everything over from the old iMac to the new one. The simplest way to do this is to link them together via FireWire and use the Migration Assistant.


UPDATE: sorted.

ploughing up and down again

Finally managed to get up and go for a morning swim before work today. This is the first time since early Summer. To "help" my motivation, I bought a 6 month season ticket.

I also went to the gym yesterday evening for a 1 hour cycling/spinning session. So this has been a surf-cycle-swim week for me!

what was that all about?

My 44 wasp sting-free years have come to an end. I would have posted a photo of the affected area for you but, disappointingly, there is really not that much to see. You'll have to make do with a stock wasp photo.

The worst part is I don't understand why I was stung - the vicious attack was totally unprovoked. Luckily I'm not one to bear a grudge, so the guilty party can live on to sting someone else another day.

tim can surf

I've just completed a 2 day surfing course with srfsnosk8. And even though the instructor didn't turn up today I loved every minute of it. The conditions were ideal for beginners: an offshore wind both days with 60 cm waves yesterday and 70 cm today.

Update: here is a cheesey slide show for your enjoyment!

swimming and mother tongue

Tara's swimming club started training sessions again after a long break for the Summer. It was obvious that Tara had been doing plenty of swimming during the holidays and she didn't seem to mind that they no longer use their flippers in the pool.
After swimming it was full speed down the road for her after-school "mother tongue" (surely "father tongue") lessons.
Mondays are now officially her busiest day of the week.

the missing link

The missing link being Esben, has moved away from home. He hasn't moved far but the house feels empty without him (slamming doors and coming home late...:O) )
It's been a week now and we gather he's having a fantastic time since we haven't heard from him.
Esben has moved to Klepp (a village just 15min away from Sandnes) and is attending Jæren folkehøgskole. His main "subject" this year is surfing.
Both Tim and I are jealous: imagine a year of fun-fun-fun, making new friends and no homework!