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.