Chill factor | Surfing under the Northern Lights in Norway
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Surfing in Norway. Why not? The water is a brisk 39 degrees Fahrenheit, the air 5 degrees, cooled by a biting wind-chill factor. It’s not ideal surfing conditions, except in Lofoten, a group of islands off northern Norway, where it is practiced even in midwinter.
Here most of us surf once a day only because afterwards your wetsuit is still wet and cold, have you tried to put on a cold and wet wetsuit in 8°C ?
— Myrtille Heissat, surf instructor from France
The hardy souls
Clockwise from top left, Nils Blom, 38, a chef from Sweden, inside the kitchen at a restaurant in Henningsvaer, Norway. "Surfing for me was following a dream as a boy, after watching ‘Point Break’ when I was maybe 10 years old,” said Blom. Eddie Siswanto is a 30-year-old handyman from Bali. “I met a Norwegian girl and moved to Norway,’ said Siswanto. “... the exact opposite to Bali, from a tropical country to an Arctic country! ” Nils Nilsen, 26, is an employee in a fishing factory. “Surfing to me is peace of mind, quiet inside my head,” said Nilsen. Myrtille Heissat, 26, is a surf instructor from France.
The waves are exactly the same as in Bali, the water temperature is just 25°C less in winter time.
— Eddie Siswanto, handyman from Bali
Challenging conditions
Top and left, surfers leave the water in a snowy Unstad, Norway. At right, a surfer carries his board on a bicycle.
To me it was very exotic, I grew up in the countryside of Sweden. I was always skateboarding and snowboarding.
— Nils Blom, chef from Sweden
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