Euro roadtrip Part One

Naxos
October 6, 2020
Camp Bela yen
February 18, 2021
Naxos
October 6, 2020
Camp Bela yen
February 18, 2021

First stop: Italy but via Denmark

Well since all the competitions officially got cancelled Oda came to grab me in Holland to go on a road trip. We preferred to drive instead of fly to avoid getting stuck in countries.
And in a van you won’t be in contact with too many people.
Main goal: keep the lovely holiday, good times and windsurf stoke rolling!

We had been speaking about it for weeks.
We wanted to drive down to Sicily to Francesco capuzzo’s home spot together with Amado, to explore somewhere new and find out why Capuzzo is SO good at everything! 
His home spot must be the bomb. 

However the forecast didn’t look good, and since we follow the wind, we spent some time in Holland first. We scored a solid day at Ijmuiden, and later that week also caught Wijk aan Zee on a good day! Maaike drove up to hang out in the waves. We sailed 4,5 hours non-stop. That was a session for the books! I definitely need to get in the water more often when I’m in the Netherlands.

Another highlight was the foiling training we did with the Dutch team. Together with RSX world champion lilian de Geus and Maria Belen  we went out the harbour at Scheveningen with their coaches to learn a bit more about IQ foiling.
After Silvaplana, I definitely got more interested in it.

But after the first run, my motivation dropped straight away. I didn’t have my own gear so we had to go in turns. First I saw Lilian, Maria and Oda cruising past effortlessly. But once I jumped onto Lilian’s gear I realized how hard the spot was !
It was choppy and there was pretty big swell. 
Man I was impressed by Lilian and maria and depressed by my own sailing. If anything though, it makes me want to do better. Thanks so much for taking us out for a spin ladies!

Unfortunately the wind was still not looking good in the South. 
But Denmark started to look really good. I’m never too excited about cold weather surf, but I’ve been sailing there the past two years together with Steffi, Dominik and Lina. 
And every single session there is worth it. So I was keen to drive up.
Oda had just done that drive down from Norway but the week before but still motivated to come up as well. Good to go then!

It was so good to see Steffi and Lina again.
Sailing with them is super motivating and they are definitely some of my favourite people to sail with. We had 4 windsurfing sessions, 1 kiting session in less than a week.
So I would say we scored it!

Every day was different.
Kiting at Krik was too much fun! Sailing Klitmøller in solid onshore stuff was challenging, and then two sessions at Hanstholm, one which was a bit more onshore and the final day was the cherry on top. It was meant to be super stormy. But it turned out to be off shore down the line riding. I COULD NOT GET ENOUGH OF IT! 
Hitting the lip didn’t have too many consequences, so I could just go for it. 

Unfortunately Oda came down with an ear infection and she had to stay off the water, which was a bit sad, because it’s always a great time out there together. But she said she will come back stronger, and I believe she will! 

Slowly the Grey-ish weather started to get to the both of us and we decided it was time to recommence our plan of moving down South in search of the sun and warmer temperatures.
Italy here we come!

Stay tuned for more stories !!

foiling at scheveningen