Norway & Oda’s windsurf festival

Hei alle sammen!!

I’ve been telling Oda for a while now that I would come and visit her in Norway. It never happened until a couple of months ago.We were waiting for wind in Japan, and she just came up with the idea of organizing a festival right before the slalom contest in Denmark. I would be the guest. What a brilliant plan Oda !
I enjoy driving lately so decided to do the Europe leg of the PWA by car again.

First stop: Norway! Thankfully my good friend Thaliwhali was up for a roadtrip with me to Scandinavia all the way from Holland. We drove for 10 hours to Aalborg, Denmark, and the next day grabbed a 4-hour ferry from Hirsthals to Larvik. From there it was only another 2 hours to get to Oslo. What a difference compared to Denmark! Driving with the view on the mountains and the Fjord. I’m so impressed by the beauty of this country. Norway is the type of country I’ve only seen in movies.
It was so funny how in awe I was of everything while the locals wouldn’t react much. And when they’d looked up Aruba’s blue waters they’d be drooling and I’d shrug my shoulders haha.

Oda has been an amazing host showing thali and I around Oslo during the week. Such a colorful city with the locals addressing us in Norwegian and then switching seamlessly to perfect English when they noticed we didn’t understand a thing they said.
I’m happy we got one session in as well at Drøbak together with Odale and Miriam Rasmussen. It was light on 8,6. But honestly I love the feeling of planing it such light conditions. I had a blast !

For the weekend we drove down to Larkollen where oda’s festival was going to be held. It was a great two days with very motivated participants!
The wind didn’t cooperate as much as we hoped for but we still got on the water and practiced some light wind sail handling. Like tacking, heli tacking and pivot jibes. There were participants from 11 years till 72 years old! Hakon Skorge and I did a tow in show and I got to share my movie Cabeibusha in their home made outdoors cinema.

All in all it was a real pleasure to meet the riders from Norway and share the windsurfing passion with them. If anything, I was the one most inspired by the amount of people that joined the festival, and the joy they all had of being on the water learning new things.

I think I say this about most places I go to, but Norway’s landscapes and outdoor lifestyle has really impressed me! My first mountainbiking experience was such a struggle but great fun at the same time, indoor rock climbing and staying at a cabin at Larkollen with a beautiful view on the sea, really was quite the experience!

Thank you all for a great stay.
Time to head out to Denmark for the 3^rd slalom event of the year!