The baltic sea imitated a stormy north sea. The wind was howling onshore but the waves were definitely surfable!

With some effort I opened the door of my van and had to struggle to find my balance. Not far away some members of the Kiel surfgang arrived, left their car and were jumping and shouting with joyfull expectation. The sea gave an impressive show. But it was f&$%ing cold so I went back into the van and checked the action from the inside. Two guys were out and fought the strong side current to keep in position. Waves were coming in very short frequences, many of the closing out. But suddenly a guy on a small thruster picked a head high left and rode it for about 70 meters, including some solid turns and slashes.

I prepared my camera and went out to film the action. Finding a sheltered place to film was impossible so I put the tripod on the lowest position, went down on my knees and did my best to keep the camera stable. Once in a while I had to clean the lenses as the horizontal rain - or was it the spray from the waves? - kept wetting the cam.

Pretty soon I was frozen to the bone by the combination of very low temperatures and howling winds. I even needed two of my very numb hands to turn the car key for opening my van.

So I decided to document the action instead of beeing part of the action. More and more surfers arrived and most of them went out. Paddling out was a mission by itself as you had to pass a mess of whitewater combined with a very strong current running parallel to the beach. Some surfers paddled desperately against the whitewater walls only to be dragged along the beach until they went out and had to walk back to where they started. Few surfers had good rides but some of them were very spectacular in baltic sea terms.

Late in the afternoon a few sunrays broke through the thick clouds and added some dramatic light to the wild scenery. The last surfers arrived at dusk and paddled out in the last light while I left back home. At Kiel I finally came into a snow shower....

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