pushing the limits p1

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[pushing the limits] [pushing the limits p2]

Saturday, Dezember 17th 2005

Another incredible forcast for the danish north sea coast made me get up very early. 2m swell with a period of 10 sec combined with light winds from north-northeast was promised by msw. A couple of weeks ago we had a similar forcast and I was ready to go but had to stay in Hamburg because of too much snow on the streets. But this time there was no holding back. Despite the heavy cold that plagued me since a week I woke up at 5 in the morning, prepared my stuff and waitet for Timo to pick me up. We would go with his van. That van is much more suited for snowy conditions which was a real advantage as we found out later.

I peeked through the window and found out that the streets were snow covered again. Timo came around 6:30 and we hit the road immediately. The motorways had allready been more or less cleared from the snow so we reached Flensburg without any problems. There we picked up Maik and continued cruising north. Once we passed the danish border, conditions on the motorway rapidely deteriorated. Seems like the danish road workers had slept a little longer before they went to clear the roads from the snow. The further north we came, the more snow covered the streets. Near Kolding the sun succeeded in it´s fight against the fog and lighted a beautifull winter scenery. Fields and trees were covered with fresh snow. Even the moon stayed a little longer to admire this winter wonderland.

Local weekend drivers also seemde to be busy admirering the snow as most of them drove very slow and some of them left the roads in funny ways to be closer to the snow.....

We started to get a bit upset by these driving behaviours as we were anxious to reach the beach. Days are very short in Denmark at this time of the year. When we left the motorway things got worse. The country roads had a layer of ice, covered by snow, which would have made a good ice scating track. The slow pace of our advance gave us the extensive opportunity to admire the fantastic light. This kept us from getting completely mad about our unacceptable driving speed.

When we past Nymindegap the scenery became magic. The dunes shimmered in a brillant white and were contrasted by the deep blue of the Ringkoebing Fjord. best of all, the flags were hanging down weekly from their poles. Very little wind!

Finally we came to Hvide Sande, took the left and drove onto the snow covered parking lot. There we met the first guy fully covered in black rubber with a surfboard under his arm. We had expected to be more or less alone, but a couple of other guys had had the same idea. Some of them even had been driving 500 km oneway to surf in the snow.

Almost blinded by the snow we crossed the dunes and walked to the jetty to check the surf. The light wind came sideoffshore and still was working on cleaning the incoming northwest swell delivered by the storm from last night. The wind must have died just a few hours ago as the waves still lacked a bit of order.

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