OCEANSURF/C-SKINS WETSUITS:

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION

When UK wetsuit manufacturers C-Skins Wetsuits, www.cskins.com approached us with a request to test out their new range of 2006 wetsuits we had visions of tropical Caribbean beaches complete with fluttering palm trees, equally fluttering girls and rum by the bucket load. Our visions were wrong. C-Skins wanted the winter range tested not the summer range and, the somewhat sadistic brains behind C-Skins thought, where better to do this than the high Arctic and what better time to do so than winter. So, kissing goodbye to our fluttering palm trees, girls and rum, we agreed to this exciting mission and the Oceansurf Team, (alongside a token representatives from Low Pressure, publishers of the excellent Stormrider Guides, www.lowpressure.co.uk), are packing our woollies and reading up on igloo construction techniques in anticipation of our departure on November the 4th for the northern limits of Norway.

That Norway gets epic waves is little secret, but if there remains a wild frontier in European surfing it is here. Even to Norwegian surfers the far north remains an enigma with little but the odd rumour and occasional photo to go on. Our expedition will commence in the city of Tromso, itself some 500 km north of the Arctic Circle, from here we will move northwards through the outer islands until we get to the beaches around Nordkapp, which, as the northern most point of mainland Europe is literally the end of the road, if not the world. By this stage we shall be surfing on beaches that are closer to the North Pole than Norway’s capital, Oslo. A surf trip north of the Arctic Circle is of course going to be fraught with problems, even at the best of times, such as July, but in November things are really going to be getting tough. The Arctic Circle is the point at which anywhere to the north has at least one day each year when the sun never sets. It also marks the point at which anywhere to its north has at least one day a year of absolute total darkness. On our arrival in Tromso on the 4th of November we can expect six hours of daylight, by the time we leave on the fifteenth this will have been reduced to just four hours and within two weeks of this Tromso will be thrown into total darkness for around six weeks! Of course the further north we move the shorter the day light hours become. There is one bonus to this near eternal darkness though and that is the Aurora Borealis, or Northern lights, which light up the Arctic skies in shimmering rainbow colours right through the winter. Then there are those nasty old temperatures to deal with, the average maximum temperature in Tromso in November is a balmy minus three Celsius and you don’t need to be told that the further north you go the colder it becomes. In fact the last week (October 21st-28th 2005) have seen temperatures in some northern towns fall as low as minus fifteen degrees Celsius! If a wetsuit is going to get a good work out then the guys at C-Skins are right in saying that it is here. If we survive the cold and darkness we have one further challenge to overcome, during the winter the north Norwegian coast is one of the best places in the world to see Killer Whales, who arrive en-mass to feed on fish attracted to the shelter of the fjords. What feeding Killer Whales make of surfers is a bit of an unknown..... If this report is never updated then you can work out the results for yourself!

As, for us, this is one of the most exciting trips we have ever been involved with we are going to try and do something a little bit different and rather than just updating this website on our return we shall try every few days, when internet access allows, to put an expedition update online – complete with photos! So from November the 4th and 15th, stay tuned to this page for further tales of high adventure in the high Arctic.