Wow, we’re still enjoying the afterglow of our trip last weekend. Together with Casper from De Surfbus we organized a ‘Surf Crash Course’, a surf trip on the bus. 10 Hours of practical surf lessons & theoretical lessons in a time-span of three full days. Together with a group of 8, some of which had never surfed before, some of which who had, but wanted to get better.

Karma was on our side, since the wheather could not have been better; 18-28 degrees, some wind to create the perfect wave to learn on and nice, dry evenings enabling us to sit around the campfire at night.

Day 1
We pick up the group at 9 A.M. next to Amsterdam Central Station. Since we also don’t know who exactly will join us on the bus, this is also an exciting moment for us. First we meet with Casper, the owner of De Surfbus with whom we’re organizing this trip. We talk everything over, look at the weather (wind mainly) to make a final call on the exact places we’ll go to. We’re both mobile after all. De Surfbus being the mobile surfbus, and us being the mobile hostelbus. The ideal combination to litterary ‘chase the waves’. Whenever the conditions are better elsewhere, we simply move!

The group

The first people to enter the bus are Meike & Nina, two girls from Zwolle who met when they were still kids. Now, beginning of their 20s, both studying in Utrecht, they’ve kept contact. When they saw this trip they immediately booked. Nina had never surfed before, Meike had on holidays but not much more than that.

Then the next person shows up. Walking around the bus, looking at the artwork. “This must be the next guest” we think. It turned out to be Richard, a 37 year old man living in Utrecht. A musician, working at the university of Utrecht and who would describe his surfing experience as “when I’m surfing I look like a giraffe who’s not very stable”. Haha, room for improvement, great to have you here!

Then we welcome Serina, who’s also in her 20s and knows Casper from the surf lessons he has given her before. “This trip just looked so awesome I wanted to join”. Perfect. Since we’re such a small group (2 teachers, 7 students) not everyone needs to have the exact same surfing level. Casper has taken Amber with him, who’ll also help out to teach us how to surf! Woopwoop, we can’t wait!

Day 1

The plan

After having a kick-off coffee, we explain how the bus works (“it’s a bit different than you’re used to”) and talk through the planning of the day & weekend. Casper takes over and explains the basics of what we’re going to learn on this long weekend. Next to 10 hours of practical surf lessons, we’ll also learn all the theoretical basics on surfing; reading the water & weather conditions, rules, safety, boards, reading the forecast, etc.

We turn on the engine and the speaker and head off to Wijk aan Zee. A nice spot hidden from the wind to start off from. While Casper, Amber and the group leave into the water, we prepare lunch so that when they come back tired from the first 2h lesson everyone can simply enjoy lunch, relax a little and get ready for the next 2 hours of lessons.

At the end of the day, everyone agrees with a big smile; I really like surfing!!

We get in the bus, start the engine again and drive a 20-minute ride to (the extremely creative) Campspace in Beverwijk. A great place with a lot of creative people who are busy creating a sustainable place. There’s a vineyard, fruit trees, green house, compost toilet and everything has been made of recycled materials – how cool! We also meet Yesica here, with whom the group is now complete! We cook on the fire and enjoy some drinks around the bonfire before going to bed.

Day 2

Today the group starts off with a lesson of yoga from Yoga Noordzee. While they’re waking up, we prepare pancakes for breakfast. Getting enough carbons for another intense surfing day! (great excuse for pancakes).

We drive to Ijmuiderslag where we walk a nice 10min walk through the dunes to arrive at our quiet spot on the beach. Today the weather is even better than yesterday; 20 degrees & no wind, but still enough ground swell to create the right waves for us. After getting some theoretical classes on the beach and being in the water for 2 hours, we have a lunch picknick on the beach. When everyone’s ready, we get ready for our second go; everyone cheering whenever they stand up (which happens more frequently by the hour).

We drive off to Noordwijk, a one-hour drive through the tulip fields. We sleep at the lovely and crazy land of two great people, who’ve built a green house, ladders to be able to walk over their house, and all kinds of tree houses. Feels like were hallucinating by looking around us, but it’s actually real!

Day 3

We wake up early to start the day with something none of us has ever done before; face gymnastics. What?? Yes, Face Gymnastics. Yulia, a lovely lady from Ukrain explains to us how important it is to Ukrain women to train their face muscles, a type of ‘natural botox’ as she explains. And why not, she might be right; why train all our muscles, but forget our faces? Let’s give it a try!

After pulling crazy faces and moving muscles we never knew existed we’re ready for breakfast. Oven-bread & croissants in the sun, next to the horses. Love it. Today is our last surfing day; two more hours of class and time to either relax or spend some more hours in the water!

We end the day with a nice beer at the surf bar Beach Break in Noordwijk and head back to Amsterdam at the end of the day, where we say goodbye to a new group of friends.