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ICELAND: ICEBREAKERS

Thomas Traversa ventured to Iceland this autumn and scored big! He recounts the strike mission with his friends – Jules Denel, Sylvain Bourlard and Louis Depoers.

Words – Thomas Traversa // Photos – Thomas Traversa, Jules Denel, Sylvain Bourlard and Louis Depoers.

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RAW BEAUTY

There are places in the world that most people know about, places that are associated with the raw beauty of nature. Iceland is one of them. Saying that name is enough to wake up people’s curiosity, to excite our imagination, evoke images of a fantasy – the fjords, waterfalls, glaciers and volcanoes; the cold and stormy weather also.

The reality of the place is actually pretty close to all of this! But one thing that people tend to forget is that storms usually bring wind and waves, and the Reykjanes Peninsula in the southwest of the island, is just a perfect playground for us windsurfers. Almost like a cold version of Fuerteventura’s north shore, it has a relatively flat relief, allowing the wind to blow cleanly from all directions. Volcanic reef breaks facing east, south, west and even north, offer a possibility to ride nice waves wherever the wind comes from. One advantage over the Canary Islands is that you are almost guaranteed to find empty lineups, that brings a very cool “pioneer” vibe to any session!

POTENTIAL

As a professional windsurfer, I usually travel with a photographer and/or cameraman when I go on a trip, because it is part of my job to come back from a trip with nice images to share with the rest of the world. I first went to Iceland with Jules Denel and my wife Sophia in 2012, Sophia was filming us and shooting pictures. We had an epic trip, exploring the south coast and the centre of the country. In 2017 Jules and I went back, with our friend Sylvain Bourlard, and we focused more on the sailing. To keep things simple and cheap, we decided to bring a camera and shoot each other, taking breaks between sessions. We scored some really good sessions and ‘discovered’ 2 amazing spots: a point break looking a bit like Cabo Verde with wind from the right, and another point break with wind from the left, where unfortunately we did not get the best conditions to really see the full potential of the place. But we had a feeling it could be epic.

MAKING THE CALL

With the Covid pandemic changing a lot the way we can travel nowadays, Iceland was one of the places we kept an eye on, as it’s kind of easy to fly there. In a way, spending more time at home in the last 18 months has been a blessing, it gave us the chance to slow down everything and to live more in the moment. On the other hand, going on windsurfing trips is a huge part of our life and most of us are craving to travel again, so when the forecast started to show big swell and strong winds for Iceland, Jules and I started to get really excited! It looked like the wind and swell direction were going to create 2 days of amazing conditions to ride both spots. Another positive thing were the temperatures, still warm for Iceland, making the call easy – we had to go! It would be myself, Jules, Sylvain  Bourlard – our friend who was with us in 2017, and Louis Depoers, another friend who usually sails with Jules in the north of France and South Africa.

CAMERA DUTY

As it was a last minute call, it became very difficult to find someone to film or shoot pictures, so we decided to bring once again our own photo and video cameras, and thought it would not be too complicated to take turns behind the camera. Reality proved us wrong! When you arrive at a spot and see perfect waves and feel the wind, it is really painful to think one of our group actually has to stay on the beach… and when you are on the water, you know that your turn will come sooner or later to stop the fun session, go back to the beach, get changed and sit behind the camera for an hour.

We had to play rock-paper-scissor to decide who would be first to take pictures, who would be second and so on. To be honest I think all of us felt the frustration at some point, but I think we all tried our best to get decent pictures of each other riding these epic waves.

IMAGE DEPENDENT

Situations like these make us realize that we are really dependent on images. As much as we love travelling, sailing new places and riding big waves, it is very important to have someone there to capture our performances so that we can share it later. Imagine flying all the way to Iceland with a couple of friends, braving the cold, finding amazing waves, spending 2 days riding them and having a beer or two in the evening, a nice dinner and a good rest … and then going back home, happy, full of amazing memories, but having nothing to show for it. That would be pretty amazing in a way, but to be able to do these things for a living you need to document your trips; you need to tell a story. The reward is that it forces you to make the best of every moment, and by reflecting on your experience you kind of continue the journey, be it by writing a story or editing a travel video.

SPOT CHECK

Let’s go back to what went down in Iceland! We were not sure which of the 2 spots was going to work best, and there is almost two hours of driving from one to another… so for the first day we chose the spot we knew best, the right-hander point break. It was close to a harbour, easy to access, easy to shoot, and we knew how good it could be since we already had an amazing session there in the past. When we arrived, it was windy, but the waves didn’t look as good as we expected. Louis is a good windsurfer, but does not have much experience in big waves and rides almost exclusively with wind from the left, so he decided to stay on land with the camera.

We had a fun session for about an hour and a half and the waves were getting better and better, but then the wind direction changed and it became harder to get good rides. We were also feeling cold, coming from the end of the French summer and jumping straight away into winter conditions. Happy with the session, but not satisfied, we decided to try the other place, on the other side of the peninsula.

SECOND CHANCE

We found that second spot by chance in 2017, driving back after windsurfing at a nearby beach break. From the road we could see the swell bending and breaking into a nice long wave, but the wind was totally offshore. The wind forecast for the next day looked like it could work, so we gave it a try. Unfortunately the waves were a bit too small, the tide a bit too high and the wind did not last long before massive rain showers had us giving up. But we knew we had found something special, and we kept dreaming of scoring a big day there. One of the particularities of this place is that there is no proper road access, you must park on the main road and from there the wave is far, very far, 2 km according to Google Earth!

PERFECT POINT

This time the wind was strong and the swell looked big enough to allow the wave to break consistently all the way to the inside section. From up on the road we could not tell how big it was, and it was difficult to know exactly what sail size we should use, so we made a plan to prepare one board bag each, with 1 board, 2 wetsuits, 2 sails, 2 masts and one boom… and start the very long walk to the spot! One guy in the front, one in the back and one board bag on each hand, 2 groups of 2. But the kit was still too heavy and too long to walk all the way like this. We set up a “first camp” halfway, and walked the rest carrying only what we were going to use on this first day. I was feeling tired from the morning session so I chose to be on camera duty to start the session, and as soon as Jules, Louis and Sylvain got close to the waves, I realized it was big and perfect – 4 to 5 metre waves peeling forever, 30 knots cross-off wind and some blue sky. For one hour I ran around the point trying to find the best angles, filming some waves with one camera, then shooting pictures with the other camera. I was actually enjoying the show, but a part of me could not wait to jump in the water and join the party!

SPECIAL DAY

It was one of those very special days – we shared amazing waves, all to ourselves in the middle of nowhere. We just could not believe how good it was and stayed in the water until the sun came down. We left our equipment rigged up on the beach and walked our way back to the car through the dusk, completely stoked and exhausted. That session completely surpassed our expectations and we just wanted to get more the next day! The forecast was looking even better, but when we got there in the morning the spot did not look so good anymore. The waves were still over mast high, but it was a bit more messy, maybe because of the different tide, maybe because the wind was side-shore, so we waited. A few hours later the conditions became better, and we played another round of rock-paper-scissors. Louis and Sylvain went to the water first, I took pictures and Jules was filming. It looked harder to ride, but the waves were still solid, and once it was our turn to hit the water we had some really good waves. Both “groups” had 2 sessions that day, and we were totally done after packing all the board bags, walking the whole way back to the car with the rest of our food, wet wetsuits, photo and video cameras, but our mission was accomplished!

ERUPTION

During our stay in Iceland, every person we met asked us if we had gone to see the volcano which was in eruption, close to Reykjavik. In the evening we could see the red light from afar, but we were too focused on windsurfing to actually go. On the last day we could finally witness the lava erupting and flowing into a giant black smoking field, and it felt as special and rare as riding these dream waves … it was just a little bit more crowded!