Silver Spoon's Pilgrimage North
Story: Anna Ehrgott | Photography: @ellithor
While so much of cold water surfing is filled with novelty surfs and hours warming up at coffee shops, this trip was different in that we scored nearly every single day for 10 days straight. That's pretty unheard of on Iceland's windy, rough and rugged coastline.
I planned the trip around a hurricane that had been making its way up the US East Coast. I knew that if a 30ft swell was hitting Iceland, there would be some Fjords and bays that could turn that swell into groomed point breaks.
We ended up not surfing the hurricane swell at all, as it was coming with the kinds of winds that you can't open a car door in, so we flocked to the north instead. Staying in cabins, barely sleeping - just in case the northern lights made an appearance (we saw the slightest green glow of them one night), and surfing till we had spaghetti arms dangling limp in our thick, hooded wetsuits.
We caught the first north swell of the season. End of summer and early fall call for the first dusting of snow and the stirring of storms in the Greenland Sea. You truly feel at the top of the world while on the coast in the north of Iceland.
Nothing in sight, but the steel gray of frigid water. Towns are small up there. Mainly just warehouses and harbors, leftover from the days of whaling, and a few rugged sheep farmers... and these days, a handful of the most diehard surfers you have ever met.
After the absolute trip of my dreams, I left my beloved Bing Silver Spoon with friends there. I love knowing that it will stay at my favorite surf destination in the world. Scoring all my favorite waves with all my favorite cold water surfing companions.
Also in Bing Surfboards Blog
THE DESTINATION IS THE DESTINATION
Travel is all about getting somewhere else. The journey, comically titled “the destination,” by some real masochists, feels more to me like a practical joke then a zen-buddha lesson in being present; a blur of drinking $9 Chardonnay while trying to stream Lego Batman across the isle and entertain a baby with a series of 10 second activities (tray table, crackers, seatbelt, headphones!).
THE BOARDROOM 2023 COMPETITOR INTERVIEWS
Name, hometown, and surfboard brand.
Josh Peterson, hometown Virginia Beach (born) Haleiwa (currently living), and my brand is Peterson Surfcraft.
When and where did you start surfing? Describe your first surfboard.
I started surfing when I was about 15 in Virginia Beach, and my first board was an old funboard from WRV that was about 7’6” and had glass on thrusters and an insane airbrush.
EL CAMPEON
At the beginning, it was just an idea, but at the same time, a challenge I had set for myself some time ago. Honestly, I saw it as complicated since it was my first time traveling alone to Europe, and I was curious and nervous because I was literally going to another country. The only thing that reassured me was being able to speak Spanish over there. But, of course, none of this would have been possible without the support of the entire BAPU beachware team who encouraged me and gave me the motivation not to doubt myself and make this a fulfilled goal, we organized various activities while presenting the short film "El Gordo" to raise funds for this trip.