Fra Norge til Portugal på et surfbræt
Den belgiske professionelle surfer, Lars Musschoot, var i Danmark i påskeugen. Han har startet et stort projekt, der går ud på, at han skal surfe kysten fra det nordlige Norge til Portugal. Det er en del af et større projekt, som er startet af hans sponsor Protest. Projektet hedder ”Stories from here to there”, hvor vi i webisodes får lov at følge Protests teamriders.
Riders.dk kørte til Cold Hawaii for at møde Lars Musschoot til en snak. Vi mødte en utrolig glad og imødekommende mand. Hans kærlighed til surfing viste sig hurtigt og ved hvert spot vi tjekkede ud, blev han mere og mere begejstret. Desværre var dagen ikke helt optimal hvad angår bølger. En stærk nordvesten vind stod ind fra Nordsøen, hvilket bragte mange rodet bølger. Lars var dog yderst stoked, da han så et utroligt potentiale i vestkystens surfspots. Vi fik skudt billeder af ham og mødtes derefter til en snak med både ham og hans kameramand Maxime Desmet i stuen hos Klitmøller Surfcamp. Det blev til en snak om turen, hans opvækst i Belgien, de Kanariske øer og om hans planer for denne sæson.
Lars Musschoot interview
Hi Lars.. Welcome to DK..
Riders: What do you think about Denmark as a surfing country? How long have you been here?
Lars: We came yesterday; well yeah we arrived the night before.
Riders: did you surf anywhere yesterday?
Lars: Nahh, there were waves, but similar to today. Was maybe even more wind.
Riders: So it was the first surf today?
Lars: Yeah, it was the first surf.
Riders: alright cool..
Lars: Yeah yesterday, the place we surfed today was a bit bigger and in the evening it looked really fun, but we didn’t surf yesterday.
Riders: So you are psyched for the forecast for tomorrow?
Lars: Yeah I hope, because in all those beaches we saw it can really be…It has potential. A lot of potential. I have seen some good footage and stuff and that looks really good, so I hope I get a good session..
Riders: Yeah hopefully, so you can get some film done.
Lars: Yeah..
Riders: How has your trip been so far?
Lars: It has been pretty cool, just like we had really fun waves at the beginning of the trip, yeah and the second part of Norway was pretty bad. That’s was actually just three days and then we came here. Cause the plan was to stay a bit longer in Norway, but the forecast was looking bad and it is so expensive to be there.
Riders: How long did you stay up at Lofoten?
Lars: hmm..I was there for at least two weeks… nahh 12 days actually.
Riders: (Adressing filmer) And you were there all along?
Filmer (Maxime): Nahh, I arrived the last week. I was there for seven days, I think.
Lars: Yeah and then I had another camera guy came a couple of days before him.
Riders: Okay cool, so did you just drive all the way from Belgium to Lofoten by yourself?
Lars: Yeah hah.. I drove for three days, I think.
Riders: non-stop?
Lars: Hah yeah, I drove for 2 and a half days nonstop and then I just slept in my car. In my small little car.
Riders: So your car has been your home for a couple of days?
Lars: yeah, and then I missed a ferry, so at the end it took me 4 days to get to Lofoten. But yeah, I enjoyed the ride. It was really beautiful.. Its sick.. The last day was crazy. It was like from Trondheim to Lofoten that was sick..Like snowfall all the time.
Riders: How did you come up with the idea of this project?
Lars: Normally in the winter it has always been the same. First I go to Australia, a couple of weeks in Indonesia and then I go straight to the first contest in Europe. This year I wanted to do something different. Not the same as all the other years. I spend a bit longer at the canaries, cause my dad lives at the canaries, so I spend a lot of time there. I was there for about 3 months. Then I just started to think about what to do and I always wanted to come to Norway and we spend a bit of time coming up with the plans for the whole trip. I had seen good photos from Denmark, so I thought it would be nice to go from Norway, through Denmark and Germany. Germany I have never been or surfed before.
Riders: Are you planning on surfing Germany?
Lars: yeah, I’ll definitely stop and have a look and surf.
Riders: So the project you are doing is basically a movie in a few episodes?
Lars: Yeah, the intro comes out this week and I think that it’s going to be around 5 or more episodes. It’s one big project that my sponsor, protest has made. They follow 5 riders. It’s me, Marlon(lipke), Yannick(dejager), Tim(Boal) and Oli Adams, from England. Oli’s first episode is online already. The project is called “stories from here to there”. So it starts at “here” for Oli, that’s his home in England and then where he goes is “there”. We follow Marlon, doing his contests around the world and my here is in Norway and then I go “there” to Portugal.
Riders: Cool, it sounds very interesting.
Lars: yeah it’s a cool thing.
Riders: What are you into? The freesurfing or doing competitions?
Lars: ahm… this year I don’t really know yet. I will go to the first contest and then see how it goes. If that one goes well I will probably do a few more. The first one will be the Protest Vandee in two weeks. If it doesn’t go well, I will try to do more trips and stuff.
Riders: How long do you think this trip will take you?
Lars: Around two months. It depends, because in between I have to go to France for the contest there, then I am also going on a phototrip to Mexico in-between, so now I have in Belgium the 10th of april, so I can be there a few days before heading to France. After that its home again for a couple of days and then on to Mexico for a week, I think. I’m back in Belgium around mid may and then we will take on the project again and move south.
We are doing France, Spain, Portugal. I really want to visit the whole coast, because I have been to Landes a thousand times and all those famous places. I have only once been in Britagne so I definitely want to find waves there. There are sick waves. Its gonna be warmer there, so it’s easier to make it a bit slower. Here we want to take it faster. If I score a good session then we are moving on haha… I really want to be here, but it’s cold and it is a lot more expensive here. Denmark is not like Norway, but Norway is crazy. I couldn’t stay there and wait for a better swell to arrive, it was too expensive. We have been here for three weeks and spend 2000 Euros.. Its sick and I eat the cheapest food.. I reackon 100 hotdogs hah…. Good hotdogs here huh..hah..
Filmer(Maxime): But after a while you are so…. Fed up with it heh…
Lars: yeah pizza and yeah..hah.. I always think France is so expensive, but after visiting northern Europe I think it’s cheap hah…
Riders: How is Belgium compared to DK?
Lars: Ways cheaper..yeah.. Yesterday we went to the shop here and got a couple of things and if I were to buy those things in Belgium I would probably have paid half heh…
Riders: yeah it is expensive.. Do you have any favorite spots along you route?
Lars: nahh I actually like the northern part cause I haven’t visited those before. Denmark and Norway are definitely the places that I really wanted to experience. I have been a lot to the southern parts, but I’m definitely gonna try to visit places that I haven’t been before there as well.
Riders: But do you have like a favorite spot around Europe?
Lars. Hmm.. Not really.. I love going to the canaries.. that’s really nice..it’s warm.. But I think Lofoten definitely became one of my favorite spots. It’s one of nicest the places I have been in Europe. Definitely going back there. We lived at Unstad camping.. That’s some really nice people up there.
We surfed with dane gudauskas who were doing a surfing magazine trip up there. So that was cool..
Riders: You mentioned that your dad lives in the canaries… Has that had a big influence on your surfing?
Lars: I kept on going to school in Belgium till I finished at 17.. My dad moved to the canaries when I was around 11 or something and then we visited every holiday we had. We spend maybe 4 months a year there. I tried to surf as much as possible in Belgium, but it was a huge advantage for me that I could go to canaries on holiday often.
Riders: How is the surf in Belgium?
Lars: Its really shit actually hah… If waves were like today, I would be really stoked. It can get better than this ,but maybe only 4 times a year. It can get like a month flat, but the last few times I’ve been there, there have been lots of waves.
Riders: How is the surfscene in Belgium?
Lars: It is becoming a bit big now. It has been crowing a lot over the last few years. When there are waves, even if it is really small, there are a lot of people in the water.
Riders: What is your goal for the future?
Lars: Before I used to have a lot of competitive goals, but now I really don’t have any goals competition wise. I’m not sure that I want to go to a lot of contests this year, because if you haven’t got a goal, whats the point then..As I said it depends on the first contest. I just keep on enjoying surfing you know.. That’s why I do it.
Riders: Thank you Lars and Maxime.. Hope you score some epic surf along your journey.
Da bølgerne forsvandt de efterfølgende dage endte Lars med at køre hjem til Belgien med ideen om at komme tilbage når udsigten så god ud igen. Der kom dog noget film i kassen, der kan ses i den første episode af Lars’ ”Stories from here to there”.
Du kan følge hans tur og de andre teamrideres historier på www.storiesfromheretothere.com
Yderligere lægger Lars løbende billeder og fraklip op fra turen på hans egen hjemmeside www.larsmusschoot.be. Følg også Lars i hans første konkurrence i år i Vandee Frankrig fra den 17-22. April. http://www.protestvendeepro.com/ . Gå ind og tjek hans videoer ud. Det er god inspiration til din næste surftur.
Skrevet af Jacob Gaston, Riders.dk
foto// Maxime Desmet