Best Things to Do:
For Wave Addicts: A Surf Day Trip to the North Sea
When you think of surfing, you usually have certain images in mind: turquoise water, sunshine, muscular bodies. But as a surfer in northern Germany stuck in the city, you've long since abandoned these clichés - a day in the icy North Sea will suffice.
It sounds completely crazy, but a surfer's craving for waves can become so unbearable at unpredictable intervals that you end up spending 100 euros for three hours of surfing. In the winter. On Norderney.
To make this happen, several factors have to come together. The time window for good waves in the North Sea is usually limited to a few hours.
The wind has to blow gently and the swell (for non-surfers: wave motion created by wind) needs to be large enough coming from the north. Then, depending on the location, the tide has to match perfectly with the arrival at the beach. Oh, and the highway needs to be clear so you can catch the ferry. The island bus driver can't throw a fit and refuse to transport your surfboard (because then you'll have to walk all the way across the island).
When everything aligns, the next problem: the cold
If all that aligns, the only thing standing in your way is the cold. Unfortunately, Neptune sends hardly any waves to the East Frisian coast in the summer, making the island a winter hotspot. Sub-zero temperatures and snowfall are not uncommon during these wave-craving excursions.
With the right equipment, you can just about bear the frost and the water temperature of 39 degrees Fahrenheit. The gear, however, strongly resembles a Michelin Man costume: wetsuit, hood, gloves, and boots (all at least five millimeters thick neoprene) make you waddle along the beach like an overweight duck.
Somehow you still manage to get into the water, take the first breaststrokes, get a brain freeze - and you're just simply happy!
Icicles start forming on your beard, and you notice how your belly (either due to the Michelin Man outfit or the fact you haven't been on the board for too long) is in the way. You catch the first wave, jump up, glide along the muddy brown wall of the finest North Sea water, and ride it to the beach: That's called Stoke!
Okay, admittedly: Not always is the stress, cost, and early rising worth it. But at worst, you've spent a day at the sea. On the days when everything aligns, you're sitting with an outrageously wide grin on the ferry back to the mainland - at least until the craving gets too strong again.