With a typically French sense of adventure, masters of wave sailing style Jules Denel and Thomas Traversa flew north in search of fresh new experiences on the pristine, and isolated Icelandic coastline.
Story Thomas Traversa & Jules Denel  Photos Sophia Regerbis

(This feature contains some unseen images from an article that  first appeared in the April 2013 issue of Windsurf Magazine. To read more like this hot-off-the-press, print and digital subscriptions are available here.)

THOMAS

9AM. I wake up. My phone’s ringing. It’s Jules Denel.  While I pick up I manage to slowly find a way out of my sleeping bag and put my shoes on. Next to me lays Sophia, on the passenger seat. I can’t see her head under the jackets, but I assume she’s still sleeping as the other end of her sleeping bag isn’t moving either. It’s the end of August, but it’s freezing cold as, since last night, we’re somewhere in the southwest of Iceland. Jules should be with us, but his call comes from France.

Back in Spring 2012, Jules told me about an idea for a nice trip. We were both in France, and our talk was all about Politics. At home we were voting for our next President and so the topic was on everyone´s lips, ours included. Crisis, debt, banks, Europe. The word economy seems to define everything in all of our futures.

Jules has read something about Iceland having led a silent revolution for the last few years, as huge changes were made in the political and economic system to put an end to a massive debt crisis. It seems like they sent their most powerful bankers to court after an agreement was made between the banks and the government to allow debt forgiveness while they left international creditors to deal with their failed loans on their own – removing all responsibility from the Icelandic people. Neither of us is sure if we completely understand the situation, but in this moment of political madness we think it’s justification enough to go there on a windsurfing trip.

Weird. After a first check, here’s what we know about Iceland: It’s obviously known as a cold place, there’s ice even in summer. It’s supposed to be beautiful. They overhauled their economy to survive the crisis, but no one really cares, they still have their own currency, fjords, Bjork, Geysers and they descend from Vikings. It’s located far up north in the middle of the Atlantic ocean – so there must be wind and waves – it’s a volcanic island (we know this thanks to the famous eruption that spewed out air-travel-delaying ash a few years ago) so there should be some good reefs along this huge coastline. Oh, and they have hot springs!

According to the weather archives, the summers are not so cold and, after Googling “surf + Iceland” we get the confirmation that the island has good waves and no crowds. We even find out that top British sailor Steve Thorp went there and scored good conditions and did a little report on his blog with some interesting pictures.

This is more than we need to decide that we have to go there, even if we’re unlucky and don’t get good sailing conditions, at least we have a beautiful island to discover and, if the weather is too bad for sightseeing, we can always spend our time swimming in the blue lagoon, or even hang-out in Reykjavik talking politics and revolution in the bars, partying – or both at the same time.

The good forecast we were waiting for finally showed up and within two days Sophia and I booked our flights to Reykjavik, reserved a car, packed winter clothes, windsurfing and camping equipment and jumped on the plane. Jules isn’t here yet because he just opened his new windsurf-shop at his home spot, Wissant.

As I get out of the car phone in hand and get my first impression of Iceland, Jules explains that he might be able to come after all. He has a friend who can help out at the new shop and he’s found a cheap flight arriving late tonight. He knows there’s some swell coming, I can feel his excitement and he asks what I think so far and I answer, “it looks nice, it’s fresh and it’s not raining…” before saying what he wants to hear “…and it´s already windy”. The next important thing I tell him is to bring a good sleeping bag.

We did spend a short first night in the car, but our plan is to sleep in the tent we brought. It’s not just because we think it’s a cooler experience than sleeping in an hotel room, it’s mainly because hotel rooms are ridiculously expensive – and so are rental cars. We ‘chose’ to save our cash for the car and for fuel, plus we’d read Iceland is so empty that you can camp pretty much anywhere.

For this first day, Sophia and I decide to drive to the south of the island where the Easterly wind is predicted to blow strong and side shore. After just 2km we stop for a lonely hitchhiker standing in short pants! He’s also heading south, our car’s not really that full so we give him a ride. We learn a few things by chatting with him about his trip here and he gives us some good tips that Sophia writes down on our map. We leave the dry volcanic zone behind us and the landscapes are getting greener and greener as we get closer to our destination. The weather is just beautiful and so is the Vik area: wide black beaches, rivers, “wild” horses and sheep living at the bottom of green cliffs, a few farms here and there…and the glaciers just up there, creating the most incredible water falls you can imagine. It’s definitely a nice place to be a tourist!

Close to Vik there’s a beach called Dyrolahey. Known for it’s thousands of penguins but as we arrive we only see other tourists taking pictures from the hill. But there is swell, some seals swimming, a lot of sea birds and a huge cliff downwind – but no penguins.
At least the wind is howling. I rig my 4.0 and walk for a kilometer along the river and finally reach the sea. I realize how massive the shorebreak is while launching into the cold and brown water. I ‘m actually pretty scared, I don’t feel safe at all and after an hour trying to survive out there I give up, climb the hill and run back to the car. Sophia explains how she overheard all the tourists saying in various languages that “this guy is crazy”, and she asks me how the sailing was and I have to admit that I just felt very stupid. And cold. On our way back to Reykjavik I try to forget about this weird session. Sophia drives, the heater is on and the sun‘s slowly going down in front of us. The lava fields we drive through look so peaceful under the fading light. I’m happy we’re picking-up Jules tonight and sure he’s going to love this place. Plus I like the idea of having some company on the water in the coming days. Later we put up our tent in the fisherman´s town of Grindavik, half an hour away from the airport.

JULES

I only booked my plane ticket at the last moment, but here we are in Iceland with our windsurfing, camping, video and photo equipment, ready to enjoy a trip that promises so much excitement. Upon my arrival, Thomas tells me about the thrill of his first day here with Sophia. I think the exact reason we came to Iceland was this type of search for simple and beautiful places quietly waiting to be discovered. We just decided to hit the road as friends, look at the maps for the best spots, sleep under the stars – rocked by the waves – and perhaps stop once in a while at some Icelandic bars to feel the deep pulse of the country. We did feel very cold at the beginning, but the beauty of the landscapes made us feel good pretty quickly. Waterfalls everywhere, natural hot springs, each rainbow more beautiful than the last, the stunning contrast between mountains and ocean, the huge glaciers, the geysers – that reach up to 50 meters in the sky – the cliffs, the sun, the cross-offshore winds, the birds and – the silence.

THOMAS

Grindavik is the most popular area for surfing. It’s pretty close to Reykjavik and there’s a lot of volcanic reefs exposed to different wind and swell directions. Add a campsite with hot showers, a typical fisherman’s café on the harbour, some internet hotspots to check the forecast and you’re all set. This is where we sailed most of the time after Jules arrived, enjoying all kind of conditions. Sun and rain, onshore, sideshore, small and big waves, starboard and port tack…

JULES

We didn’t bring our surfboards so that we could take some time to have a look at the magical inland scenery. What we saw was one of the nicest countries we ever had the chance to discover! And along the endless southern coastline, where reefs and beaches come one after the other we were shocked not to see any surfers or windsurfers to ride all those perfect waves! Which for us meant pretty unreal sailing sessions – on our own. After only 2 days on the road i was feeling like we’d already spent 4 or 5 days there since we’d discovered so many breathtaking landscapes and spots along our way.

This short trip to Iceland certainly exceeded our expectations. I could talk for hours about it but the pictures will do a better job.

THOMAS

We once went back to the south, spent a night on the beach and had a little freeride session under the cliffs the next day. We partied in Reykjavik twice, slept in the car, went swimming in the Blue lagoon, saw the geysers, drove to spots that weren’t working and even did some bodysurfing. We made ourselves a local friend to have some beers with after sailing, had some lobster soup and our tent broke down during a nighttime storm. In the end we didn’t hear one song from Bjork and didn’t really talk much politics or find time to cruise through the north of the island. We didn’t see the fjords and the sailing was not even that cold. Finding the best spot in the south on the last day, after the wind was already gone, was just one more reason to agree that we have to come back to Iceland, at least one time if not more, to keep on filling up the near-empty story of Icelandic wavesailing.   TT