AUS120.com™ – Sean O’Brien, Tour Diary

After years of travelling to Poland and competing at some of the various seaside towns I have finally made it to the Polish capital, Warsaw (Warszawa). I guess you make the impressions of what you think a city will be like in your head based on the countryside and experiences you have already had in that particular country. So when I came to Warsaw I was really expecting something completely different; maybe just a larger version of Sopot or Gdansk or something… When I finally parked the car in Warsaw I was pleasantly (and completely) suprised!

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Yay, the first of the Polish events I am competing in this European summer starts this week in a small town called Pobierowo, on the seaside in Poland not too far in from ze German border. I spent a couple of day’s mucking around in Belgium over the weekend to pick up my Polish manager however it rained the whole time there so I didn’t get to see too much of Leuven except to hang out in the city centre one night and film a stupid video on Kasia’s bike. Now back in Holland we had an afternoon of packing to begin…
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A year or so ago Markus Bouman  and I discovered a great little secret rigging spot not far from the “Windsurfing Oostmahorn” club on the Lauwersmeer. A spot that allowed us to drive the van right up to the water (only 2-3m from the edge) and rig up in a soft patch of grass centimetres from the water; in true lazy-Aussie fashion. After a few days sailing in the ocean on Ameland, it was a bit of a change to sail on the flat water lake with semi fresh water – but with 20 knots full-power action on the 11m sails it was a great morning’s sailing and with thanks to my cheap*ss Fujifilm J10 digital camera we managed to catch it all on film. Enjoy the video…

This week, myself and Markus Bouman caught the ferry out to the small Dutch holiday island of Ameland. On the northern side of the island, in the North Sea, there is perfect ocean Formula training conditions which will be similar to what we’ll expect at the Formula Windsurfing European Championships in Poland the week after next. We are here for the entire week, testing out a big selection of Formula fins and keeping fit on the mountain bikes – including riding up one of the biggest hills in Holland (which we estimated to be around 8m high. EIGHT METRES HIGH…. INCREDIBLE!!) 

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Last year one of Holland’s biggest surfshops, SurfCenter, opened the doors to its all new and bigger new location at Steendam, in northern Holland. Today, Markus and myself decided to visit Jack and the boys at SurfCenter to check it out and also pick up a few spare parts for myself. Of course, in true dutch style it was pouring with rain when we arrived, but later that afternoon the sun did show itself and we were able to go sailing on the lake with the Starboard Tandem board for a bit of fun …

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Last night I was up super late watching movies on my friend Markus’ computer when he suddenly emerges from his room at 2.30am and announces we are going WINDSURFING! Apparently, some of the hardcore Dutch speedsurfers had been tipped off about some super conditions at a secret speed strip in the North of Holland – however the tide was only going to be perfect for sailing the strip at around 5am. The place was 2 hours drive from Dokkum so we thought… yeah, we could do this?! So after only 30 mins of sleep and two pieces of plain bread for breakfast, we loaded the van with speed kit and began the drive in the freezing dark of night to the beach at 3am in the morning… 

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