It took me a while until I finally got to visit that famous atlantic pendant to the hawaiian mekka of surfing. I had avoided the island for so long because it didn´t seem to be that interesting. My expectations were that of too much sand and dust and too little contures and too many tourists and an overrated name for it´s northern part. North shore is just too loaded with expectations.

Timo and a very good price for the flight finaly convinced me to give it a go. January seemed to be a good time to go too. We traveled light with a surfboard each. We got a cheap rental car and had found a cheap place to stay. Waves were prognosed with 1,5m so there wasn´t much to loose.

When we approached the island the overview was just as expected. Dust and sand could be seen through the airplane windows and the first kilometers on the island secured that impression. Pale colours of brown and yellow shimmered through a sandfilled air. But as we passed the dunes south of Corralejo and realized the contrast with the deep blue of the sea, hope for more sensual attractions began to rise. We reached Kussie´s place in Lajares early enough to have some time to check the surf before dawn.

We raced down the dirt track - which just had started getting paved - to Majanicho, took a left and reached Hierro. The black lava rocks, white sand and deep blue ocean formed a fascinating composition of colours and forms. And the incoming waves did the same. Forcasts had promised little to nothing for that day concerning wave hights of barely a meter. But that meter formed very nice headhigh peaks at La Izquierda. We didn´t hesitate long, waxed our boards and found a way through the sharp lava rocks into the ocean. The lineup was almost empty and the winds were offshore. Beeing novices to that spot and beeing used a different sort of “power” from the north sea surf sessions of the past half year, we were quite a bit challenged by adopting to that kind of surf. And I was wondering, what the predicted rise in wavesize of about one meter would mean. Still, the forcast for the following days had been 1,5m and the wind should be offshore and there was still La Derecha de los Alemanes and the beatings hadn´t been too heavy so we were looking forward for more successful sessions here. Getting back to shore I met some urchins but that didn´t matter too much and back in the appartement we killed some beers and were happy.

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