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Saturday, May 5th. It was too warm for this time of the year. And my favoured buoy in the North Atlantic was showing a swell that was too powerful for this time of the year. And it was not just one swell. Mid-week another winter storm was due to cross the north Atlantic and according to the forecast west of Scotland wave periods were due to get into mid to high teens again and the swell was supposed to peak with something between 5 and 6 meters, with the peak lasting a whole day. A very unusual combination.
The direction of these successive swell and their energy should be enough to make it into the North Sea and send some juicy waves to the west facing shores of Norway and Denmark. Most interesting were the upcoming Sunday and Monday and Ascension Day in the same week. The icing on the cake was the local wind forecasts for the area: it had a strong tendency to light to moderate easterly winds for the whole week with just one day with a possible switch to a westerly wind for a couple of hours. So, the prospect was a week with small but high period groundswell in combination with light offshore winds.
This was calling for a spontaneous little holiday. To take advantage of the first swell I would have to be up north Sunday and Monday. That large groundswell midweek called for being up there the following Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday. As the work week would be interrupted by Ascension Day anyways and in consequence – almost everybody would take the Friday off – nothing really relevant would happen I decided that the office didn´t really need me enough to stay there. I packed some clothes and hit the road northbound Saturday evening.
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