Breaking the wave: We follow Lovisa Ståhl as she journeys through surf

My first encounter with the sea was at the age of two weeks on the south coast of Sweden in the Baltic sea. This was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Through the years I’ve understood this feeling of peace, love and respect for the sea is going to last until my last day and beyond.

I’m a musician and instead of water my focus has been music. Playing guitar, writing songs, live performance, rehearsing and trying to make ends meet as I travel and play over the world has been my priority. I would never change that choice. Music is my temple.

The one thing on my to do­ list though, was to learn how to surf

The one thing on my to do­ list though, was to learn how to surf. Where I’ve been living, there’s never been any waves, but now, I felt the time was right. I got a job in Italy and before I left Sweden I Googled if I could surf in Italy and the internet told me yes. My mind was set, now it was just the small detail left of finding where to surf, a board and maybe even someone to help me to start.

I found what I needed an hour drive from my job. There was a surf school called Blackwave in Recco, Liguria. They had a surf festival one of my first weekends here, so I went. It’s a little tricky though when you’re in a country where you don’t speak the same language as most of the people. Not every Italian speaks a lot of English, but if you look for them, you can find them. I find it very easy to talk to people when I’m in a topic I’m familiar with, like music, or social in general, but this time I felt like Bambi on ice.

I was at the right place and at the right time. It was a great opportunity to talk to people running the surf school. My life motto is ‘do first, dare later’, so I pretended to have the courage and talked to a guy from Blackwave. What I found out later was that he is one of the few at the surf school that speaks good English. It was meant to be. Three days later I had my first class.

It was me and three other Italians having the lesson. This was in May and water was still a little cold. I put on a wetsuit and with a board under my arm I went into the Mediterranean sea. In my mind I had the vision of the girls and guys surfing on the giant waves in places like Bali or the Maldives. Their YouTube­ videos makes my eyes fill up with tears because of the adrenalin, admiration and fear. It puts a smile on my lips as I’m amazed, excited and want to try.

If you know how to do something, it looks really easy. For me, the big waves were for the experienced, the small ones for me. It looked so easy in the videos and in general, I’m a fast learner with most things. This case was different. The smaller waves were there, but to get on this thing was not as easy as it looked. I’ve been very active in my life with everything from capoeira and dancing to running in the jungle (I used to live in Malaysia for a while) and I have tried some watersports as well, like river rafting and wakeboarding. I soon understood this would take time.