If I asked you about things you associated with Holland you might say ‘clogs’, ‘tulips’ and maybe ‘floodplains’. Even if you were a surfer you’d still be pretty unlikely to put two and two together.

But you’d be wrong. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there was recently a protest in Scheveningen, Holland, about some council legislation aimed at closing down the surf beach after concern about the dangers of the sport.

Hans and the local surf community put paid to that with a peaceful demo and we’ve since had the chance to catch up and find out more about this obscure but thriving surf scene.

Hans first discovered his passion for surfing on a holiday in Quiberon, France, where he loaned his skimboard to a German guy’s son in exchange for a go on the German guy’s surfboard for a couple of hours. He picked up the nack of standing up after only a few goes and, as if by magic, became a surfer, buying his first board that same summer.

I ask Hans what the surf scene is like in Holland and joyfully he describes it as “small and personal, maybe even like California in the fifties.” He explains that there are tight groups of surfers scattered up the coast, but that it’s growing fast, especially in Scheveningen where neat, punchy rights push up against a wave-breaker jutting out from the soft sandy beach that also throws up some standard beach-break action.

Hans describes Scheveningen as a “small fishing town attached to a metropole, so you have all the benefits of both; small and friendly community, but still everything is nearby.” It’s apparently the only town in Holland with a big surf community and range of abilities and, he adds happily, “the only place in Holland where you can walk around with just trunks on and not look weird.”

If you’re new to surfing, Hans suggests that it’s easiest to go wrong with foot positioning when you stand up -it’s all about keeping your feet parallel so that your shoulders are facing the side of your board, not the front.

Hans finds his new pupils through word of mouth and from a local guerilla sticker campaign on all the lamp-posts in Scheveningen and Den Haag. “We’ve had some media coverage, even on TV, so that’s been good as well” he says.

I ask Hans what he finds so rewarding about being a surf instructor and he says that, even after 12 years, “it’s still super-rewarding to see the smile on people’s faces after they rush down the face of a wave,” adding, “surfing changes people’s lives, and it’s super-cool to be a part of some of those lives.” He talks fondly about doing a job that just makes people happy – that and getting to travel all over the world in winter to work.

Fortunately here at Ooh.com we don’t envy him at all. Not even a little bit… If you want to get in touch with Hans to book a lesson, or ask a question, you can email him or take a ‘peak’ (yay – a pun!) at his website.

Tags: beach, holland, scheveningen, surfing, the hague