From www.volcom.com: Terje, Jaymin, Jan, Markus, Bjorn and Seb

So why would snowboarders charter a boat in the Maldives for vacation? Don’t you think a bunch of professional snowboarders would spend their off season heading to the other hemisphere to score more snow? Well, yes, that happens too. But sometimes (ok, mostly) they just wanna surf.

Somehow I scored a spot on this little trip with Terje Haakonsen, Bjorn Lindgren, Markus Keller and Cheryl Maas, along with European Snow TM Jan Prokes and of course a journalist and photographer or two, along with a couple of girlfriends thrown in to keep the boys mellow.

This was our home for a week...

We arrived in Male and rounded everyone up and got on the boat at the airport. The Maldives are a string of islands across the equator, southwest of India, so most of us were a little jetlagged by the time we made it. But all that changed when we pulled up to the first surf spot an hour or so later. The water was as warm and clear as any of us had ever seen and the waves were pumping.

The next week was pretty much groundhog day, but no one was complaining. We woke before dawn with a cup of tea and got on the surf just as the sun was rising. We followed that by a hearty breakfast and another surf session in before lunch and a siesta. A normal afternoon would consist of lounge time or hiding from the sun by snorkeling before another surf until dark and then a huge dinner.

Fishing and watching the World Cup finished off the night, maybe with a beer or two thrown in for good measure and then early lights out to get up at the crack of dawn to do it all again.

After a week of sticking to this itinerary it was time to say goodbye to our new friends in the Maldives. It was back to work for me and back to the normal summer vacation for the rest of the crew. I think everyone should take a summer vacation, not just school kids and professional snowboarders.

Click Here too see more pictures from the trip.