SURF BUNNIES

Story by Janni Honscheid

 

The first time I met Sylvi I was pretty intimidated to say the least: I had just arrived on a boat in the Maldives after a 18 hour-long journey, where I had been invited by my friend and photographer Swilly, together with a great crew: Dave Rasta, Asher Pacey, Bryce Young, Lauren Hill, Ellis Ericson and Nic Jones… I was tired, jetlagged and must have looked terribly bad, and there she was, this Hungarian top model, looking impeccable, traveling around the world with her own avocados and Himalayan salt & pepper, and having her perfect surfboard quiver all ready to go perfectly laid out over the front of the boat. With a serious look she approached me, holding in one hand a water bottle, in the other a thick black marker pen: “Here is your water, write your name on the bottle now so it won’t get mixed up, we all share a fridge”. Tired as I was I wrote my name on the bottle as big as I could. Shortly after this I went to sit down outside with all the others, just to find out that I was the only one with her name on the bottle and at every sip, I had a massive “JANNI” right in my face. Surrounded by all these super stylish cool surfer dudes I definitely got some funny looks and smiles, they must have thought I’m a stereotypical German chick that marks her water bottles and sets alarms to be the first putting her towel on beach chairs before the sun comes up… Thanks Sylvi!  But soon that initial freeze melted and every day we became closer and closer, and we ended up being best friends. I think I had never laughed as much as in those two weeks and it was so cool to surf together…