Riding the Northern Lights

In terms of ticking things off the bucket list, Mick Fanning may have trumped just about every professional surfer on the planet with a once-in-a-lifetime surf under a stunning Northern Lights display.

Fanning — currently on a hiatus from professional surfing — camped out on a beach in the Norwegian archipelago of Lofoten, Norway with local photographers Emil Sollie and Mats Grimsaeth waiting for the conditions to align and, as it turned out, they didn’t have to wait long.

“We’d set out a 10-day waiting period because there were so many elements that had to come together,” Fanning told the ABC.

“Even then it was a bit of a roll of the dice. You need the right waves, clear skies and on top of all that, you actually need the lights to come on.”

The lights came on for the first two nights, however, the waves refused to co-operate.

“But on the third night we got lucky,” Fanning said.

The surfer spent the night riding “surprisingly good” waves as the photographer set to work capturing an image they planned for two years.

In keeping with his ethos for 2016, Fanning also took time to take in the spectacle.

“From my end it was pretty easy, I just had to ride the waves,” Fanning said.

“But there was four to six minutes between sets [of waves] and in that time I was just staring up at the sky just screaming with excitement.”

With the shot in the bag, Fanning and the photographers took a moment to celebrate the achievement.

“Everyone was on a high,” the three-time world champion recalled.

“I think I finished surfing at 2:00am and I tried to put myself to sleep but I couldn’t, everyone was so pumped when we saw the pictures.”