Our Search - prt 5 - Portugal

What a winter that was! For us we couldn't of picked a better winter to set out on this adventure.You never know what the future holds and for all we knew we could of had 4 months of hellish on shore winds and average swells.Fortunately this wasn't the case. We have scored in every country we lay foot in and Portugal wasn't ever going to let us down. 

Good friend of ours Dane Hall moved to Peniche, Portugal with his family back when we were 16. Since then we both had been down there many times to share amazing waves with Dane and also many local friends that live there. With out a doubt Portugal offers some of the best waves in Europe and also offers cheap living. 

Inevitably Portugal is highly known across the surf community. In recent years, the Wave which breaks on the beach of Praia Norte, located in the small fishing village of Nazare has showcased some record breaking waves and further more made Portugal stick out on the map as a well renowned surf destination. We both knew that Nazare was waiting for us at the end of our journey. 

The beast was in the back of our minds whilst driving the dry straights of spain. To be honest its hard to forget about that wave when you know how crazy it is. The power of it is created by a number of elements. 1 being the deep canyon that runs 125 miles from the abyssal plain out in the Atlantic Ocean to less than half a mile from the coastline. At its deepest point, the sea bed is more than 3 miles beneath the surface and it rises rapidly to a canyon “headwall” that rises to between 100 and 150 feet just off the coast of Praia do Norte.

Another factor obviously being that its widley open to all the elements the great Atlantic produces. Swells travelling from miles away come flying through the canyon, fierce and ready to kill they hit the shallower waters of Praia Norte, after rebounding off the cliff face to create an A frame peak the size of high rise buildings. The power of that wave will crush and swallow you up for a long time, I would say that wave has the potential to hold you under for 3-5 minutes plus. 

 After spending 2 weeks surfing fun, rip able waves around Peniche and Lisbon, with Dane and fellow RipCurl rider Francisco Alves, we almost forgot about the above ! Sure enough there it was another mutant swell lined up to hit Europe. We knew even a week away that it had the potential to be one of the biggest days that was ever to hit Nazare. So the potential for us to surf the biggest wave in the world!

We aren't really on that mission, we love big waves, adrenalin is our drug and we thrive of it, but we aren't trying to break records. This was just to much of an opportunity to miss. Andrew Cotton and Garret Mc Namara flew in for the swell 2 day prior, we met up with them for a meal the night before and sussed out what was going down the next day. We both knew that we didn't really have a clue about the place and those guys basically live for waves like Nazare, so it was epic of them to let us cruise out as a team and tell us all we needed to know about the wave. That nights sleep was, well it wasn't really a sleep.We opened our eyes at 4am and set off in the dark to meet garret and Cotty. I had the shits which I thought was nerves, but I later found out that I had a bit of food poisoning. Lyndon was holding in his fear until we were half way out at sea, sitting on our ski's staring at mountains of water rolling in from the deep, Garret stopped us as he wanted to say a prayer. We all held hands and thanked the lord for what we have and how blessed we are to be doing what we love. As we separated I felt Lyndon's sudden fear, he could't stop shaking for the rest of the journey to the headland.

 Thousands of people gathered on the cliffs to watch the show, it was all so real. Cotty and Garett headed out to get the feel of it, as we watched in the channel acting as a safety ski for the first hour. The boys towed each other into a couple of gigantic waves, but it was few and far between. The swell wasn't as lined up as we wished it to be and therefore leaving us in a bit of a predicament. On 1 hand we wanted to get at least 1 wave under our belt after all that we had been through, all the fear, all the anticipation was right in front of us.

On the other hand we didn't want to die. Something didn't feel right, we were getting cold, the whole scene was just overwhelming. We both decided that it wasn't our time to shine, we were stoked to be out there watching the boys get a couple and to experience Nazare from the water, but we cut our losses and after 3 1⁄2 hours headed back to the port. Garret and Cotty soon followed and agreed that it wasn't great out there, the wind didn't have enough east in it to clean the onshore from the day before.

Cotty still managed to surf one of the biggest waves ever ridden out there and had his dose of adrenalin for the month. 

 A week later our feelings of un accomplishment were over ridden by a week of 6-8ft pumping waves at Coxos. There were a few local crew on it and a couple of Frenchies ripping out there, the vibe was mellow and we all were just stoked on how good it was, we even got to surf Nazare on a small day, well i say small it was still 6ft and thumping through.

Its all gone a bit fast, one minute we were sitting there sipping away on tea, like old men, talking about this amazing trip, the next we are back at home with a flat ocean in front of us. The storms have passed, the winter is clear. what seems like far gone distant memories of joy and excitement will stay with us forever. All the friendly people we met on the way will never be forgot and all the great waves we surfed that are made from what started as a slight gust of wind, will be always in our memories .

This is the end, or it could be the beginning...

                     

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