Searching for Surf

Our plan of driving north to meet up with the next swell as it rolled south worked a little too well…

We arrived into Ericeira on the southern coast of Portugal to find HUGE, 20+ foot surf pounding the coastline. Ericeira was a nice town with a historic center and plenty of hiking along the cliffs outside of town so we stayed a few days to see if the swell would become more manageable. In the two days we spent there we never saw a single person crazy enough to paddle out into the mess. With no sign of the swell dropping we continued north.

The next stop on our quest for surf was the Basque Coast on the Spain/France border. We headed to Mundaka, a legendary lefthander breaking over a river mouth sandbar, only to find more crazy surf. We picked up a baguette, some stinky French cheese, salami, and prosciutto for lunch while we watched a handful of guys, most on bodyboards, attempt to catch a few of the 12+ foot waves breaking right in front of the town. Although the waves looked tempting, neither of us had any desire to challenge those monster lefts.

Quick surf lesson for the non-surfers: Waves break along a point/reef either going right or left as you're looking from the ocean towards shore. What foot you put forward on your board (we're both left-foot forward, or "regular-foot” surfers, like most people) determines which waves are better/easier to surf. Waves that are “rights” are easier to surf for "regular-foot" surfers. Add in the fact that we learned to surf on the righthand pointbreaks of Southern California and you can understand why we prefer to surf rights. For average (at best) surfers like us, surfing a wave going left is a little like trying to write with your left hand if you're right handed. It’s not bad when the wave is head high or less, but when the wave is twice your height you’re asking for trouble.

Anyway, as you could guess, we left Mundaka in search of a decent right point. Our next stop was the area south of Biarritz, France. After a little searching, we found a decent right point that looked like a fun wave from way up on the cliff. We quickly suited up and grabbed our boards. As we paddled out we realized the wave was much further out than it looked from our high vantage point and also much bigger. Add in the ridiculously strong currents and we now had our answer to why there were only six other people out surfing what, from the cliff, seemed to be such a fun, mellow wave.

The set waves were easily 15 feet high or bigger. To make matters worse, the peak would shift around, turning those waves that seemed so easy and makeable from the cliff top into huge walls stalking around the lineup just waiting to catch you inside. Rachel sat out of harms way on the shoulder watching the madness for awhile before deciding she had no desire to be out there anymore. After a long paddle she made it back to shore...only after getting caught up in a rip current for awhile. Dustin figured since he made the paddle out there he might as well give it a shot…you don’t find waves that big every day. He paddled into a couple of the monster sets only to get the beating of his life. After each long tumble down the face of the wave, he was tossed about in the whitewash, being held under a lot longer than he cared to be. He now knows what it would feel like to be a rag doll in a washing machine.

After all that excitement we decided it was time to head to Bordeaux and spend our Thanksgiving doing something a little more mellow…drinking wine and enjoying good French food. It wasn’t quite turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and football, but it was a good substitute.