Sunday 24 August 2008

Sunday – back home…

We got back home last night at 4am, after driving for ten hours across Portugal & Spain. I had some work to do down in Central Portugal on Thursday & Friday and I decided to take some days off and do some surfing on my way there. But we got the biggest swell of summer right then and we had to surf some winter waves instead of summer perfection.

All in all it has been a nice little trip in the van, stopping at places never visited before and following our instincts. Sometimes we scored and sometimes not, but we had fun and that is the most important thing.

I will be posting a couple of photos from this trip on my Spanish blog shortly, while I’m posting here a couple of photos to illustrate the kind of freak swell we scored early last week. A true winter swell in mid August… even bigger than the one we had the previous week.

Rodiles – Mundaka’s little sister – by Cezonillo

Orzán (Coruña’s city beach) by Dani

Ibon Amatriain SUPing at Playa Gris (big wave spot near Zarautz) by Pablo Azkue

Hossegor going off by Vague 56

Over & out.

Tuesday 12 August 2008

Tuesday – waves, waves, waves…

Who said summer means flatness and poor conditions? This is being one of the most consistent summers in a long time. Shame that the armpit of the Atlantic Ocean is not receiving the goods compared to other nearby coastlines within the Bay… and that when it does the crowds are unbearable. But such is the curse that has been laid upon us and the thought of my three weeks in Indo in September / October keeps me alive in these hard times. Yesterday I went for the early one with my good friend Joao, from Porto, who is visiting the area on holiday. We got to the town beach at 6h45 and there were already more than ten people in the water… on a Monday. He couldn’t believe it. Me, I just try to avoid any thoughts of mass murder and focus all my frustration into catching as many waves as possible before the crowd reaches the 25 people mark (which it normally does before 7h30).

Anyway, here is the crop from the last days:

Last Tuesday saw the arrival of a new swell up in Lacanau (Surf-report)


The swell picked up on Wednesday both up in Quiberon (Kreff)…

Pantín (Esnifa Salitre) and everywhere else in between.


We still had some waves left on Thursday in Rodiles, Mundaka’s twin sister (Cezonillo)…

…and on Friday in Galiza (Fiz_Bertels), before the usual weekend lull.



And on Monday (yesterday) a new swell made his presence felt in Galiza (Dani)…



…in Tapia (Surf en Chalano)…



…and at French big wave spot Guéthary (Jordi Nomada).



That same swell hit us today as seen in el Mongol, a reef / pointbreak in downtown Gijón (Cezonillo) while we got the onshores here at home


In case you are wondering, yes, you are very few. This blog sees less than 15 visitors per day on average …and that is fine with me. My other blog is where I concentrate my efforts, and with this one I only pretend to have a place where I can store & show the photos of the best waves of our coastline as seen by some other bloggers. I could save these photos in a folder, but I like the idea of having a blog in English as opposed as to my other blogs. Having said that, I admit that I can’t help but include here a few words regarding stuff I read about in the surf media… and it was one of these remarks that got me an e-mail from a North American photographer last night. This up and coming photographer told me I had made a mistake by saying that he had written –in an American magazine- that the crew he travelled with had been the first ones to surf a certain spot in North Africa. It turns out that I knew this claim to be false and I had pointed out this fact here. My mistake comes from saying that it was the photographer who had said it when it turns out he was not the writer of the feature in the American mag, he was just the lensman. I have already made the necessary amendments and… wouldn’t it be nice if the photographer –who knows very well his crew was not the first one to surf that spot- also asked the same corrections to the magazine that printed the story? After all I’m sure that if some European crew claimed to be the first to surf –for example -Vancouver Island or somewhere in Baja the entire European surfer community would probably have to endure another boring attack from Lewis Samuels… or some other writer from the same lame-journalism school. One wonders…

Over & out.

Thursday 7 August 2008

Thursday - Comic Strip # 5

Musica Surfica Snobica


(click to enlarge)

By far the best film I've watched recently. Rob (70percent) told me that the alaia is the new fish, and I couldn't help myself trying to guess what might lay ahead of us...

Over & out

Monday 4 August 2008

Monday – hurricane swells & longboards

You might think that only east coasters (meaning from the East Coast of the USA) enjoy summer hurricane swells, but that is not the case. After Bertha we've had some swell coming from Cristobal. Once again it was coming from the WSW so most of the North Coast of Spain was sheltered while France got the best conditions. Here are some surfing photos from the last days:

A couple of photos of Soesto (Galiza) the weekend before last by Dani


…and by Esnifa Salitre.


A nice wedge near Soesto, on Monday, by Fiz_Bertels.


Tuesday was small at home


…and in Asturias (by Cezonillo)...


...while perfect in les Landes thanks to the very westerly swell from Cristobal (by Salerno).


And Salinas on Wednesday before the Longboarding Festival by Chuck.


This past Saturday took place the Salinas Longboarding Festival, probably the biggest meeting of longboarders worldwide. More than 300 mal riders -of which almost 200 entered the contest- met in Salinas, a very consistent beachbreak near Gijón, on the North Coast of Spain. But the Salinas Festival is much more than a contest: barbeques, live concerts, movies… everything. The local club outperforms years after year (this was the 7th year) and the atmosphere, with hundreds of people camping by the beach all weekend long, is great. Plenty of shortboarders also attend just to see friends (from all over Europe and enjoy in the activities. This year Alex Knost flew over for a quick visit (photos from his surfing during the Festival here) and you will see plenty of photos and stories in the usual blogs very soon.

One of the organizers of the Festival is Clau, the local photographer from Salinas, who has self-published a photo book. You can sneak a preview here. Meanwhile here is the traditional FOTONA from the Salinas Longboard Festival, courtesy of Clau.


Over & out.