Last week’s highlights

Hossegor on Thursday morning. Courtesy of Jeff Ruiz.

-meeting Tyler & Jennifer and surfing with them at Guéthary and taking them out for tapas around Donosti. Glad to meet you guys.

-surfing for my very first time a wave I had heard quite a lot but never surfed before. It’s a reefbreak, not too far from home and it’s more of a winter wave (requires big swells), but it worked on Wednesday (on-shore) and now I know I’ll get there more often.

-trying my Bing Synchronizer as a quad. It works much better than as a bonzer in “not so fast and hollow” waves, and can provide for a good alternative until my new quad is ready as an everyday board.

-checking the forecast and seeing that we might be in for a whole week of waves and light winds.

Stoked.

four

Last Friday, when I got home after a little surf in France, my body was in the shape of a "4". The cold got me -it had snowed some 20cms on Thursday and the air was like 2ºC when I was surfing- and blocked my lower back so much I could barely stand upright. All it has taken for my lower back to heal is to rest in the warmth of home and some gel.

This reminded me that I had seen some warming kidney belts in some mag and I managed to find them on the internet. They are the poor man’s version of Rip Curl’s heated wetsuits… which, if I’m not mistaken, comes with a price tag of some 1,000USD in the US (ouch!). As we still are in early winter I’m seriously thinking of buying one of those heated kidney belts.

Have any of you tried them (or do you know someone who has)?

Cold water is also known to produce another effect on our bodies, as George Costanza found out in this Seinfield episode:

Nothing a hot shower can cure though…

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.

This last 10 days – a bit of everything

Finally! Phew… it’s been quite a hectic week or two: waves, lots of work, a new article in the writing (not yet technically but it’s keeping my mind very busy) and some other side projects (more about that… some day!).

Anyway, before pasting the shots of some of the best waves from the Bay of the last two weeks, let me inform you that the 2nd M.I.A.C.S. is starting on July the 4rth. What is it? It’s an international surf art market, and it takes place in Biarritz, from July the 5th to August the 31st. it’s an expo but you can also buy some of the artworks exposed. There will also be some movies and a couple of concerts. The only on-line info available so far is the French press release (follow the link above).

And now let’s focus on the waves. Last week’s Thursday (from West to East) in Galiza by Dani…


…and a nice little reef by Fiz_Bertels.

In Asturias by Clau…

…and in Sopelana –near home- by Surf30.

Next day I woke at 6am in Capbreton –in the van- slightly hung over. By 6h30 there were over 30 people in the water. Here are a few pictures of Capbreton on that day.

While a few clicks north, in Seignosse, it also looked very nice (by Salerno)…

…and very empty in Galiza (by Fiz Bertels).

Last weekend the waves were small and the day a bit overcast for the Cosmic Children Festival, but I was told it was another success. Here are a couple of photo by Custom Glass.

While it was equally small and grey in Guéthary (right before the galerna hit).

It was flat on Sunday and very tiny -and crowded- on Monday at home.

Equally flat on Tuesday and a new swell filled in late on Wednesday. On Thursday I was in Capbreton again and the best thing I saw –in spite of the waves- was this cool van.

I had a very bad surf in a very shallow and sandy beachbreak. I’m still finding some sand from that session in certain parts of my body today. I’ve seen it was quite ok up at La Gravière…

…and in Galiza (Fiz_Bertels).

And this is the same swell we are still enjoying today. It’s not the nicest and the winds are not at their best, but at least we’ve got waves and the water is warm and the days are long. Can’t complain, really. Salinas on Friday by Clau.

Home on Saturday

Near Lacanau on Saturday by Yohann.

Asturias by Cezonillo on Sunday.

And Galiza by Dani on Sunday too.

On the magazines front, I’ve been reading lots this past week: Tracks, Surfer’s Path, Spanish mags, Surfer – Surfing – Transworld, some French ones… but nothing too inspiring. I specially hate it when I find the same articles in different mags, and it has happened a couple of times recently. I guess it’s my fault for reading so many surf mags.

Over & out.

Saturday – galerna!!

According to one of those language dictionaries one finds on the web, there is no word for galerna in English and it is a “violent north-west wind that blows on the North coast of Spain”. That is not entirely true, as not any violent north-west wind is a galerna. The thing that makes the galerna so phenomenal is the fact that it is so sudden, so violent and it always occurs after an intense day of extremely high temperatures. And so it was on Saturday; it was so hot that I didn’t have the strength to leave home for very long… until a change in the air mid afternoon warned me that a galerna was on its way. We drove to Guéthary and, in a matter of minutes, we had the galerna on us. Check out the dark shade in the horizon coming our way:



So yes, I missed the Cosmic Children (due to the extreme heat and the impossibility to leave our puppy anywhere but at home with me), but we had a nice little swell on Thursday & Friday. I must say, though, that I didn’t get to enjoy this swell so much as I would have wanted because of some social commitments… or rather the consequences of those commitments; but more about that in my next entry with the review of the best waves of these last few days.

Over & out.