Is this guy from Indonesian 😛

Well this is almost it. One of the last posts of a great summer. Last time I was writing about swell conditions. As those didn’t seem to improve we decided that it was time to check the surrounding area. Since I had been in Portugal about four years prior, I did have a vague map in my mind about where to go. I remembered a nice little town around 20 km south from Peniche. It`s name was Ericeira. I remembered nice little Portuguese houses in white, blue and yellow with a nice little city center, and most important of all, a flourishing surf culture. So we got into the car and off we were. Thanks to Google maps, we quickly found our way and were scouring through the towns little streets. It was nice and sweet, but we also came for some surfing.

There is a specific reason why the area around the town is so surf popular. With an abundance of reefs and shallow breaks every little lagoon offers plenty of nice waves. The downside of the entire thing is strong current and a beginner unfriendly and sometimes even dangerous rocky and reefy terrain. So after we scooped the entire town, bought some wax remover, a board bag and some cloths a.k.a. spent even more money, we were off looking for a statue of a surfer looking at the Ocean.

Ericeira is dangerouse 😛 BEWARE

When I was in Portugal for the first time I remember that our surf school took us on a nice little excursion to Ericeira. We spent the day there, and after checking the local surf factory stopped at this long beach, where every year some of the bigger contests and a big surf Festival were held. I didn’t remember the name of the place, the only thing I knew, was that it was somewhere between Ericeira and Peniche. So after heading down to one of these lagoons with the reefs, we quickly decided that we would surf somewhere safer. Nobody wanted to go into the water there. So we drove further north and found a nice long sandy beach in the little town of Santa Cruz. I had kinda given up on finding that statue on the Hill, but somehow the beach looked vaguely familiar.

The beach at Ericeira …somewhat familiar

After going into the water and being in the lineup for a few hours with just a few locals, I was starting to feel a little damp. The waves were hardly breaking, and the ones that were breaking, were collapsing almost instantly. I got out of the water and decided to clear my head, by by taking a stroll around the beach. I was walking, my mind thinking about this disappointing session in the water, when I looked up the hill and suddenly saw the statue, I was so longing to see. Seeing that just made my day. All in all our trip was quite fun but I would have wished for at least a few good waves on these great beach, the next time I will be in the area I will make certain to take someone with me who has ridden reefs before. Just closing my eyes I can already and again see myself at my favorite reef spot… Balangan on Bali, the island of the Gods. But that will have to wait until next year.

 Well on the day we were there, the swell wasn’t exactly cooperating with us. On the other Hand, it did in fact seem good for some local skimmers whom had some fun in the water. It was interesting to watch, and of course I had to take a few pictures.

In the coming days I’m going to switch the blog to winter but there is one post I will still write. As with every sport it`s good to have a few accessories that make your life easy and that’s exactly what the next two posts are going to be about. I’ll start by being creative and presenting you guys wait POSCA paint pens.