Nazare for my Fortieth Birthday
Approaching my 40th birthday, I was lost at what I would do for the celebration. It had an odd feel to the milestone, and throwing a party and sustaining a large hangover did not seem appealing. With my birthday being in late November, it is always a hard time to get waves on a surf trip, with Indonesia and the North West, out of season.
After a few months of contemplation, it seemed like the right choice to return to Portugal. I visited Portugal some twenty years ago before the internet was a thing. I had sailed a boat from Plymouth, England, to Lacuna, Spain and then down to Lisbon, Portugal, and when I got off the boat, I asked the first person I saw where I could find waves. They sent me to the bottom of Portugal to a town called Lagos. While this town has no waves, it is a party town, and for a twenty-year-old Aussie on a world trip, it was great fun. However, this has always left me wondering about the wave potential within this country, and it seemed very fitting to return and visit one of its world’s premiere big wave surfing spots, Nazare'.
While on the plane to Portugal, a massive lump of swell popped up on the charts, and I just so happened that I had contacted fellow West Aussie surfer Zac Haynes who was over there to paddle the beast and spend the season in the Atlantic waters.
As the anticipation built, every big wave surfer from the planet began to arrive at the iconic location Ross Clarke-Jones, Mick Corbett, Kai Lenny, Lucas Chumbo and more. It was safe to say at this stage, I was starting to proper shit myself, as the talk was that there were the 100 ft swell on the way that everybody was chasing.
My big wave surfing had been progressing, but the self-doubt of if I was able to survive this or if my ability was good enough to mix it up with this calibre of a surfer was bringing to creep into my mind. We went to the iconic harbour boat shed to hire a jet ski from the one and only Lino. Within our discussion of battering the price for a day rate to take his jetski out into one of the largest swells for a long time, the question of who was our safety team came up, “we are the safety”, and we promptly replied. The look on Lino’s face was priceless; he was between angry, confused and dumbfounded. What we were asking is to take one of his ten pride and joy jetskis out with no safety plan in one of the largest Atlantic swells for a few years, but only with the intention to surf (exactly what we did in WA without the hype).
It came to the day, and we woke to light wind and big waves. I had never towed with Zac or even been on a surf trip, but we were both frothing and excited to see what the ocean was going to serve up for us. To add to the pressure, the WSL was in Nazare, had just finished their paddle contest the day before and were live broadcasting the swell event live on their website. By this stage, the nerves had gone, and it was time to embrace the feel of the day, meeting at the harbour, speeding out to see the iconic headland to see the waves for the first time.
On the day, the swell was big but not 100 feet (a kind of relief for myself), but still 25 feet Hawaiian scale (pictured on the title page). The swell was from the West direction and not the North-West, which traditionally helps the wave to tee-pee and double in size. It was still massive, and I was happy. We had a great surf, and we fit into the dynamic of the lineup very well. We towed for around three hours and took turns towing and getting waves. It was surreal surfing this location with two thousand people sprawled along the iconic lighthouse location. This was truly one epic surf adventure and the start of my holiday that turned into a birthday milestone that was one to remember.
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