This Thursday was another important day for the history of Portuguese surf! With a bigger swell than the one on 3rd of November and a quiet wind helping on the wave’s formation, the cliffs of Farol da Nazaré were full of people to watch another tow in session of The North Canyon Show.
This time, Garrett McNamara and José Gregório had the company of Ruben Gonzalez (a former four times Portuguese surf champion) and of the Irish Alistair Mennie and Andrew Cotton, that recently came to Nazaré to surf its waves.
This Irish duo (which launched tow in in an impressive Irish wave, last week, arousing the interest of the international community) was in Portugal for just 48 hours and completed the huge waves at Praia do Norte, with about 7 to 9 meters, during the morning.
“What an incredible week”, said Alistair Mennie. “After we made some incredible tubular waves last week, at Prowlers, I’ve never thought we would come to Nazaré to catch some of the biggest waves I’ve ever seen! I’ve traveled all the world and already surfed in all of the famous big waves spots and I can say that this is the beachbreak with the biggest waves of the world!”, concluded the nice and tall Irish, that promised to pay more attention to the winter swells of the Portuguese coastline.
To José Gregório “this was a different day from the first one, because we’ve surfed another peak, equally big but with a different type of formation. However, as I said yesterday, we’ve been lucky with the wind… It was one more session of great learning for me!”
Ruben Gonzalez, the other Portuguese surfer in the session, still felt the adrenaline in his blood at the final of the session. “I’m super agitated”, he said. “It was my first tow in session in this wave. I’ve already surfed it by arms, but smaller, of course! At the beginning I was a little nervous and made a mistake, which made me fall in the wave’s base and I had to hold up the other ones from the rest of the set. But Garrett and the others encouraged me and I made some really good waves, maybe the biggest of my life… Incredible ones!”, concluded Gonzalez with excitement.
For the main mentor of this operation, the extreme waterman Garrett McNamara, “the most important was that nobody got hurt or went through any difficult situation. For me, a good tow in session is also that – security is the most important thing! The waves that we’ve caught were once again incredible … I’m seriously thinking of coming more often here, in the future. Nazaré has so much potential, it’s a beautiful place, the conditions are great and the people are very kind! I want to explore this entire coastline with more time, because it deserves all the attention”, he said.
Tomorrow, the forecast is once again good for one more session, although the swell gets down a little, which might involve new wave’s exploration!...
This project is organized by Câmara Municipal da Nazaré, Clube de Desportos Alternativos da Nazaré and Nazaré Qualifica E.E.M., with the support of Turismo do Oeste, QREN, MaisCentro, Feder, Turismo de Portugal – Oeste, Liberty Seguros, Lightning Bolt, GoPro – D’Maker, Filipemotoshow, Isuzu, Lena Automóveis, Peter Grimm, Noll, Instituto Hidrográfico Português, Tonic Gym, Surftotal, Surf Portugal, Antena 3, Surfer Rule and Surfspots-gps.com.
Photos by POLVO/Jorge Leal e Wilson Ribeiro.
