29 August 2009.   I am back at Oyambre beach  ..

At 10 O-Clock I was at the beach. Only a handful of people at that hour. No wind and great silky waves. Later the wind came up. The beach had filled with the Sunday crowd, but red flag was up and the lifeguards were serious about it. Only the surfers were allowed in.
I am now using an other pop up. It is called the Aussie sprinter technique.
 The week looks promising. Up to 4.5 metre waves.

Oyambre beach

Oyambre beach

Oyambre beach . Only small waves today

Oyambre beach . Surfrs with their boards

La Playa camping

La playa camping

La playa camping

My street at the camping

My home for the coming week

Today I started classes with our local surf school. The teacher knew the problem well that there is a difference between making a pop up on the beach, and then try the same on the board.
I demonstrated the super pop up. He was impressed. 95 % correct. He said.
So I guess that I will not give up yet.
18..00 hours classes finished. Now I was so tired that I could hardly make it back up to the car.
 

I had a lazy day. Shopping and cleaning. Not much of a swell anyway. Tomorrow we are heading for another beach. More protected, as the weather is changing.

Our small group at the surf school

Another group training further down the beach

The beach looking towards San Vicente
 

We are getting the gear ready.

On the beach. The waves does not look a lot. However they were perfect for me. Some 4 feet. Clean silky swell. The best conditions for a learner. I had some good take offs from unbroken waves. Everybody were very impress, included me.

Oyambre beach on a nice sunny September day.
 

It is not me. This is a near perfect take off. There is unbroken wave to the left of the surfer. He is trying hard to turn the board. He can not make a sharp turn however, because the rail is submerged in all its length.

It is not me.Surfing a plunging shorebreak is not an easy task. You better be on your feet  with a good speed so that wall of white water does not hit you.

.Already friday. Last day of this course. Luckey me there is another course in the week end. I have signed on.

The day started quiet. Later the swell came in at 3 feet +. It was however quite bumpy. I was in the water some 5 hours. It is not me at that video clip.
 

The last day. I was at the beach at 10.00. No wind. 3 feet nice oily looking swell. Just perfect for me.
I was catching waves. I was riding the wall for the second time in my life. Not a bad day  to end this vacation.Now I am in the airport waiting for the late flight back home.

The wind has changed to South West. I had a afternoon trip to Playa de Palma.
I have remooved the passenger seat in the car. Now I can have the board inside the car. Also it i a comfortable changing "room"
 

Another afternoon at the Playa de Palma beach. The car worked well. I had a sleep in the car before I started  surfing. Then the session went on until sun down.
Am I improving?? Hard to tell, but it does not feel so.

I was up early . The conditions were perfect. 5 feet oily looking swell, no wind. With a swell like this I can ride the wall.
I can see what is coming now. Hours waiting for the swell to be right. Lucky me that I have a comfortable car.

Both days I went to the North coast. To much wind. A waste of time because it is a long drive.
The following photos are me in  the car after the front passenger seat has been removed. I can change in comfort out of the wind ( and during the winter, protected from the cold ). Also I can take a short sleep before the drive back.
I can store the surf board inside the car, and I leave it there overnight and bring it to work. In case some swell is coming.
A bigger surf van would be better, but I have only one parking space where I live, and that space is small.
If I have passengers along, then the surf board is strapped to the roof rack, and the we still can seat 4 persons in the car.

Getting out of the wet suit

Power nap before the drive home.

There is just enough space for the surfboard. It is almost 10 feet.
The last step is to get the items out from the car that I do not need. Then I will get a 4 litre thermo bottle to bring some warm water to rinse the salt off.
And by the way, suitcase is packed, I am returning to Oyambre beach day after tomorrow.

I was out of Palma with the first flight. Arrived at the camping at 13.00 hours. One hour later I was in the water with the surf board. The waves were not very good. Tomorrow I will try to get up early.

A group of surfers. From their tents they can look over the sea and follow the conditions. September and Octobre should be good month with the autumn storms over the North Atlantic sending swell down towards the Spanish coast. However at the moment it is 3 feet only.

Nice swell all day. I spend some 4 hours in the water. Sunshine all day.

Sunshine, quiet, some 4 feet swell and many surfers preparing to get out. I start classes this afternoon.

At 16.00 we met at the beach of Playa de Guerra. The teacher came along with his surfboard into the sea. And that works. He saw at once some faults in my wave catching. Once corrected, I was catching waves like never before. Riding the wall of unbroken water as well, as if I had never done anything else in my life.
I was surfing my biggest waves ever. During the day the size had picked up. Tomorrow at 11.00 we continue.

Surfers waiting for the right condition. Some drive 2000 Km. to get here.  Photo above.

I had a bad sesssion. Could not catch the waves. They had a size that was freaking me out a bit. Dropping in on a 6 foot wave as a beginner surfer, is a challenge. Now I will have some lunch and plan the rest of the day.

Late in the afternoon I went to the beach again. Here I found out why I make perfect pop up on a floor, but not on the surfboard. I need feets as a leverage, to swing my buttom up, and the legs need to be straight.

I now tried to place a few  toes on the surf board, just in time for the pop up. That helped. The pop up is now near perfect. The board flat on top of the water. The speed is faster than before.

Remember when you throw a stone and it skims the water surface. You want the same to happen with your surf board. High speed mean minimum friction. That is where the fun starts.

The daily routine continues with tuition from 11 until 01 o'clock. Waves are perfect. It is private lessons, I am the only pupil. The instructor is with his own board right next to me. It is very effective and I am learning a lot very quickly.

I started off in Sa Marina surfing. Some swell was coming from an aproatching storm. There were more than 10 surfers already. I was doing well. Maybee one of the best, because now the tuition has been putting a lot of things in the right perspective. Especially in the phase of where to catch the wave and how.

At 13.00 hours I had my first lesson in Kite surfing. Interesting to say the least. Afterwards I went back to Sa Marina, but by now the wind was strong, so I took a power nap in the car and drove home.
 

I drowe to Muro beach. Windy and 4 feet waves. Difficult to get any clean waves. After about an hour I was worn out from the constant , being tossed about, and called it the quit. Tomorrow I will try again.
 

Muro beach again today. As I arrived the wind died away. Creating very good conditions. I was surfing some good waves. It was actualy clouse outs, but good to practise catching them early.  And I succeded quite well. A sun set I stopped.
 

Muro beach again.  A couple of hours before sun set the wind seem to ease off and you get some good waves for a while. Unfortunately there is no peak as such. It is good training for take off however.

I arrived with Airberlin on time. Picked up my hire car, and an hour later I was in Sagres where I stay in a surf house.
The rest of the Sunday I was looking at the local beaches.

Belitche beach, a few kilometres from Sagres. It wqas a steep fast shorebreak. Not quite for beginners.

Beach in the center of town.

Monday we went to a beach near Lagos. The swell was not more than 2 feet at best, but the west coast was to exposed to 3-4 metre swell. Tomorrow the swell will ease off, an we should get a day with more surf.

We drove along the Atlantic coast, looking for some good swell. The first beach we reached after following some dirt tracks. However the wind was still strong, so we drove on, along the coast.

After some 50 km. we arrived at another beach. Here we spend all day. The conditions were a bit to complicated for me. After a few try in the unbroken water, |I did whitewater. Very few people around. Sun shining all day.

Wednsday - An other day with a early start. That is 9.30. Again along the Atlantic coast. It was supposed to be a calm day. A lot of white water, but the unbroken waves were to big for me as a beginner. What I learned was to take a dep breath before I was rolled over by a wave, and if in doubt if the wave is going to break then better do the "Eskimo turn". I was using a 9 feet long board for the day.

At low water the waves started to close out, so the rest of the day was relaxing. Sun shine all day.

Photos from the day below. Click on thumbnail  photo to zoom.

Thursday - The day of the point breaks. It does not look a lot from a distance, but the swell was big enough. It took some time before I felt comfortable. Well to tell the truth, I thought it was quite complicated. Swell biggish and it was crowded.  Sun shining all day

Thursday -  The West  coast was closed due to high swell. We wisited several places on the South coast. Eventually we setteled for the beach in Sagres centre. Nothing fantastic, but a lot of take off and trying to ride a small wave as long as possible. Out in the horizon you could see the swell ride along as small hills. You could tell that a big storm was loose somewhere.

That was a great trip. I met a lot of nice people. In Sagres I was joining a week  surf camp with Sagres Natura. Waves every day from beginners and advanced surfers. The more you enter the winter season the higher waves you get.

If you never used a surf board before, it is best to start during the summer season. There you have more groups with different levels. We had one group. All had joined one or more courses before.

04 Dec 2009
I just managed to get an hour surf today friday. I notised that even if windguru was predicting 30 Knots, then an our before sunset, the wind died. It lasted for half an hour and created very good conditions. I have noticed this effect before and will now look more into it.

Else there is not a lot to say. I am getting better is staying low on the board. This I can feel is important. The balance is much better.

I was on the beach until sun set. The water felt comfortable, but the real gain is that I can sit in the car and change into the wet suit.

Su 06 12 2009

Arrived Sagres today. First surf day tomorrow.

Then during the afternoon, sunshine and pleasant weather. The good waves were hard to find. We visited several beaches and eventually settled for the beach right in the center of Sagres.   More photos

A 4 meter swell made the day complicated. Eventually we settled for a beach near Lagos town. Here the swell were to 1 meter at low water.

It still was a fast beach break, so I was surfing whitewater using a 9 feet soft top.

 With the tide rising the bigger swell started to come in. We then drove to the Atlantic coast and had a look.  Photo above.    More photos
 

The highlight of the day was looking at the body boarders, surfing the Atlantic swell. Later during the day we went to have a look at the swell further North.

On the beach near Luz I was surfing some small swell for some hours and had my errors pointed out  by the instructor. 

It was very windy so we were spending most of the day at Tonel beach, doing some white water surfing and relaxing in the sun, behind a big cliff that protected us from the wind. The photos are from Tonel beach.

Later we went to Sagres South East beach where the wind had kicked up a decent swell, and we stayed there until sun set.

This was the end of my second week with  Saqgresnatura. I hear several surfers have booked for the x/mas period. January is closed.

I am back on Mallorca. This evening I had one half hour on the beach. It was only 2 feet swell, but nice A shaped. As I was close to the beach. I decided to try and make small turns from side to side. It went very well. Like I had nothing else all my life. It just felt right.

Also it went very vell to change into the wet suit inside the car. It was 12 deg C outside and raining. I did not feel cold at all.
 

Thursday 17 Dec 2009  Almost 1 hour near Can Pastilla. It was almost dark when I got out of the water. I can now see that my fear for "big waves" have been greatly reduced after the trips to Portugal.
  

It was a cold day. On the photo you can see the snow on the mountains. The temperature on the beach was 7 deg C and it was blowing 25 knots. The water felt a lot warmer. The current took me along the beach, and I had to walk for a while to get back to the car. Arriving there my fingers were so cold and stiff that I could not operate the zip. That followed, that I could not get the car key that I carry in a small water tight bag under the wet suit.

Off course nobody around to assist so I had to chew on my fingers to get them to work again.  That worked. Once inside the car I got the heating going and was soon comfortable again.
 

This is the 6 th day in a row I have been surfing. I had to clear the car window from frost before I went to the beach. Air temp only 10 deg, but sun shine all day. I think I was in the water almost 2 hours. I had brought a 5 liter bottle with warm water. Pour it through the collar opening when you get out of the water. Feels great. I stored it in a thermo bag, so it lasted all day.

Monday 21  Dec 2009 - The 7 th day surfing. Playa de Palma. Not the best conditions. Rain and 12 deg C

Tuesday 22  Dec 2009 - The 8 th day. Good conditions with 3 feet swell.

Wednsday 23  Dec 2009 - The 9 th day. Very windy and  3 feet wavesl. Difficult to get out, until I found a trick. Paddle from a forward position, with the tip of board almost under water. When a wave is approaching, grip the front sides of the board. Head down on the arms. The makes the wave press you down and you go under the wave. Start paddling as soon as you can again.

Sunday 27  Dec 2009.  Yesterday was day off. Today I went to Sa Marina. Seems as if I have lost 2 kg during last 11 days. I  will try to get some more surfdays. So far I can see tomorrow and day after is good.

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