Catching the Fezza to Santander

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Onboard the Pont Aven

The fezza trip was rocking - well rocking in the same way that Chesney Hawkes is rocking - in fact it was a little too much like a mill-pond. Well, right up until the point when the captain announced the "Orca Team" had just spotted a whale on the right hand side of the boat. At which point, the ferry keeled over to Starboard. You didn't think that one through did you skip!

We had a lovely meal in the rezza (on the fezza) and settled in for some crap magic at the cabaret. To be fair it was actually average magic - but once you've seen one girl get sliced up with collapsable knives you've really seen em all. Mark hit the sack while Calv and I watched the end of the Masters Golf which thankfully distracted us from the magic show and the Tom Jones cover band. Thankfully I had a limited supply of boxer shorts with me, so I refrained from casting them onstage.

Santander to Mundaka

Now, there are a number of surf breaks that are renowned world wide. Sunset, Pipeline, Waimea and Jaws (Hawaii), J-Bay (South Africa), Mavericks (California), Teahupoo (Tahiti), and a couple of European breaks - namely Mundaka (Spain), and Hossegor (France). Many of these are World Tour venues, but all are capable of "going off." And that's not like a bottle of milk goes-off, it's more like Ozzy Ozbourne goes-off. Mundaka is a beach break that forms in a river mouth - a river mouth that is responsible for creating the shallow sandbanks that create gnarly waves. We were hoping to find Mundaka Ozzy Osbourne style, and hopefully Hossegor too as there was a huge swell on its way in.

Playa de Laga

So, fresh off the boat and keen to hit the waves we took to the water in Playa do Laga. The waves were only about 2-3ft (ie head high - waves are measured from behind so typically the height of the [i[face of the wave is about twice the height of the described wave height - though this is only a rough guide) but enough for a warm-up. A nice little intro to Spanish waves - though I skipped back to the van to get some painkillers for my knackered back, at which time the others retired so the sesh was short & sweet (short & sore in my case).

Next stop was to find a place for the night. After much debate we settled on a Pikey campsite I think called Laida. It was 5 minutes drive from the beach and right next to a bar that served food. Golden.

Pintxo

It was this first evening we discovered Pintxo, which is like the Basque version of tapas. Wikipedia reliably informs me (sorry, unreliably informs me - there may be students reading this) that a Pintxo is a slice of bread held together with a small stick. The signature dish was the spanish omelette, which in fact became dinner on our first night - alongside one or two Leffe beers.

As if we weren't entirely convinced just how pikey the campsite was, we went to the adjoining bar and ordered a couple of glasses of Rioja, which were duly delivered in the bottom of a couple of pint glasses. It's all in the presentation. Still, the wine was actually really good and went down a treat with a packet of M&M's and a handful of crisps, classy surf dudes that we are.

Day 2:

4-5ft Woooaah, & Sneakier than Itchy & Scratchy

So, the swell was rising and the wave riders were getting all excited. Our trip from the hotel to the surf break - running across busy city streets - should have been accompanied by Benny Hill music. Our excitement could not be contained, so there would be no need to speed up the video, and any local totty walking by (lacy negligee or otherwise) would undoubtedly have been followed. The only difference here, was there were two baldies racing around like goons. By the time we arrived at the beach (literally 265 yards later - a steady golf drive I'd say) the Benny Hill theme tune had seriously subsided.

Now, every good TV show has a music compilation often used to set a tone or maybe simply to use up all the extra random irrelevant footage that would otherwise never be seen. I've never been in a music compilation before. Actually that's not true, when i was 17 I produced a "Basketball Rules on Video' tape for my communication studies A-level, that got bored in the middle so had a section on me and Den jumping off a trampet and unleashing 360 degree alley-oop tomahawk dunks and suchlike - not relevant to the video, but a nice break in the proceedings, at least for us! Anyway, the Benny Hill music compilation had been completely forgotten when music compilation two begin its accent. If we were say Baywatch I was definitely not Pammy, and I definitely was not gaily bouncing down the beach. The mood had seriously changed and O Fortuna was nicely building its crescendo when we finally realised the size of the swell hitting the beach. The sets (ie the biggest waves) were comfortably double overhead - that's a lot of fricken water commin at ya! I took to the water like a young bird taking its first flight - lots of excitement, a bucket full of apprehension and a little spluttery and awkward.

Fortunately the paddle out was pretty tame as you could catch the rip from the side of the beach, which was protected from the swell, and cruise across to the peak. We soon discovered there's something a little sneaky about the waves in northern Spain. When you have a long travelled swel (like this one), not only do you have meaty (bone crushingly heavy) waves, but there's often a decent gap between sets of waves. This gives you time to paddle back out to the line-up between sets. But, on this particular occasion, and most disturbingly, the sets (which you are usually able to see rising in the distance, giving you time to paddle out to where they will break) just arrive without notice. There was no forewarning of what was about to unload on you. Perhaps this was a consequence of the very deep channels along the Basque coast that allows such vast swells to build, but then just unleash when they hit the shallow beach. Frankly, I couldn't give a toss as to the reasons why, I was just concerned with the fact that when a big set came the chances of you being in the 'impact zone' (the absolute last place on earth you want to be when it arrives) were pretty bloody good.

Anyway, regardless of the lack of warning the big-sets bought with them - they were also fricken huge - comfortably double overhead - certainly double over my head. I'd like to say we took it in turns to take a pasting from the sets but I'm sure I took the lion's share.

Lekeitio and the Sac de Dormir

Having collectively managed to accumulate a Spanish vocabulary of six words we ventured into the town/village of Leiketio to try and find Mark a sleeping bag as his current effort was about as effective as tracing paper. The walk from the campsite was only about 1200 metres about 800 of which were at about a 45 degree angle (fortunately downhill into town). We met a lovely shopkeeper who not only gave us the Spanish phrase for sleeping bag, but also followed us into the street giving us directions to another shop and generally being a nice old chap.

Anyway, we refrained from going crazy with the Pintxo and managed to score a lovely meal in the 4 star hotel in town. In keeping with our decadent camping regime we also booked a cab back to the campsite, as the 15 minute amble-in would likely be at least twice as long on the return leg (and it was actually raining at this point). The receptionist informed us that it would be about 20 minutes, so we said we'd tough it out and walk, until it became apparent that she'd already booked the cab for us. This wouldn't normally be a problem but for the fact the cabbie was actually in bed (it couldn't be 10 O'clock yet) and the lady had asked him to don his clothes to come and get us. He seemed remarkably genial given his journey to collect us was about 5 times as long as the ride itself. Nevertheless, we made it abundantly clear that we were all Australian and had no understanding of time/space. So, more out of embarrassment than anything else we ensured our tip was equally about 5 times the size of the fare.

So far so good, the surf was pumping and the locals had not tried to kill us... yet...

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