Aterra Surfkayak course Peniche easter 2016…

Monday 28/3… we arriwe to Cantino for our first day, gray skies, to much wind and not so clean waves. But we have our ”corner” for the begginers so they allways can have slow start. Though nothing is slow actually in the beggining. Four guys from 16 to 59. Some real begginer, one surfskipaddler, one experienced seakayaker and a tough young windsurfer. That was the line up for the week. At my side i had Mattias who help me to teach the guys.

Mattias Meldert Photo Leif Davidsson Aterra

Second day big waves, not a slow start for the guys and the second day is allways the hardest, third day nice sunny weather and waves that made the group happy. Day three makes things comes together and the participants start to surf for real. The last day was fantastic for us to see, many nice surfs and all give the last of the power they had left. Normaly we have one or two bad days, now it was the oposite. Well in a surfkayak we nearly allways can surf but sometime the wind is to strong.

Tuesday… The waves are big and clean we are at Prainha/Lagide. I go out take some warm up waves closer in, feels good. I paddle out through the brakes to the line up, long periods make it pretty easy to avoid the toughest brakes. Out there i search for the sweet spot to start in, allways difficult when its two systems comming in. Some bigger some smaller… I miss one wave turn back out and see this huge wall comming, paddle hard out for a few strokes to be in the right position, turn, shit one meters to late… the wave brake over me and give me a frontal 360, i come up and get thrown down again in another 360 now in cartweelpositon. Damn this wave have some power. I force out my paddle again and manage to come up again in front of the wave… backwards. Still the wave is fast and i surf in to the shore for some meters and feels that i have no real controll, try to turn the boat but flips again, i lean back hard and stick out the paddle, the wave kicks me up and i come up to the surface on top of the wave.

Adrenalin! Full of adrenalin i go out again in to the line up, relax a bit and get ready for the next ride. Start and ouch!, something is wrong with the shoulder, no power in the left stroke… I have been surfkayaking in 8 years now and this is my first injury. We are sometimes out in nasty conditions and what i want to say with this little story is that. If you want this is a super though sport but its also pretty safe and and in waves up to one meter its a very safe sport. One meter is nothing you may say… but its big for most people. Well i could surf the day after even if i didnt have the power and also we hade a fantastic time in Caparica on the Portoguise Championship.

Competition day, saturday! Fantastic to meet all the surfers some are really good top class surfers and its amazing to see them surf. Though the conditions was bad and got event bader during the day, to get nice waves you have to go out through heavy brakes if unlucky. Many didnt go all the way only the best. In my Q-heat i decided to start closer to the shore and take a look on what the others did. It felt ok got some surfs, nothing speciall but two of the others had big problem so i felt pretty sure to go to the final. In the final it was supernasty conditions but i had decided to go all in and the adrenalin tok care of the shoulderpain. Big strong Felipe Miguel was the guy to beat! I think i was close😉 got one fantastic wave and some ok. But it wasnt enough, though i was happy for the second place and very happy to stay on the beach after the race. Felipe fliped in the end of the heat and had to take a loooong swim i tried to paddle out to him three times but didnt had any power left. Well after a while he was also safe on the shore. Mattias tok the third place!

Tuesday last day, the wind continues, we was out the day before and I surfed a bit without energy. This day the sun is shining but with hard winds. When we come down to Canthino the waves looks amazing. Mattias got out and as usuall he go straight to the biggest waves in the middle of all the surfers. Lucky i had the camera with me and could catch some of Mattias nice surfs, its so beautifull when all the peaces come together. Out there the waves felt sooo big, not so steap but long, so you had to cut back to get the speed. Fanstastic feeling when you feel that you have plenty of time to do the manouvers. I couldnt say i did a fantastic job out there (now it was time for Mattias to beat me) but got some nice clean waves. Tired, tired, happy, happy… thats was the feeling when we gave up…

Mattias do a 20 seconds surf

Interesting: On the two spots there was about 30 surfers when Mattias started his session, and i noted that Mattias surfed more waves than all these 30 boardsurfers did together! To note is that we allways try to give away many waves to keep the good feeling in the line up. This wasnt an easy day if you not are experienced as the waves was frightening high. I dont say that the less experienced boardsurfers shouldnt be there just mean that it was a bit hard to catch the waves for them. This was one of the best line ups i have been in, all in a row more or less, except for some lazy bastards that had to swim out in the surfzon…

Well to be a bit cocky… if you wanna surf, go kayaksurfing!😉

Thanks to Peniche! Captains Log House: Linda, David, Ze and all the nice guests. To Mattias and offcourse to our participants Alex, Stefan, Jerker, Peter. Thanks to the Caparica team Manu and Ricardo and thanks to Ricardo for helping us.

Photographers: Mattias Meldert, Jerker Persson, Peter Dufwa, Leif Davidsson.