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This wave was in the Peniche area, we surfed it by ourselves for two days running – most people were surfing Lagide, which was pretty soft and mushy. Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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The same spot as in photo 1, but the second day was a bit bigger and hollower, didn’t make it out of many – but stacks of long stand up barrels were to be had. Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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Nazare. We stumbled across this small fishing village and this wave. Wow, we were blown away by the size of waves and never thought in a million years that anyone would surf this. I wasn’t surprised when it hit the news that it some of the biggest waves in the world are now being surfed there. Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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This spot is in the south west of Portugal, we surfed it for three days and only saw two other guys in the whole time. Very cruisy spot. Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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Random cliff top shot, we couldn’t get to this spot but found a similar setup a bit further along. Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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A couple of locals sharing a wave. They left within about 30 minutes and we had it to ourselves. It was an amazing setup with the next two photos from the same location. Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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As the tide ran out the right on the outerbanks started to work Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
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The left on the outerbank also started pumping on dusk. Can you believe we left this to go to Morocco? We did score in Morocco, but in hindsight should have stayed here for another day or too… Photo: Troy Roennfeldt
With the recent event on in Portugal, I was reminded of my three month van trip back in 2001 through France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco. I’d just spent a couple of years working away in London with not much surfing happening — this was my European farewell before heading back to Australia.
By the time we hit Portugal, we had four weeks of surfing everyday with some solid six to eight-foot swells in Spain and really consistent surf in general. Portugal didn’t disappoint; we spent two weeks there and loved every minute of it. Most sessions we were surfing by ourselves and at most had three or four others in the water with us. We had a real variety of waves from six-foot heaving barrels to gentle rolling two to three-foot points, and we decided not to go out in ridiculously large Nazare surf.
These photos are a selection of the waves we had. The photos were taken with one of the early Sony Cybershot digital cameras, so not the greatest quality – consider it vintage digital!
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