Nazaré, Portugal is a very special place. For a long time, people laughed at it. “IT’S NOT A REAL WAVE!” they typed furiously in all caps. “IT HAS NO TROUGH!” Even the nicest of all nice guys called once called it a novelty wave. In an old issue of Surfing Magazine, Taylor Paul wrote “It’s back, like a cold sore. Nazaré Canyon.The wave that sometimes isn’t a wave because a wave has a crest and a trough, and Nazaré often lacks the latter. The hype that comes with it is back too. ‘Biggest wave ever ridden?’ ‘The 100-foot wave?’ ‘I’m Ron Burgandy [sic]?’ Those question marks express doubt, and rightfully so. It’s like a surfers version of a cheap philosophical question: If a wave breaks without a bottom, does it break a world record?”
Then, slowly, things began to change. A few heavy hitters in the big wave world visited the place for themselves and felt the raw power that exists there. Now, it’s a stop on the big wave tour and a must-see every winter. In the edit above, Hugo Vau, Alex Botelho, Lucas Chumbinho, Coco Nogales, Jamie Mitchell, Garett McNamara arrive near the end of October to find it absolutely massive.
See more from Henri De Carvalho on his website, www.henridecarvalho.com.
