A few years ago, just as the pandemic was beginning its global assault, I was in Portugal to cover a contest called Capitulo Perfeito, or the Perfect Chapter. A week after I got home, Portugal closed its borders and I haven’t been back since. Which hurts me, because Portugal is one of the best places that exists on this planet, and dare I say it without having experienced it, the entire universe. During the course of that trip, I played golf, drank copious amounts of cheap wine, ate copious amounts of shellfish, and had my ass handed to me at Coxos. Like, handed to me.
I, of course, am not as good at surfing as Nic von Rupp, Anthony Walsh, or Cory Lopez, who all had a great view of one wave in particular that I decidedly did not make. But Coxos, sitting in the Ericeira World Surfing Reserve, has some of the best waves I’ve ever surfed. And Nic von Rupp, being a person who knows all those waves very well, can’t get enough of them.
“Ericeira is the first European World Surfing Reserve for well more than one reason,” he wrote. “If seven waves are identified as making up the Reserve, there are at least a dozen more worth riding spread around these seven jewels.”
In the episode of Von Froth you see above, Nic joined up with Frederico “Kikas” Morais and a bunch of other Euro shredders to partake in all the goodness Coxos has to offer. Afterwards, as one must do, they hit up the town of Ericeira, the charming fishing village that in recent years has become the surfing epicenter of the Old Continent.
