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BASQUE COUNTRY GOES XXL
Early season NW swell lights up Playa Gris + revives Mundaka
While the ASP World Tour was getting swatted with weather and rogue surf in Portugal, Spanish surfers let out a little chuckle. Just after the circus marched out of town, the jewel of the Basque Country, along with select big-wave spots, went berserk.
Spain's big-wave venue, Playa Gris, was borderline XXL. And while it wasn't the "biggest ever," there were certainly a handful of man-sized bombs for the few brave locals that paddled and towed into some size-able lefthanders.
Speaking of lefts, the 12-foot closeouts that steamrolled through Mundaka surely let the 80+ frothers in the lineup know this swell was for real. But the six- to eight-footers (the ones the ASP Tour guys were dreaming of) that drained through proved the Mundaka sandbar was the best it's been in a while. Of course, the carnage was high with surf like this -- the snapped board count reached 30, as bits of foam and fiberglass drifted out to sea and down into the river.
All of this was courtesy of an intense low-pressure system that pushed through the North Atlantic earlier this week. Its 70-knot-plus winds and 40-foot seas provided this large, long-period W/WNW swell that slammed the European coastline on Tuesday and Wednesday, awakening spots that had been dormant since last winter.
So, as the Top 45 ducks and dodges the onshore flow that's been pelting Portugal, Basque surfers and a few lingering pros got what they'd been waiting for. Hell, the sun even came out which certainly seems like a rarity at Mundaka these days.
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October 24, 2009
