Welcome to sunny Peniche in Portugal. A town famous for it's super tubes, fish stench and rancid bodyboarders; it's now also famous as the fifth spot for Rip Curl's globally mobile WCT event (nice discovery guys!). You'll be glad to know the all-pervasive smell of squished fish entrails has vanished. In the good old days it was an olfactory assault that 'would make you wretch' if you encountered it.
Now there's only the garlicy whiff of gambas and other delights being crafted the local seafood restaurants overlooking the harbour.
The bodyboarders that plague the Supertubos break are nowhere to be seen either, a Portuguese Tourist Police cull perhaps? I can imagine dawn raids on boogieboarder nests, our beflippered brethren being flappily marched off to re-education camps before then being slapped in the face with Churchill fins until they swear blind they will do it standing up from now on. Who knows, they aren't around and so people can surf minus drop-ins, stink-eye and general shouty arseholeness (not that I have anything against bodyboarders, hell, I don't mind a gut-slide now and then when the waves are slabby).So. All is well. It's offshore all day and sunny here. People are smiling. Especially ASP people and those of us who survived the trenches of Mundaka. Back to a town with food and amenities and parking…
The swell chart's even look promising, as in proper good, not changing their minds every 30-minutes like they did prior to Mundaka. Mid-week is calling for a proper humungous swell. Might be stormy as tits as well but I'll take it. Anything for an overhead wave. The WCT guys will relish the opportunity to actually take a drop and deal with some juice.
Tomorrow sees the trials, hopefully a bump in swell and for some of us a chance to finally, hopefully shoot some freesurfing after weeks of nothing but jerseys...
