More Peniche

"Surfing's the source, man... swear to God" - Point Break, 1991

Images and impressions from the past week as 7 straight days of surfing comes to an end, both mercifully (for the old body) and unfortunately (for everything else).

• Sitting at Bar do Bruno, the perfectly situated beach bar and restaurant that sits overlooking Baleal Beach at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, overlooking stunning waves under a massive and cloudless sky.

• The sun is warm but the constant breeze keeps things cool. The coffee is a mellow roast, and my skin is roasting mellowly.

• The iPod is paused occasionally to hear the sound of the waves; in-between, "Cuatro" by Cafe Fuego, "Release the Pressure" by Leftfield, "Goodbye" by Junior Boys, "Straight to the Bank" by 50 Cent and 20 more tracks shuffle me into the weekend.

• Across the deck, a girl of about 5 years old raises her Princess Barbie camera (yes, I have nieces) and takes pictures of her parents, quickly showing them her handiwork afterwards.

• Next to me, a group of four late teenage girls chatter on happily in Portuguese, which to me still sounds like drunk Russian.

• The beach is very busy, but not overcrowded. People and shapes are easily identifiable nearby, and further out they are moving silhouettes with the sun behind them.

• Surfers of all levels are tackling waves of all sizes. The good ones make it look so easy; my body screams that it is not.

It's easy to see the romanticism of the surfing lifestyle - wake up, wetsuit, waves, eat, repeat.

The week was excellent; come here if you want to learn to surf and learn to chill out. The service in the cafes and at the camp could not have been friendlier; the level of instruction (as mentioned in a previous post) is very high. So am I (naturally, of course) as I'm off to Lisbon for the week.

From bed to beach - could get used to this...

Instructors Gabi and Turko - beautiful people who teach by season in Argentina, Brazil, and Portugal

Bar do Bruno; it is also the surf camp base, where you wetsuit up and wax (eloquently)

Video review and a lesson on the history of surfing

Peniche for Your Thoughts

A quick apology for the lack of posts this past week. Apparently it's important to be able to move muscles in order to type, and after three days of intense surf camp, this has not been possible until now.

Greetings from Baleal Surf Camp in the sunny hamlet of Peniche, one of the westernmost points of Europe. Peniche is about a 90-minute drive from Lisbon and has some of the best surfing on the continent, and is loaded with top surf areas all only a few kms away from each other.

The routine is one that one could get used to - wake up early, hit the camp and get wetsuited-up by 9, exercise for a good 10 minutes for warm-up, hit the waves for 60-90 minutes, stretch. Repeat around 1pm. Crumple into a ball of fatigue by 4 for a siesta, and try your luck in the waves with some friends on your own around 7pm.

As for progress, we'll use percentages. Day 1, the waves win a good 90% of the time; Day 2, you shrink that down to maybe 60%. By Day 3, you are winning the majority of the battles and getting up more often than Hugh Hefner.

This is likely due to the level of instruction, which is fantastic. Turko (a long-time pro on the world tour) and Gaby are a surfing couple from Argentina who make it all easy for us, despite the pain from using muscles that haven't used since, well, ever.

More on the camp and the experience later in the week... now back to the ibuprofen injections.