Window Bangs Open

As the summer southeaster scythes the froth-scudded seas of Cape Town into a seasonal lull in swell, and the NE trades of the East Coast whipped the sea into a flattened foamball, the northern winter has blasted into action.

As the southern end of Earth gradually turns her face towards the sun, momentum gathers for the (dry) windy or (moist windy) attentions of the SE and NE respectively. However, in the inverted realms of the north, whose pale face turns away from the sun, temperatures are dropping and the storm winds are building in the Arctic Ocean.

Wild and woolly seas coupled with heavy storm winds forced a day off for the Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal in Peniche on Friday last week. However, the bad weather and big waves got the big wave surfers on tour a few (mild to marginal) reasons to build up some stoke.

The arrival of one of the first proper storms of their winter, and another one in the Pacific called Tropical Storm Ana that scraped past Hawaii, heralded the start of the Big Wave World Tour (BWWT) window for the northern half of the planet.

Their BWWT window lies from October 15 to February 28 and holds sway for all three events: Todos Santos in Mexico, Punta Galohs in Spain and Pe'ahi, otherwise known as Jaws, in Hawaii. This follows the completed southern hemisphere schedule, which ran from June to August, but did not result in events being held in two out of the three: Dungeons Challenge and the Quiksilver Ceremonial in Chile. Only the Billabong Pico Alto in Peru ran. It was won by Makua Rothman.

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Instead of twiddling his thumb as nasty weather and howling onshores pummelled Peniche with big sloppy surf, Hawaiian star John John Florence pursuaded big wave legend Peter Mel, who is ASP's BWWT commissioner, to paddle out at a local big wave spot that Mel says he has never heard of. Neither had I or most people, although it did get some publicity in January this year, notably on www.SurferToday.com .

Papoa, a giant right-hander, lies off a sandstone spine that juts out from the peninsula at Peniche between the beach of Supertubos, where the ASP event is being held, and the small town of Baleal.

Supertubos, a little bit like the Dunes in Cape Town, can't handle big surf. When the surf gets huge, most people head to Praia do Norte, in Nazaré, immortalised by Garett McNamara as the biggest wave ever ridden. This remains debatable, but we'll leave that to another discussion.

However, after a group of Portuguese and other big wave riders rode Papoa during the "Black Swell" of early January this year, now there is an alternative to Nazare, which also had some big surf last week.

For the exhibition session, which was broadcast on the ASP's daily live morning telecast (anything to generate content for the expensive ASP media machine) called Dawn Patrol, Mel borrowed one of McNamara's boards, a bright green 11’ 6” beast.

Funnily enough, if it weren’t for another storm 1000s of miles away, Mel would not had the chance to surf a new spot. He was due back in Hawaii for the launch of the BWWT this weekend, but Tropical Storm Ana was deepening into a hurricane that was feared to hit the Big Island on the weekend, and the event has been cancelled.

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