Depart from Donostia tired but excited for what Mundaka has to offer. There is a huge swell on the forecast for Oct 16 (my bday) so I'm really looking forward to eating, hydrating, resting, and then charging waves tomorrow. Shortly after leaving you quickly get into the Basque countryside. The rolling hills, farmland, big sea cliffs, beautiful. You turn north off the freeway and now go through the towns and the nature that makes up the Uraidaibai reserve and passt through Gernika. Always eerie rolling through a site of a historical massacre, maybe we’ll return to check out the town.
We make it to the river delta and massive estuary that makes the wave and defines the town of Mundaka. There’s little beaches, at low tide it's an archipelago of little sandbar islands at the river mouth, people sunbathing, families playing. It’s a little slice of heaven on arrival, but the waves are small and crumbly. Sadly today is not a surf day. I’m thinking “it’s 2ft out there. How’s it supposed to be 8 tomorrow? I hope we didn’t get skunked.”
Explore the town, it’s tiny so in a few minutes you've walked around everything. There are two nice churches on the cliffside with beautiful ocean views, made of stone on opposite sides of town. Our airbnb is right behind/above Hotel el Puerto up a rickety staircase. We bouged out and got the place for two nights. There is a view of the little harbor, on the other side of the seawall the wave breaks. I’ve seen videos of people paddling out to the wave from this little harbor. Below us is the hotel’s little tapas bar and right next to it is Bar Los Txopos. Saturday evening is lively and the ambience is terrific. Feels like the whole town's down here eating and drinking. This little zone basically at the doorstep of our apartment is packed. We order some steak and jamon iberico in amongst the crowd and grub up our protein in anticipation for what tomorrow may bring.
Wake up early, open the little doors to our back balcony looking at the waves. It’s high tide but some bigger rollers are coming through, the swell looks to be here. My fears of getting skunked are unfounded. Cruise over to the cliffs to give the surf a proper look. The call is to wait for low tide at 3:30 and get a window bookending the low tide. Lots of surfers begin to arrive, families line up along the cliffs and watch the surf pour in. It’s a total amphitheater environment, crowds of people looking down on the waves as the surfers paddle into some beasts. One of the beauties of this surf spot is that when you take a wave in or get slammed to the inside, you can make your way over to the cliffs and a current literally pulls you out along a channel to the top of the lineup. It’s like a constant elevator. At malibu you get a wave from the top, you walk back along the beach and paddle back out at the lagoon. Here you get a sick one and you make your way over to the cliff and hitch a ride on the escalator. It’s perfect.
The sun is out and it's like 6-10ft clean, tide still a little on the high side. It looks perfect for the twin fin so I’m completely psyched with nervous energy to get out there. Jump into the little harbor and paddle right to the top and make my way into the lineup to just watch the waves from this perspective and the dynamics of this lineup. Watch some sets come through, watch who takes them, start establishing what the pecking order out here is. A smaller inside one comes to me, drop in its overhead, and cruise down the line enjoying the speed and flow that I generate on my toe side. First wave in Mundaka, check!
A dream wave for me. I’ve been fantasizing about this spot ever since I first learned about it as a kid. You always think of the perfect lefts of Indo when you fantasize a goofy footers dream, but I always thought of Mundaka. The fact that it was in Spain, where I know the language, felt more attainable and interesting to me than Indo for some reason. Will go to Indo one day, I’m sure, and enjoy the fuck out of that, but here it feels like a dream come true.
Get a couple more, I’m all smiles as an hour or so passes and the tide steadily drops. This whole time the sets have gradually gotten bigger and more hollow, and after a few hours it’s massive. What started as 6-8ft with 10ft bombs, becomes 8-12 ft with 14ft bombs blowing everyone up. It was proper! I’ve already been out there for several hours but it’s almost a whole new spot now that it’s big. Totally undergunned on my 5’8”, people are shredding on their step-up thrusters, etc. Manage to get one or two insiders but the risk is that if I don’t succeed on these, the large sets come sweep me up and beat me down. Now I’m playing a game of cat and mouse trying to duckdive big ones, paddling inside then back to the shoulder nonstop looking for opportunities. It’s exhausting and as the waves are getting larger I’m getting more fatigued.
Survival, marathon, birthday session. Take off on one and manage to get into the barrel and travel through it for a while. Didn’t come out but got much more travel time in there than I ever have. It’s fast and hollow and I get absolutely smoked by it and the sets coming in after. Completely cashed, I come up gasping for air. I make it to the cliff and climb up to get some rest on sweet land. Find Evan and watch it for a sec. It’s completely firing, all time Mundaka!
I’ve already been there for 4 hours, seen many broken boards, a guy with a bloody head get rescued by the jetski, I’m in a little over my head on the 5’8 but it’s too good not to try to get one more clean ride to end it on. So out through the harbor I paddle to go for one more! I’m determined not to get caught inside but that means I probably wont be able to catch an insider unless I take that risk. So I’m out there resting and watching the ocean. At last move inside and take the risk, paddle into one using the last of my energy, steep, come around the bottom and the wave races off without me, a close out. I get pounded, come up, grab my board and try to duckdive the next one. Pounded again. Come up with no breath and see the next wall of white water coming towards me. I do not have the strength to take another pounding so I turn around and ride it in on my belly. So much for getting one last good one.
Rush back to the car, get changed, and back to the cliff to watch these beasts from the cliffside amphitheater. The surf is incredible. I’m in the middle of filming a never ending set and after filming the first 12 waves, I have to stop because I cannot physically keep my arms up to hold the phone to continue filming the final 4 waves, or so, of that set. Today I pushed my body to the limit.
In the distance is a cliff face that looks like the half dome in Yosemite that’s illuminated yellow by the setting sun as barreling waves rifle in the foreground. Actually heaven, watching chargers pull into and stall for barrels that you could drive a car through. These were some of Europe’s best surfers no doubt. On one particularly memorable set set, 4 surfers pulled into the massive caverns of their respective waves and came out flying back to back to back to back to the cheers of the people on the cliffside ampitheatre. The golden orb in the distance ever present. Simply ridiculous. Undoubtedly the best surf I’ve ever seen and a dream come true to throw my hat in the ring and be part of it all. I have experienced all-time Mundaka and on my birthday, no less, my fatigued body is running on adrenaline and euphoria. A cold beer tonight is gonna hit different.
Have a nice Spanish meal of chorizo and revuelto de bacalao and head back to the apartment for an early night. Evan at some point, while I wasn’t around or too focused on the waves, managed to buy a tub of ice cream: vanilla, chocolate, and mint chip. He sang me happy birthday and we ate the ice cream while watching South Park like 12 year olds. What a day!
Oct 17-
We extended our stay in Mundaka for a night, our host was a homie and just let us pay cash to keep our spot. We figured if it was even half as good as yesterday we’d be stoked to surf amazing waves. Unfortunately it was less than half as good. We had a decent surf window with waist-shoulder high waves, a lot of them close outs. It’s amazing how much can change in a day. Just paddling out there is excruciating. From the 4 hours of straight paddling I did yesterday, my armpits were completely chafed raw. The open wounds now rubbing in my wetsuit on this session hurt so bad I considered getting out early. But I think to myself, “Your shit will heal, this could be your last time surfing here for a while.” Just a real mellow day.
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