One fine morning, we woke up to what would be the first day of an unimaginable sequence of good tides, winds and waves. I still doubt I will ever again see such epic conditions like that for as many days as we did. For almost 10 days we experienced Indonesian-like perfection, right there in front of our tent. I never had the opportunity to sleep in, as I knew that soon the waves would be even better. We took turns to record the action and get some rest. The cold water, long hours of paddling, hiking and nights spent sleeping on the ground had taken its toll on our bodies but our minds were more excited than ever. It was a backside workshop for me, and a front side delight for the rest of our crew. Top honors have to go to Renan’s triple-barrel on one wave. We never wanted to catch our last wave, find our last barrel, or carve our last turn. We knew it would be impossible not to miss these golden days. The water, a dark blue tone, was softened slightly by the offshore breeze that carved real-time doodled clichés from children’s notebooks and offered possibilities for unimaginable joy. The days insisted on flying by, but we knew we had really scored epic waves when one day the campground caretaker said to us: “Show de tubos, huh?! Lo mejor que hay visto” (Best tubes I’ve seen). We confirmed that later, when bought a postcard with a beautiful picture of the wave and noticed we had still seen it better.
As our time came to an end so did the swell, so we left the campground and the bay of dreams for our final pit stop at Punta de Lobos. Just for the heck of it. We were still fortunate enough to meet the last day of that solid swell and put our 6’6’’s to use on the long walls of El Diamante. That night, we camped on a not so world-class site; but what really mattered was the surf. And we got a sweet taste at the end; although we could not help but think back to that postcard wave. The next day we hit the road towards home and didn’t stop driving until we almost assumed the shape of the car seats. Arriving back in Porto Alegre, it seemed like we were forced to wake up from a dream. Traveling is a must for me; otherwise I’d go crazy.
