One would think that the early nineties would
be a relatively late stage to discover new surf in Europe. When I set
off from Cornwall to Galicia in November 1992 in a van with two mates,
all we were expecting to do was satisfy our own curiosity. Nobody we
had spoken to in the UK seemed to know about any surf further west than
Rodiles but we were sure there would be a thriving surf community west
of there. It was just that we had not heard about it. We would start
in Baiona, just north of the Portuguese border, and work our way around
the coast. We had the whole winter.
Needless to say, with three
people in a small van for several months, rain every day and nothing to
do between surfs, and a van plagued with mechanical problems, it was a
fairly hardcore trip. In the end, the trip only worked through strict
military-like discipline and co-operation between team members. After
spending the first two months scouring the coast of Galicia for waves
with a fine-toothed comb, all we found were huge close-outs on sandbars
half a kilometre offshore. We endured day after day of rain, endless
coffees in smoke-filled bars and conversations with crazed Galician
fishermen, all of whom warned us not to go in the water along this
treacherous part of coast, aptly named La Costa de la Muerte.
One
morning, we decided that Galicia was not a good place for surfing in
the winter. The harsh granite topography is somewhat self-defeating as
far as good surfing waves are concerned. It picks up a huge amount of
swell and the waves get really big. But for that same reason, all the
flat reef-making material, like limestone, was washed away millions of
years ago. Almost every day throughout that winter there were waves of
six, eight, ten and twelve foot, but not one good reef for them to break
on. Of course, in Galicia there are many sheltered beaches facing out
of the main swell and wind directions. On that trip, we somehow failed
to find them amongst the maze of tiny side-roads and complete lack of
signposts. We decided this part of the coast should be surfed in the
summer not in the winter, so we headed away east towards our eventual
end-point, Mundaka.
Just before hitting Asturias we came across a
rather flat section of north-east facing coastline. The first wave we
were confronted with here was a twelve-foot peak, heaving up and sucking
dry on the reef, barely a stone’s throw from the road. We thought the
locals would probably have special boards to surf waves like this. This
was a bit beyond our capabilities, so we kept driving around the
corner, where we found a much more manageable lefthander. After
carefully parking the van some distance away and securing it with a
multitude of padlocks, we went out. The whole time we were wondering
when the locals would turn up, whether they would be friendly and
civilised or whether they would be hostile and aggressive. They never
came. Bewildered, we drove into town and had lunch. On the way back
we passed several spots with good potential. One in particular caught
our eye – a short, right-hand peak with a bowling inside section,
mechanically perfect, steep, powerful and shallow, but predictable. By
now we were experts at finding original names for spots, and this one we
called the ‘Hollow Right’. It turned out to be the gem of the trip. We
ended up surfing the Hollow Right for two weeks until it went flat.
The locals never turned up.
We later learned that this reef was
called El Berberecho, (cockle) because people often go out there to
collect cockles. After that trip we went back whenever we could. For
the next five years we had some classic sessions, all to ourselves. We
wondered why it remained empty all that time. Perhaps it was because
conditions change extremely quickly there – highly incongruent with the
slow pace of life in this part of the world. Maybe it was because
nobody thought it was any good, because there was never anybody out
there, a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. Whatever the reason, we had
our own private surf spot for five years.
Nowdays, things have
changed at the Hollow Right. Every time it works there are twenty
hungry locals swarming around the tight take-off area. They even call
it a different name now – La Machacona – ‘The Crusher’, a rather ugly
name, not exactly in tune with the mellow Galician lifestyle, but that’s
up to them.
Perhaps it is good that they have changed the
name. The magic of El Berberecho is no more. Those crystal-clean,
empty tubes only exist in my and two of my friends’ memories. Even
though El Berberecho has been crushed by La Machacona, nobody can take
away that memory.
