Category Archives: Surfing holidays

It can feel like the world’s most spectacular wilderness; the savage beauty of Connemara

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Connemara has inspired film crews, writers and maharajahs with its wild mountains and endless expanses of sky and sea

When I was 20 and straight out of teacher training college I took a job in a school in Connemara for a year. My friends were heading for the bright lights of Dublin, but after a childhood of caravan holidays along Ireland’s west coast I was drawn to the “wild mountainous country” of west Galway beloved of Oscar Wilde and countless other artists and untamed spirits.

Instead of the indoor excitement of city life, I spent the year knee-high in bogs, scrambling up the Twelve Bens, island-hopping to Inishbofin and Inishark and pedalling along deserted roads to the show-stopping beaches at Glassilaun and Rossadillisk. A sign on the road for Rossadillisk beach read “Welcome to Paradise”. I learned to ride on Connemara ponies at Errislannan and on weekends I’d hitch lifts to random events in Letterfrack, involving local poets, map makers and sculptors who breathed life into this quiet corner of Ireland. With no advance planning, I’d find myself at the summit of Diamond Hill or spotting porpoises at Renvyle beach with a gang of newfound friends.

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Riding the giant: big-wave surfing in Nazaré

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A small fishing hamlet in Portugal has become a magnet for the world’s most fearless big-wave surfers. Tim Lewis reveals how Nazaré became the ocean’s Everest

Everyone you meet in Nazaré tells you the waves here are different: heavier, more powerful, less predictable, somehow menacing. So, on my last afternoon in the Portuguese town in February, I went out on the back of a jet ski piloted by Andrew Cotton, a big-wave surfer from Devon, to see for myself. Cotton is easygoing, with cropped, gold-tipped hair and pale eyes, but he turns serious as we leave the harbour. He explains that jet skis are set up differently in Nazaré: the kill switch, which cuts the engine if the rider is thrown off, is not attached to the driver’s wrist as usual because… I miss the exact reason as Cotton guns the engine and sea spray covers us and I’m distracted, wondering if they really had to call it a “kill” switch. I’m already freaked out enough that I’ve promised to check in with my family as soon as I’m back on dry land.

Nazaré, specifically Praia do Norte or North Beach, is home to the biggest surfable waves on the planet. Ten years ago, it was unknown even in big-wave circles, but that changed when Garrett McNamara, a 52-year-old Hawaiian who is one of the pioneers of the sport, was given a tip-off by local bodyboarders. He came to Portugal for the first time in 2010; the following year, he rode a monstrous wave measured at 23.77m (78ft) and entered the Guinness World Records. In 2017, also in Nazaré, Brazilian Rodrigo Koxa nudged up the mark to 24.38m (80ft). If one day someone conquers a 100ft wave – a holy grail of surfing – almost certainly it will take place in Nazaré.

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