Girlfriend and I are looking for a ~10 day holiday in May. Ideally getting a mix of fun sized waves and parawing dw’ers. I’ve got Portugal in mind, anyone have some beta on good spots to hit?
Open to other suggestions too. We live a few hours drive to the gorge and hopefully getting a quick trip to Maui in June so just looking for somewhere different to explore that has the potential for some fun days on the water.
I don’t know about the wind in portugal during that time of the year as it is somewhat of a transition period, but you will for sure have some fun sized waves across the western coast.
I would recommend the area around peniche as it’s the most versatile in terms of waves (you can surf there with practically any swell as there are exposed and sheltered spots close to each other) and you can go a bit north for some long exposed beach breaks too.
You will depend mostly on north winds for downwinders, but I don’t know the prevalence of them in may.
Sweet, that’s one of the zones I was considering. Seems to be May is when the northerly’s start picking up. Always down to prone or surf if there’s no wind.
I just watched this video on YouTube. https://youtu.be/c1obaEcOf_A?si=p-p7D_PjjZ0NKFY_
Looks fun to me!
I lived in Portugal for 5 years. Both west coast and south. Theres almost always a persistent north wind on the westcoast. North of Lisboa, Ericeira and up.
A big selection of both beach and reef breaks on that stretch of coast.
Also down in Algarve around Sagres area you have access to both South and Westcoast so can pick more depending on swell direction and size. Too big on west? just drive 30min - 1hr and get to a beach where the swell wraps around and is smaller.
Awesome, we’re thinking we’ll split our time between Peniche and the Algarve zone. Seems like that southern coast gets more sunshine that time of year, which I’m getting pressure from my partner to factor in outside of just chasing sweet wave set ups, but it looks like we can score in both spots!
I just did a few days with Lars at time2wing. He is in Milfontes south of Lisbon. Excellent set up including jet ski. I’m not sure about May but we had plenty of wind and swell the entire time. Maybe worth checking out…