After Balaram Stack and his girlfriend Eden Edward flew into Portugal they’d been hanging out to surf Nazare. After all, what could be more fun for a couple than watching your girl get whipped into a thirty-foot tee pee ? First Balaram had to surf in the Capitulo Perfeito tube duel at Carcavelos, where he made the final and threaded one of the best waves of the day.
Three days later they were finally headed to Nazare and I was fortunate enough to go along for the ride.
As we draw closer to Nazare a low mist still hangs over the surrounding trees and the harbour, delivering a fitting air of mystique to the setting. In Portugal there is always an additional variable to the wind, the tide and the swell – the fog. Fortunately it has lifted enough to make the waves visible by the time we arrive.
As we turn into the harbour, two fishermen are puffing on cigarettes as they sort through nets in front of their vintage vessel. It’s a scene from an older world. Fifty feet away is the red bull Nazare boatshed, marked by a billboard featuring Nazare specialist, Lucas ‘Chumbo’ Chianca. It’s a much more modern scene. Inside giant boards poke at the roof like jousting sticks, racks are filled with inflatable suits and every kind of contemporary safety equipment. A fleet of Red Bull jet skis is parked in the nearby mooring.
It’s clearly go time at Nazare as surfers, safety crew and media move frantically around the shed. World-champion skimboarder, Lucas Fink, is being interviewed by a camera crew as he suits up. Meanwhile, Mr Nazare, Brazilian Lucas Chianca (brother of Joao) is the one dialling in Balaram and Eden with all the gear they need and organising the skis. Asked about his advice to the newcomers (Balaram has surfed it once small) Lucas states casually. “I just want people who come out with me to have fun,” It as if they are off to Carnevale.
Balaram and Eden quickly get ready. Balaram’s pre-inflated suit makes him resemble some kind of wildly disproportionate super-hero figure. Meanwhile, it’s Eden’s first time wearing an inflatable suit and first time towing and she hopes she doesn’t want to get it wrong. “We were talking about how some people inflate it before they hit the water and then just skip down the face. Hopefully I don’t do that.”
Eden is also yet to lay eyes on the Nazare lineup she is about to enter. Only two weeks earlier she paddled into an eight-ten-footer at Cloudbreak, pulling up into a gaping barrel. The wave eventually ankle-tapped her but not before she’d travelled through a long, heavy section. Joel Parkinson, Mick Fanning and Nathan Hedge happened to be paddling out. “I’ll never forget what Parko said,” Eden explains proudly. “Congratulations, you’re a f&*king queen.”
Asked if she had been given specific instructions yet, Eden responds with a chuckle. “Zero, but I’m sure I’m going to get just about everything on the twenty minute ride out – less time to think about it.” Balaram is bopping around in he background like a kid going to Disneyland for the first time. “I’m psyched,” he says with a big smile. He appears to have full faith in Eden and the support crew.
As they cruise out through the harbour, we drive up the hill, through the quaint surrounds of Nazare town to claim a position on the headland. Our photographer Andre is a little more concerned. “The girlfriend is crazy,” he insists. “She doesn’t know what she is getting herself in for. Things can escalate here very fast.”
Nothing quite prepares you for that first glimpse of Nazare; when you walk onto the headland’s dirt trails and watch twenty-thirty foot A-frames tickle at the low hanging clouds. It’s not one singular wave but a series of scattered peaks. Like your favourite, shifting beachbreak has been super-sized beyond belief. Instantly you start mindsurfing the giant, toothy peaks. It’s obviously far bigger than anyone, including Eden, expected.
At least a hundred people are gathered on the headland and a further hundred or so cluster at the Fort of São Miguel Arcanjo, the high-point overlooking the wave. It’s a full-blown tourist attraction with visitors from all over the world here to watch. Out in the water there are even spectator boats, weaving perilously through the outer peaks of the lineup to get people closer to the action.
I meet a gentleman from England who explains he bought a house here two years ago as part of his retirement plan. Never been on a board in his life but wanted to be in Nazare because of the surfing action and the Portuguese sun.
There is another factor at play. It is also the first day of the Gigantes de Nazare event, an invitational contest where competitors are filmed on two separate days and various awards are given. The prize money for each competitor is the same and the focus is on content creation. However, the fact it is on ensures the lineup is busy. I count at least a dozen skis buzzing around the lineup. There are now firm rules about riding Nazare when the swell is serious. You are required to have two skis per team – one to tow and one to rescue, and an additional spotter on the headland to communicate. Right behind us a woman is giving instructions to a team in the water via a walkie-talkie. From another group on the hill comes the strong waft of dope.
Out in the water it’s hard to distinguish riders but we soon identify Balaram sling-shotting into a long left that he rides confidently, carving highlines, sacrificing none of his distinctive style as he deals with the giant lumps that come roaring towards him on the wave.
Lucas Fink also fares surprisingly well on his skim-board, carving cartoonish lines on a huge right, somehow going top-to bottom on his thin strip of finless surfboard.
It takes a little while, but from the headland our crew cheers as Eden gets a clean entry into a mid-sized left and rides it almost all the way to the inside and kicks out smoothly. As she does so one of the biggest sets of the day rolls through right behind her and for a moment it seems she may be caught inside. However, the ski driver is swift, quickly hauling her onto the sled and then zig-zagging with time-won proficiency through the maze of imploding peaks. It’s apparent that there is as much skill involved in riding the ski through the impact zone as there is in handling the wave.
In a short window Balaram rides two more waves, brazenly kicking out with a trademark air on one. Eden also rides another solid peak – two waves on a twenty to thirty foot day is more than enough to claim it as a legitimate Nazare conquest.
The lineup standout is undeniably Lucas Chianca. It’s clear why he has become the billboard face of Nazare. Where many others descend the faces with stiffened limbs and survive the ride, Lucas is actually surfing the wave, fading ultra-deep on take-offs and throwing giant carves and layback snaps on fifteen-twenty foot sections; tossing in ludicrous flips at will. “Lucas is the king out here,” our Portuguese photographer, Andre Carvahlo states emphatically.
After a couple of hours of world-class entertainment we head back to the boatshed to rendezvous with Eden and Balaram. When we find them they are just off the jet-ski and still buzzing. “That was hectic. That was sick,” enthuses Balaram. “That was like the fastest most productive fifteen minutes that I’ve ever been a part of… In fifteen minutes I had three sick waves and one of the almost barrelled… It was just fun to be able to go that fast, and get waves over and over again that quickly…. I F%&kin wish I had more waves out there. It’s fun. I wanted to try bigger kickouts. ”
Eden is also dripping with adrenaline as she talks us through the experience. “They were so well set up and put together, it made me feel like I was pretty taken care of, then we saw the wave and I was like. ‘Oh crap, it looks so friggin’ big even from far away. And I also didn’t realise that it was all over the place and there wasn’t just a channel.”
“She had never even seen it from the beach. She didn’t know how it broke but she pulled it, she got a bomb,” chimes in Balaram proudly.
Eden enthusiastically talks us through the experience. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack after that first one. The adrenaline was so crazy …Being that I’d never seen it from the beach, I was a little confused on when to fade and when to go down the line and I almost got caught up on the whitewash by one because I faded back a little too far, but I ended up pulling it…I got super lucky and I didn’t get super pounded… .”
Later Eden reveals that perhaps the scariest moment was when Chumbo left her to drive the ski, while he rode a few waves. Paranoid about being caught inside, she elected to hover way outside, rather than meddle with thirty-foot peaks.
Balaram will certainly be back to hunt the giant barrel that eluded him today and blast more lofty kick-outs off the back of a Nazare. Meanwhile, for Eden the tow day at Nazare was definitely a step up in her surfing career. Asked about future plans she adopts a tone that is at once sincere and jokingly self-mocking, as she states, “As of the month of February 2024 I’m a big wave surfer. ”
