Big Waves in Nazaré

On Friday, Leon and I were lucky enough to be able to experience a very special natural phenomenon: In Nazaré, a city on the Portuguese coast about 120km north of Lisbon, waves that reach up to 30 meters high can be observed in winter under special weather conditions! And every year there are a handful of people who actually surf these giant waves. Since the whole thing is very dangerous, the surfers are accompanied on the sea with jet skis and monitored from the beach. They wear padded neoprene protective suits and have a GPS transmitter that can be used to locate them in the water and rescue them in an emergency. The giant waves have earned Nazaré the nickname “Mount Everest for surfers.” In 2020, the world record for the highest wave ever surfed (26.21m) was set here.

When it was announced that there would be waves of 20 meters high at the end of the week, we spontaneously rented a car and drove to Nazaré. And it was really worth it!

The waves are impressive. From some perspectives they seemed relatively small and harmless to me, from others I experienced them as huge and threatening. And it was only when the surfers put the wave in relation to the human body size that I really realized what kind of mountains are towering off the coast.

I hope that you get an impression of the giant waves from the photos I took :-)