Watch: Early Season Mundaka
Mundaka's water angle isn't seen as often as the land angle, and for good reason: A long and lined-up bank is best viewed when the waves are long and lined-up.
Yet, while the prying eyes of the water angle only allow a limited perspective, it has the advantage of showing just how hollow Mundaka can be.
In this video, shot late last month, getting to the bottom of the wave is the first of many challenges. If the surfer negotiates that, then they have to set a rail somewhere between the steps, and hold it as they drive onto the front foot for speed.
That the whitewash is as often as not a sandy brown shows how fast and hard the waves are breaking across the bank. Perfect it ain't.
Comments
What a mess that day was... pinching, spiting, swallowing up ... would be fun though!
Add in the torrential downpours, howling offshores and rabid crowd, what’s not to like?
Mundaka. Cool place, lived and surfed there for a month in 1986, hardly a soul around. Beautiful part of the basque region with friendly people, good food and hospitality.
When the swell gets smaller and sand ends up in places that are not the norm, you can even surf a right hander from in the river mouth back towards town. We met Craig Sage, big guy, originally from Wollongong from memory, married a Spanish lady, they had only a year prior in 1985 opened the only surf shop, Mundaka Surf. Shop is still going great guns today. Lived or hid behind one of the huge stone walls near a large copse of trees at the town cemetery for a month without any authority detecting us. Luxurious living for a pack of guys in a fried out Kombi, we had a fresh water tap on the outside wall, camp was high up on the hill with elevated views overlooking the river mouth and out to Izaro Island. Great days.
That's living!
Craig. Great photo, thanks so much. Yep, that was living. That copse of trees just right of centre over those poly houses is still there, wow, memories are gushing.
I know I’ve got a great photo from up there and also a great shot of Craig and us boys out front of the original surf shop. Ill dig ‘em up, Ive got a reunion in early November, I’ll show the crew that shot, they will be blown away, Cheers mate.
Epic, this is from Google street view.. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4007144,-2.6987492,3a,34.4y,32h,85.15t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sczg-KEO0JbzslijHSwFD1Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Nice surf shot as well..
Or dying !!!
Hey Alfred
Great travel stories, love hearing them. I spent 6 months or so in Spain in 95 and can appreciate your thoughts from a decade prior. Things were pretty much the same until Euro currency and wider surf travel upped the costs and the ante.
Here is the link to story of Craig Sage and Surf shop, actually from my hometown of Newy which was reason for me to call in, not forgetting the waves.
https://mundakasurfshop.com/?lang=en
Cheers, great memories, wave still looks sick, if not a liitle more hectic today
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Aussiead. Hi mate. Thanks for correcting me, Craig Sage is from Newcastle not Wollongong, memory slipping a little. Did you visit Mundaka or any part of the northern coast area ? Looks way hectic these days, no mobile phones in 1986 so no photo/look at me shots instantly uploaded to all of todays social platforms. Some time back i watched on-line somewhere the actual broadcast of the party celebrating Mundaka Surf Shops 30 or 35 years in operation, Craig made a half boozy speech in Spanish and then English from memory..Did you have a Kombi or a van or just free wheeling around ? Thanks for that link you posted. What an enjoyable afternoon discussing ALL things Mundaka, a must visit destination for more than just surf.
Hey AW - also surfed there in 86. Early season, only about 6-10 guys in the water on a decent swell. Seemed to be lined up a hell of a lot better than the video.
Bumped into a blonde, long haired Aust. (not sure of his name)
Thought my 6'0" MC would be to small - worked a treat.
Spent most of my time surfing more north west - pretty much by myself, 6 months of bliss.
OHV500 Hi. Yep, we went east and west along that coast, plenty of waves. Bakio, Zarautz, Santander-Guernica area etc. When we left we journeyed south to Bilbao, had to go to a bank, waited outside for it to open, did our business. We were informed a few days later by another traveller that late afternoon of the day we visited it, Basque Bombers blew one corner of the building off its footings. Free wheeling spirited young men, loved it.
HaHa yes the basque region was a little dodgy around then, probably still is. Had a few run ins with corrupt police on the road with some very big german shepards, just forked over a little $ and all was okay. We pretty much camped on the beaches in the kombi as it seemed to be okay with the locals. Actually slept 2 nights in the Mundaka carpark over looking the harbor.
OHV500. Appears like we were doing the same shit. The Kombi was our palace, like yours, it rock and rolled everywhere. Very fortunate, the previous owners of ours were two guys I worked with on a building site in London, both from Sydney, both surfers. They left us with a very decrepit road atlas but with highlighted gems marked with an asterisk as to surf spots in Spain, France and Portugal. A couple a weeks into our European Vacation, six months, ( I sound like Chevy Chase) was attempting to clean the bench seat in the cabin, down in the crack between both seats, found on paper an even more elaborate list of surf breaks totalling about 30, hows ya luck. Good chat.
I was there in 85 August and the tanks, young guys with trigger fingers on machine guns and no smiles all round was confronting and weather was gloomy, freaked me out a bit so didn't hand around long.
Memlasurf. Hi mate. Yep it was pretty full on, even worse in 85 than 86 but when you are very young you don’t care much about anything else but yourself, just a bunch of naive dickheads with over inflated egos and surfing abilities who thought every woman in Spain wanted us because we paraded our skinny little bodies around resplendent in surf clothing thinking we were as cool as shit.!!.How WRONG we were. Only their brothers wanted us, yeah to kill us. We just got about as though we were bullet proof, when in reality we were not. Through your own selfish rose coloured glasses(mine were Oakley, what was i thinking ?) all you are, well we were anyway, just something for the locals to gawk at. They looked at us like some type of ‘Echo Beach”warriors dropped from some surf craft from a far away planetary system, who may have a crack at their lovely. Tense moments often in Spain, particularly when busted perving on a fellas gal. Geez I miss the tapas and the honesty system of declaring how many tapas you’d had whilst leaning on the bar, unfortunately i don’t ever remember us being honest when doing the math for how many we’d consumed, after all, we were broke travellers and sometimes mass consumption of tapas was the evening meal. Food for thought.
Craig. Great surf shot as well. You can see how it breaks ‘right’ when the sand piles in that particular area as highlighted in that pic. I used Google street view years ago on the east side of the cemetery at the entrance, hadn’t thought to try other views. In town, we visited all 51 bars whilst we were there, from large to tiny kiosk like ones. Well, we did finally get found out by the cops, luckily on the day we were packing up, a couple of cars and a cop car rocked up, no issue, calmly said you need to leave. A few of the local beautiful girls our age took a liking to us earlier and would sneakily get up the hill to hang at our camp, unbeknownst to us or the girls we were being watched by brothers, cousins, uncles or whatever. When the cops said depart, I recognised one of the occupants of one of the cars, he was one of the girls brother or the like. Basically dobbed in.
Hi Alfred and OHV500,
I also spent 2 months at the Graveyard in a Fried Out Kombi in 87, great waves and great memories,just loved waking up to that view.
Probably only 20 out on a good day when we were there, had some great waves on the other side of the river mouth as well,
A mate of mine, also named Craig from Wollongong, lived there for the next 3 years, he just couldn't drag himself away
Coxypk. Howdy, before days out, we will have a complete pseudo Mundaka Cemetery Surf Team assembled, we thought (dreaming) we were the only ones that found that nest of trees adjacent the cemetery wall, obviously not. Shhsh, Don’t tell anyone.
It’s a hard walk up that steep curving bitumen road with a skin full of sangria or cerveza. High retaining wall with railing almost claimed us a few times. In fact two of us never made it back one night, had to stop halfway and managed to sneak into the back of that poxy camping park and slept under their trees. I know Ive got a photo of our campsite, splendidly adorned with all manner of stolen goods (youthful bowerbirds) from night raids on el fresco restaurants (how dare they leave their stuff out for us to steal) deck chairs, umbrellas, frisbees, festoon lights but without power, who cared, it was about the look. Tarpaulins used on scaffolding hooked from my building site job in London made great communal ground sheets that when about 6 Kombis met out of chance ended up as the mess hall, then a dance floor and for a few lucky ones, a washable bed sheet if ya know what i mean.
It was a great little town, plenty of night life and I staggered up that hill many a night
Coxypk. Hi mate. Totally correct, everything happened at night in Mundaka, after siesta the locals would work to 7pm then feasted out and hit all their bars. One evening there was some type of fiesta with some kind of regional theme. The fire brigade filled up the town square with a fun non-hazardous pinky coloured foam, pumped in for a couple of hours. We were tanked to the eyeballs from a surf lay day where we consumed copious amounts of red wine, on the grass area overlooking the ocean, totally tripped out when we walked into foam which was basically up to your chest. Mid wee hours of the morning, the foam started to subside and next day it was gone. Fun place for all endeavours. Love Mundaka
I was there autumn 85, 86 and 87 saw some of the best waves of my life in Sept 85. I can't work out how to upload a photo... Been back numerous times since including walking a bit of EL Camino. The friend I went with is still there - a few hours west at another great river mouth you probably know but I won't name. Great times!
Rooinek. Hi fella. That sounds so good. Another team- mate. How good ? Did you have a Kombi ?
Gay abandon basically was our theme but universally it was the ‘Listen Like Thieves Tour’ , anything not nailed down in outdoor settings in coastal towns at the beach was ours, thats if we could fit it in our Kombi. Nothing nasty, just thought some outdoor restaurants had way too many chairs for their own liking, greedy pricks. I’m like you, complete computer dinosaur, id love to able to upload some shots.
The first year we hitch hiked - met a group of West Australians with kombi's and we traveled with them for a couple of months (we were draft dodgers from Cape Town). Ended up spending a few months in the Canary Islands over winter selling time share. No jokes our boss was one of the 'Great train robbers'!
Rooinek. Fascinating stuff, good on you guys for dodging the draft. Well, ive got stories, but you are sitting on one great story there. Care to elaborate? Without disclosing place names, are you still in South Africa ?
What island in the Canary’s group were you working over the weak and feeble ? Was it the Poms who took up most time share offers ? I bet your road travels with West Oz boys was an interesting one. Good stuff
I met an Australian on one of my London stints and after many years between UK, SA and Aus we finally settled here (Vic) in 2001. Heading back to SA next week for the first time in 3 years - looking forward to that. Spent most of our time at Las America's on Tenerife. Fun surf and lots of nightlife for the 20 somethings. There were plenty of other Euro holiday makers there but almost all of our 'victims' were Poms! If they signed up for the free seminars they ended up spending a whole day of their 5 day break being given the hard sell at one of the resorts. If we saw them the next day we would make ourselves scarce! We would have monthly team meeting dinners with the boss (John “Goldfinger” Palmer) where no one was allowed to take photos (no mobile phones in those days!). I ended up travelling with the one WA guys for a year or so through the states before spending some time in WA in the late 80's. Lost touch with him now unfortunately....
Rooinek. Ah, you’ve cracked me up reading that. I knew it was the Poms. How good is a name like John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer its all in his hands (lame joke attempt), I’m sure he was really trustworthy, not. Great experiences all round Rooinek. Safe travels back to your homeland. Cheers
Cheers Alfred!
I’ve never been there but from the what I’ve heard the locals are proud and passionate, met a guy at maxing Sultans who introduced himself by name then said . I am from the basque country!
Panman . Hi mate. What a contrast, mellow mannered folk in the Maldives compared to incredibly protective regional locals at Mundaka. The guy was probably trying to put the wind up you, maybe or just a facade.
There was none of that in 1986. I do believe its got worse since, but so it has everywhere, voluminous amounts of surfers globally as we all know. A rapidly increasing global population of 7.76Billion folks fitting into all corners of the planet fulfilling personal endorphin addictions. But its a good life really. Keep travelling i say, broadens your horizon.
Ha Rooinek
Time share/crime share/time scare tout.