Supertubos:
Surfers everywhere are pretty tuned into the smells of their local beach. In Southern California, dry offshores tinge the air with chaparral; in parts of Australia, the smell of eucalyptus wafts out to the lineup and in Hawaii, the plumeria kicks in with the trades. The smells are almost as much of the surfing experience as the waves themselves.
The Supertubes experience is no different, though inarguably far stinkier. There’s a fish factory at the north end of the beach that pumps out the pungent odor of drying and decomposing fish bits and coats the lineup with a briny smoke. But a little stench is a small price to pay for the roundness of the beachbreak barrels.
Make no mistake: Supertubes is one of the best waves in Europe. There’s one main peak with a super-fast (though makable) left, and a somewhat shorter right, and one other peak down the beach that’s not quite as perfect but still way better than your average day at Huntington Pier.
Baleal:
A couple of miles north of Peniche is the sandy little island village of Baleal. It’s not really much of a town, but it’s been a big destination for traveling surfers for more than 20 years — especially when the reefs around Ericiera are blown out with north or south winds. Baleal is an island, so there’s almost always a protected beach.
It’s no surprise that most of the learn-to-surf camps in Portugal are located here. With the mellow (though localized) left reefbreak of Lagide just north of town, followed by miles of open beachbreak, you can have a pretty high surfer population density without pissing too many people off. There’s even a protected bay south of town with mediocre beachbreak that’s sheltered from north winds (and huge swells).
You won’t find perfection in Baleal — there’s no hidden Coxos, and Supertubes is a couple miles south — but if you keep one eye out on the shifting sandbanks and the other on the flagpoles, you might be able to score some damn fine beachbreaks with mellow crowds.