Reality Check
After spending the better part of summertime between Indonesia and West Africa, by mid October I found myself ready to spend some time at home for the much anticipated surf season in the Mediterranean. Usually October to December is the perfect time to be around home and take little trips when a good swell hits somewhere around the Med, and it's during this time of the year that the best sessions go down and new waves are discovered. For me, this is the time of the year that I can cruise with my friends, spend some time with my family and surf on a almost regular basis without having to deal with long flights but simply driving down the beach like most surfers around the world do. Because of the building sense of anticipation that grew over the past few months, it happened a couple of times that I found myself in the very unlikely situation of daydreaming about a good session back home even if I was surfing perfect Padang in Bali or a reeling pointbreak in GhanaŠand trust me, that was a weird feeling.
A couple of weeks passed by without any significant swell, but at least the weather has been really good and hot and the water still warm until the end of October so I could deal with it pretty good. To comfort myself and the boys I kept saying 'It will happen pretty soon', but another week went by and nothing happened. That's when reality started to kick in, and by that time I realized that maybe I had to lower the bar of my expectations a little bit. Then one day I got a call from Nik Zanella, one of my friends at SurfNews magazine, saying that they were expecting a decent southeast swell for the next weekend in the northern Adriatic sea, and after a quick check to the forecast I made the call, packed my girlfriend Valentina and a couple of boards in the wagon and drove four and a half hours north.
For all those who are not too familiar with surfing the Med let's just say that the Adriatic sea, that narrow stretch of water between Italy's east coast and the former Jugoslavia, is probably the less consistent and unreliable destination in the world for a surf trip, but after three weeks with no surf I decided to go no matter what. "If we get skunked," I thought "It'll still make up for a nice weekend with my girl and my buddies".
Even if I've surfed up there a couple of times before, the boys wanted to take me to this new place they found earlier this year hoping to get it good. I didn't know anything about it, but I had no choice but to trust Nik if I wanted to get wet. By all accounts the surf was expected to be two to three foot and offshore which is pretty all time for the Adriatic standard, but an early morning check at the boys' local spot revealed tiny waves barely breaking off a little jetty. In other words, it was flat. That's when local knowledge came into play, and in a matter of minutes we were already driving further north to the estuary of Italy's largest river, the Po.
Nik and the boys reckoned that sticking some fifteen miles out at sea more than their local break, the beaches by the estuary might pick more swell than the spot we just checked. It was a gamble, but we were all happy to take it. For two hours we drove through the countryside that looked more like somewhere in the Nederlands than good old Italy, flat fields under a gray sky and still clouds, and by the time we were almost there I was convinced that there was no way that a place like this could have any surf at all. Getting to the surf in Italy usually involves amazing rides on breathtaking coastal roads, but definitely that was not going to happen that day.
By mid morning we finally got there, and Nik parked the car on the top of the river's southern bank. Right below we could see the water of the river lazily flowing into the sea, but we couldn't see neither the beach or the waves because they were hidden behind the northern bank across the Po. Every now and then we could barely spot a wave's crest across the river, but if it was a parking lot overlooking the lineup that I was looking for then I was definitely in the wrong place. The only way to actually getting to see the waves was suiting up (the water's already cool up there), jumping in the river, swim across and climb on top of the northern bank. If you're lucky the prize for your effort and bravado is the view of an uncrowded lineup followed by a solo session, if you're not all you have to do is jump back in the river, swim back to the other side, get in the car and drive home empty handed. In our case good friend Emi Mazzoni (SurfNews' photo editor) volunteered as guinea pig and made the crossing under our watchful eyes. As soon as he climbed the top of the northern bank he yelled us to get ready because the waves were cranking, and we suited up in no time. To my disbelief, there were some head high waves peeling the other side of the northern bank and Emi was already ripping to bits the wedgy righthanders.
The four of us enjoyed the rising swell for the rest of the day and even now, two weeks later, that has been the best surf I had since my return home.
Aloha,
Emi.
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Emi Cataldi's 10 most recent posts..
- Team Italia at the Eurosurf 2007
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- Gotta Be On It!
- Reality Check
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