Counting Waves: A Crazy Surf Story

By Adam Anderson

Author
Adam Anderson is a pseudonym for a former Swedish journalist (Per-Åke Sjögren), who stayed six years above the beach Praía do Norte in the small village of Sítio da Nazaré, Portugal, watching the largest waves of the world. The (still unofficial) record of the largest wave ever surfed so far was set at this beach on the 24th of February 2024. Surfer: Sebastian Steudtner, Germany. Wave height: 28,57 m (93,73 feet). The same surfer as on the cover.

Cover
Praía do Norte, Sítio da Nazaré, Portugal, December 21, 2014. Surfer: Sebastian Steudtner, Germany. Wave height: 22 m. Photographer: Luís Carrico, Portugal.

English text review
Dina Rolo, Director of the Beyond Academy, Nazaré, Portugal. Jonathan Brott, student of Modern English at the University of Stockholm, Sweden.

Acknowledgments
Thank you Luís! What a pic! Thank you Dina! You perfected the words! Special thanks to Jonathan! You brought the right kind of craziness!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Anderson
• Release date: Jun 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463210796

Adam Anderson

Adam Anderson is a pseudonym for a former Swedish journalist, staying six years above the famous beach Praia do Norte in the small village of Sítio da Nazaré, Portugal, watching the largest waves of the world. The (still unofficial) record of the largest wave ever surfed so far was set at this beach on the 24th of February 2024. Surfer: Sebastian Steudtner, Germany. Wave height: 28,57 m (93,73 feet). The same surfer as on the cover.

Book preview

One morning the local surfistas saw him sitting there. They saw him the next morning as well and for many days to come. They didn't see him arrive. The first time they noticed him was one Monday morning in the middle of June, in the midst of the Brazilian winter. They got surprised. The waves are extremely hard to take in that stormy season and no foreign visitors are expected. But he sat there when they launched their boards for the first rides after the weekend and he stayed there when they carried them away late in the afternoon.

They never saw him leave.

He might have been sitting there for a long time. Almost impossible to spot, as he was hiding in front of the dark wall of sandstone cliffs at the very far end of the beach, showing no more than a tenuous shadow among the rocks around him. Only once a loving couple who wanted to enjoy a little privacy by the light of the moon saw him rise and leave at midnight. His haggard appearance scared them.

He looked like a survivor from a wreck.

A sole survivor.

He sat there every day, at the same position, right at the point of the cape – na ponta – between the surfers beach and the Bay of Dolphins. Exactly the point where the Atlantic Ocean first hits Brazil, crashing its waves against the rocks at the most northeastern coast, creating huge fountains of foaming water just a few yards in front of him.

The place is not easy to reach, not even at low tide. The cape is broken and shattered with slippery rocks of all sizes, making every step a challenge. And behind him hovered the sandstone wall, inhibiting any retreat backwards.

Why was he there?

If the surfers had been able to look closely upon him they would have seen that he didn't look like a lost tourist. No, he looked more like a yogi than a lost soul. He seemed trashy but was sitting with quite an imposing posture. He was not a youth, but no elder either. He was just a man somewhere in the middle of his life, wearing a long scrubby hair and beard, both bleached by sun and time, a faded 49ers cap, a pair of Bermuda shorts of unknown origin and a dirty t-shirt underneath a greenish khaki vest. He wore no shoes, not even sandals. His feet, arms and legs were as brown as the sandstone. His face showed nothing but firmness.

He was sitting on a flat surface beneath an impermeable cloth he had rigged between two big rocks as a shelter against the midday sun, the daily showers and the cascades from the Atlantic