surfhouse

November 2 2017

Hungasurf x The Magnet Projects | October Sessions

Zoltán Bakró Blog, Costa da Caparica, Lisbon, Portugal, Surf spots, Surfing, The Magnet Lodge Costa da Caparica, hungasurf, octobersessions, Portugal, surf teaching, surfhouse, themagnetprojects

Last week we had our first edition of the Hungasurf Sessions. The week was blessed with decent swell, clean conditions and great weather. We also had a chance to watch the Surfing World Champs.

Sunny days and good waves

Our guesthouse in Costa da Caparica welcomed the Hungarian surfers. This week was for intermediate surfers. They improved a lot on their wave selection, take-off technique and riding sideways on the wave. Dawn patrol and sunset sessions made our days so after dinner everyone was easily falling in their beds for a good night’s rest.

RipCurl Pro Peniche

We also had the chance to have a look at the World Championship Tour event in Peniche, the RipCurl Pro Portugal.

After watching the opening and closing days live at the beach, we’ve seen all the pros getting barrelled and doing some great surfing. First day was about huge barrels, finals day was more about progressive surfing. Julian Wilson and Gabriel Medina were having a really tight final. Eventually Medina came out as the winner with a buzzer beater. This result keeps the Brazilian’s World Title dreams alive: http://www.worldsurfleague.com/athletes/tour/mct?year=2017

Medina_getting_ready — Medina getting ready for his quarter final heat. He was on fire!

Surfing Safari

Besides the drive to Peniche we also searched around for spots in the area. We found some nice waves in Caparica, Riviera, Carcavelos, Guincho and Praia Grande. Highlight of the trip though was the world famous right hand point-break of Coxos. At the peak of the swell the 3 of us paddled out to be a bit intimidated, watch the pros getting pitted but also to test our braveness in bigger surf. We all had some ‘smaller’ waves so at the end of the session came out happy from the water.

Peiman and Matyi are getting ready to jump in while Zoli is on the first wave of the day.

It was a great week with Hungarian surfers, we will continue with these type of events and intermediate weeks in the future. We’ll keep you updated about the next Hungasurf Sessions. See you next year!

September 20 2017

How to read waves?

Zoltán Bakró Costa da Caparica, Portugal, Sports, Surfing Costa da Caparica, guesthouse, Lisbon, ocean, surf guiding, surf lesson, surf lessons, surf teaching, surfhouse, surfing, szörf oktatás, themagnetprojects

Reading the ocean

Today’s blog entry is with the aim of helping you reading waves and have good orientation in the water.

After spending our first summer in Portugal and teaching all levels in the waves of Caparica, I can tell that the biggest challenge for my students has been the reading of waves.

If you know the feeling of nosediving because the wave broke on you or you just couldn’t manage to catch a wave because you were sitting too far out, this article is for you.

Nosedive — Nosediiiiiive… Happened to you as well before, right?

Here are the major points to become a better wave-reader:

Initial tips:

-> Look at the horizon
-> When you see a set approaching, compare the horizon with the wave’s line.
-> Find the highest point of the wave, this is where the wave starts breaking.
-> The side with the steepest angle/slope down is the direction of the breaking wave.
-> The direction of the breaking wave is the direction of your ride.

Set — Waves come in sets… Try not to take the first one, the ones after usually have better potential.

Personal advice:

– Practice makes perfect, so be patient. You will learn by trial and error, you’ll make mistakes, misread waves but don’t give up, progress will come.

– Observe: Before you get in the water, watch some sets from the beach, so you can identify which are the biggest waves on the given day. Also watch, how far left/right and how far in/out the waves are breaking. Imagine an X-Y axis along which you will be moving – pretty much all the time.

– Try to be in motion all the time. The first couple of times you will feel like that your arms are falling off, it is going to be really tiring, but after a while you will get used to it and you can get to the breaking point of the wave at the right time.

– Find a landmark -> pick a fixed orientation point at the beach (buildings, poles, trashcans, trees), anything that will still be there in 1 hour. Compare this point with the position of the breaking waves and try to position yourself at the same line.

– Watch and learn: try to follow more experienced surfers to get a faster reaction. Start moving when they start paddling, he probably sees that a new set is approaching.

– Again, be patient! Try not to take the first wave of the set, because it is always smaller than the others after. 3 is the magic number, in my experience the 3rd wave of the set is almost always a really good choice.

– And the most important: smile and be grateful – if you catch one at the right place and time, you’ll be the happiest person on Earth after your ride.

Here’s a little video on the subject – Source: 110% Surfing Techniques

Get out there and learn!

The Magnet Projects

April 2 2017

The journey has begun

Eva Coster Costa da Caparica, Lisbon, Portugal, Surfing city trips, Costa da Caparica, culture, guesthouse, Lisbon, nature, Portugal, surfhouse, surfing

Central-America and the search in Europe

After moving together in 2014, we were travelling around the world to get to know places, waves and people. Through our journey in Central-America we stayed in various surf hostels which inspired us to start our own business at the ocean. We’ve seen beautiful places but our hearts are pulling back to the old continent. Our blog from Central-America still brings back great memories: https://eva-and-zoli-blog.tumblr.com/. After returning to Europe we worked two summers in France and winters in Austria. Now we are ready to make the move and start our own guesthouse somewhere at the Atlantic Coast of Europe. And where? In Portugal, Lisbon area. Here we found all the things that matter to us. We would like to combine surfing and culture so we can offer a great diversity to our guests. For now we are renting a surfhouse in Costa da Caparica. Our major plan is to find our dream property for which we will encourage you to support us. Follow us on the search and let our Magnet pull you closer.

The journey to Portugal

Here we are again.. We are packing our van for moving to a new country. After living in seasons for years, changing between snowboarding and surfing and not being settled, we are ready to make the Move. Now from Zoli’s hometown Kecskemét, through Budapest, Austria, Germany, our old campsite home, Vieux Boucau in France, continuing through the beautiful Spain, we’ll end our 3000km journey in the sunny Lisbon area. We are getting into the car with the hope that we will find a place where we can get settled and share our passion for nature and culture with our guests.

Many questions marks, sometimes scary thoughts and lots of adventures await us but we know one thing: if we don’t try we will never reach our dreams – to find our HOME at the ocean.