The day after the death of Brazilian surfer Marcio Freire, a leaden silence settled over Nazare, the Portuguese fishing village that has become a winter destination for big-wave surfers.
Around the lighthouse perched on the rocky promontory of Praia do Norte, everything, even the ocean, seemed calm.
The rollers breaking on Friday were, for once, just a few meters high on a short stretch of coast in central Portugal that draws surfers keen to ride its famed wall of water.
Photo: AFP
The Nazare Canyon, a 5km deep crack in the floor of the continental shelf, allows waves to roll in with little loss of energy to be thrown upward as the fault ends just off the shore, creating giant breakers.
Since Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara rode a series of record-breaking Nazare waves starting in late 2011, the village has drawn big-wave surfers and those who like to watch them.
German Sebastian Steudtner set the world record for the tallest wave surfed, a 26.2m breaker, on Oct. 29, 2020.
On Thursday, Freire, a veteran big-wave chaser, died there at the age of 47.
He was being towed out in a moderate swell when he fell.
“The rescuers found that the victim was in cardiorespiratory arrest, immediately starting resuscitation maneuvers on the sand,” the Portuguese National Maritime Authority said in a statement. “It was not possible to reverse the situation.”
It was the first surfing death in the canyon, local authorities said, yet the conditions were relatively benign and Freire was an experienced surfer.
He was one of a trio of Brazilians who starred in a 2016 documentary called Mad Dogs about surfing the legendary Jaws wave in Hawaii without being towed.
On Friday, Nazare Maritime Police Commander Mario Lopes de Figueiredo said that they were still investigating how Freire died.
“The waves did not exceed 5m,” he said. “These are not difficult conditions for surfing here. On the days of the greatest swell, they reach between 15 and 20m.”
“The surfer fell and was submerged by the wave. Then he was hit by two or three waves from behind and he did not have time to react in time or found himself unconscious at the impact of the first,” he said.
Brazilian filmmaker Bred Oliveira, a member of Freire’s team, the “Jagua Boys,” filmed his friend’s last wave, thinking at the time he was simply recording a training session.
“We had no idea. Nobody really knows how it happened. I was filming and, suddenly, I heard the sirens of the rescuers,” he said.
“The world of big surfing is in mourning, many surfers are in shock,” he said.
Oliveira said he hopes that at least the accident will help “improve safety” in Nazare.
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