MUNDAKA, BASQUE COUNTRY

Ok so we might be a little biased on this one, but did you see the run of swell the Basque left-hand river-mouth scored this winter?! It hasn’t stopped.

On tour for a decade, this super hollow sand-bottom left-hander certainly had its moments. A goofyfooters wet dream, Bobby Martinez won it twice: as a rookie in 2006, beating Kelly in the final, and again in 2007. After being put on ice in 2005 when a local sand-dredging project caused the wave to disappear, the miraculous return to its former glory also made for a good story.

Unfortunately, the wave’s fickle nature meant during its ten years on tour epic conditions were extremely few and far between, critics often referring to it as the Billabong Bakio Pro, after the venue’s very average back-up location. The pros, despite publicly gushing about how much they loved ‘the culture’, used to moan to all buggery in private about being cooped up in an essentially surfless town. Cancelled definitively in 2009 (for that very reason), the advent and huge success of the Rip Curl Pro Portugal that same year meant that Europe has retained its two stops on tour.

So actually, on reflection, do we really want to see Mundaka back on tour? Hell yeah!

This edit epitomises much of Mundaka’s time on tour. One week after a very sub-par 2009 edition, this happened….