Aritz Aranburu is one of our favourite surfers here at Surf Europe, and possibly the most popular dude on tour. He’s the kind of pro surfer you could proudly take home to meet your parents, who would put their deep-seated homophobia to one side on account of Aritz Aranburu potentially being their new son-in-law. It was with great sadness and a heavy heart, therefore, that we bid him farewell from the tour after he failed to requalify for next year.

We were delighted, however, when he weaved his way through this long Backdoor beauty to clock the highest wave score of Round 1. He was on the verge of complicating Mick Fanning’s title aspirations and forcing him to surf in Round 2, but alas Aritz was unable to find a back-up score; indeed, he caught just one wave all heat.

We were even more delighted when he was whisked away to safety in the nick of time by the amazing Water Patrol team after a board-breaking wipeout in Round 2.

Adios, amigo – or perhaps we should say, ‘hasta luego’, for knowing Aritz it would be foolish to discount an immediate return.