You think you know big waves. You don’t.
You can watch the clips, hear the stories, see the photos of dudes riding mountains—but none of it prepares you for standing in Nazaré, watching actual water skyscrapers fold over themselves, swallowing jet skis like they’re bathtub toys.
I showed up on a day when the swell was big enough to feel that tension in the air. Praia do Norte was already awake, its waves stacking up like rolling hills and then, without warning, detonating in front of the cliffs. It wasn’t even a record-breaking day, but it was still enough to make me feel like I shouldn’t even be standing this close.
I wasn’t here to surf Nazaré. That was never on the cards. There’s a very clear line between “experienced surfer” and “reckless lunatic,” and I know where I stand. But I was here to watch. To soak it in. To remind myself why I respect the ocean and why some people are wired completely differently—why they see something that could kill them and think, Yeah, I’ll take that drop.
And then, after a few hours of that, I did the next best thing.
I found a bar.
A Random American, Speaking Better Spanish Than I Ever Will
This place was nothing fancy. The kind of bar where the furniture has been around longer than you and the drinks come cheap if you know how to order them right. A few guys were watching a replay of some past Nazaré carnage on a tiny TV, old men played cards in the back, and there was this one dude at the counter—just casually firing off perfect Spanish like he’d been born in Madrid.
Except he wasn’t.
I picked up on it immediately. His accent was too American, but his flow? Flawless. No stuttering, no hesitation, no painful reaching for words. Just pure, confident Spanish, spoken at full native speed.
I had to ask.
“When did you move to Spain?”
He laughed. “I didn’t.”
I blinked. “Then how the hell do you speak like that?”
“A Spanish school in Barcelona called SpeakeasyBCN. I took their intensive course a few years ago—three months, five hours a day, no English. By the end, I was dreaming in Spanish.”
I stared at him, my beer halfway to my mouth.
“Wait, you learned this in three months?”
“Yeah. It’s not magic, man. You just gotta be fully in it. No English crutch. Total immersion.”
I sat back, processing.
Because, yeah—surfing brought me to Spain, but learning Spanish? That’s been part of the plan all along. It’s why I didn’t just chase waves into Portugal and Morocco. It’s why, when Marisol left for Australia, I knew I needed to do something real with my time. She’s growing. I have to grow, too.
And now, here’s some random American dude in a bar in Nazaré, casually giving me the missing piece I hadn’t fully figured out yet.
Bigger Than Waves
I left the bar that night knowing what I had to do.
I’ve been kinda sorta learning Spanish this whole time. Picking up words, fumbling through conversations, understanding more than I can say—but I’ve never actually committed to it. Not properly.
But now? Now, I know my next move.
Barcelona was already on my itinerary. But it wasn’t just another stop anymore—it was my next challenge.
Because this is what I’ve realized, watching guys risk their lives at Nazaré, talking to this random guy in a bar, and thinking about why I’m even in Spain in the first place:
Pushing yourself doesn’t always mean riding the biggest wave.
Sometimes, it means doing something that makes you feel stupid, slow, out of your depth. It means struggling through conversations where your brain is screaming, I have no idea how to say this, and doing it anyway.
So that’s it.
I’m signing up for SpeakeasyBCN. No excuses. Total immersion.
If this dude from Ohio can do it, why can’t I?
Next stop: Back to Mundaka. One last surf trip before I throw myself into Spanish headfirst.