The day after the death of Brazilian surfer Marcio Freire, a leaden silence had 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 metres high on a short stretch of coast in central Portugal that draws surfers keen to ride its famed wall of water.
The Nazare Canyon, a five-kilometre 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, an 86-foot (26.2-meter) breaker, on October 29, 2020.
On Thursday, Freire, a veteran big-wave chaser, died there at the age of 47.
Freire was being towed out in a moderate swell when he fell.
“The rescuers found that the victim was in cardio-respiratory arrest, immediately starting resuscitation manoeuvres on the sand,” said Portugal’s National Maritime Authority in a statement.
‘Submerged by waves’
“It was not possible to reverse the situation.”
It was, local authorities said, the first death surfing the canyon, 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 their battle to surf the legendary Jaws wave in Hawaii without being towed into place.
On Friday, Mario Lopes de Figueiredo, the commander of the Nazare maritime police told AFP that they were still investigating exactly how Freire died.
“The waves did not exceed five metres,” de Figueiredo said. “These are not difficult conditions for surfing here. On the days of the greatest swell, they reach between 15 and 20 metres.”
“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.”
The 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 told AFP.
“The world of big surfing is in mourning, many surfers are in shock,” he continued.
Oliveira hopes that at least the accident will help “improve safety” in Nazare.
While many of the community of big-wave surfers in Nazare had decided to refuse to speak to the media they are expected to organise a tribute to Freire on Sunday.
Forecasts suggest it could coincide with the arrival of a giant swell.