Baleal Guia

A couple of miles north of Peniche is the sandy little island village of Baleal, a big destination for traveling surfers for more than 20 years -- especially when the reefs around Ericeira are blown out with N or S winds. Baleal is an island, so there's almost always a protected beach. It's no surprise that most of the learn-to-surf camps in Portugal are located here. With the mellow left reefbreak of Lagide just north of town, followed by miles of open beachbreak, you can have a pretty high surfer population density without too many problems. There's even a protected bay south of town with mediocre beachbreak that's sheltered from N winds (and huge swells). You won't find perfection in Baleal -- Supertubos is a couple miles south -- but if you keep one eye out on the shifting sandbanks and the other on the flagpoles, you might be able to score some fine beachbreaks with mellow crowds.