SURF IN THE CANARY ISLANDS!

Canary Islands & Surf.

From early to mid 60s, when the Californian and Australian coast began to be saturated, and specifically the transport aircraft reached a decisive development, many surfers flew off places in search of deserted waves in Europe and Africa.

In this context, Morocco became a sort of Mecca during the 70 then reached its peak of exoticism and good waves. They went in Europe and the Iberian Peninsula and southern Morocco also became the explorable area, rather than step towards the ultimate goal. But soon, since the mid-60s, thanks to surfers as Peter Troy who had arrived in the Canaries in 1963 and published a book with the story of his travels around the world, the word that off the African coast had ran a islands belonging to Spain, where there were amazing waves and the water was hot, "the Hawaii of the Atlantic", was said everywhere. Since then, many Americans traveled directly by plane to the islands, in the times when there was a direct connection. Others, whether American, Australian, and French and British gave the jump from El Ayoun, which until 1975 was the province of Spain (Spanish Sahara) and had regular communication by boat to the islands. Other sail from Cadiz, in J.J. Sister, to Gran Canaria or Tenerife.

Canary and Cantabric surfers in the early 70th in Lloret, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

In those years of the 60s and early 70s, when the density of surfers was still very low (local surfers began inspired by aliens who asked them tables), the islands were a paradise for all those foreigners found the perfection of the waves, weather, food and people. Since the early 70s the islands were also visited by mainland surfers, where migrating in winter to escape the cold waters of the Bay of Biscay and where they spent long periods as Inigo Letamendía Raul Dourdil Jesus Fiochi, Carlos Beraza, Zalo Campa, Javier Gabernet and many others. In this primordial stage, there was an extraordinary twinning canaries and "Goths" in the affectionate sense.

But everything has an end, and as the density of surfers was increasing since the late 70s, as had happened in California from 60, localism gradually was spreading everywhere, and many surfers who had been during the 70 regulars they stopped coming to the Canaries. The islands, unfortunately, were pioneers in Spain in the phenomenon of localism, which soon spread throughout the peninsula, and today almost all over the world where there are good waves.

El Confital, Tenerife.

Canarias, like Hawaii, due to its great waves (constant throughout the year) and the mild climate, support high densities of surfers in the water. Therefore a thing as the other, the destinies of both islands are united, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. And in 60 foreign sensed it: the Canary Islands, the Hawaii of the Atlantic.

Video of a part of the Quemao Class 2016 contest, celebrated in Lanzarote: