Praia do Baleal is the reason a beginner can base themselves in Peniche at all. A beach break over sand, going both left and right, and workable at every stage of the tide, the only one of the six here that is.
It is also the most consistent break on this stretch, ahead of Supertubos twenty minutes away, and it rarely gets crowded even when the surf is up. December gives six clean days out of thirty, thirteen blown out, eleven too small: the wind share is the honest catch on this coast, where the wind decides more than the swell.
Sand bottom, no rocks, nobody defending the peak. On a peninsula this well known that is worth saying out loud: this is where the schools bring their lessons, and where a first week goes well.
Spot sheet
- Level
- Beginner, Intermediate
- Wave
- Left and right
- Bottom
- Sand
- Water
- 14 – 18 °C
- Wetsuit
- 4/3 mm + boots → 4/3 mm
- Swell window
- NW – N
- Ideal wind
- SE
- How often it works
- Very consistent
- Crowd
- ●●○○○
- Danger
- ●○○○○
A month in figures
In December, the month the forecast guides single out for this coast:
Shares of the month, from the published forecast statistics. The model reads a grid, so neighbouring breaks share a figure: this describes a stretch of coast, not this wave on its own. The other eleven months are not published.
What to watch for
No guide names a hazard here. That is not the same as safe.
Technical figures read off published surf guides. Where two disagree, the sheet says so.