Supertubos is the wave Portugal is known for, and the reason Peniche is on a tour schedule. A short, square barrel over a sandbar, breaking both ways on a southwest swell with a north-easterly offshore.
Take the numbers before the reputation. February is its best month, and even then, out of thirty days, one is clean, two are blown out and twenty-seven are too small. That is not a bad month, it is what a wave like this is. It needs a serious swell to exist at all, and on most days there is nothing there.
The danger is not the seabed, it is the line-up. When it delivers, everyone is in the water in the same place, on a wave that breaks hard in very little water. A week in Peniche is planned around Baleal; Supertubos is the day you read the forecast and go.
Spot sheet
- Level
- Advanced, Expert
- Wave
- Left and right
- Bottom
- Mixed
- Water
- 14 – 18 °C
- Wetsuit
- 4/3 mm + boots → 4/3 mm
- Swell window
- SSW – WSW
- Ideal wind
- NE
- How often it works
- Consistent
- Crowd
- ●●●●●
- Danger
- ●●●●○
A month in figures
In February, 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.