Surf weekend in Elba



The worst October in years! In fall weather systems get into the Mediterranean and they are kept away by a stupid , totally unusual for the season and totally unwanted high pressure. From the beginning of October we witness a grim stream of small western weather systems that overlook Gibraltar and then they crumble. Just to be clear there hasn’t been northwest wind in Sardinia for twenty years, the east coast is still flat and in Versilia not a leaf stirs. Cataldi and I are following this doornail via web day by day till one morning, opening a www.ilmeteo.it update I realize that it won’t be a western weather system to get rid of the high pressure but rather an African one. African weather systems are very peculiar, totally opposite to northwest wind ones. They are not that easy to foresee and they can hit different coasts with different strength. In a matter of few hours all the main websites agree: sirocco will start on Friday evening, it will go on for the entire Saturday and it will blow from west in the late Sunday morning. Waves are expected in all coasts exposed to southeast , especially between Gaeta and Piombino. After all the mistakes of the last few weeks I try to stay calm. I carefully check wind maps and they all agree at pointing at the middle Tyrrhenian sea as the place with the highest chance of waves. Not higher than two metres off Piombino’s coasts, definitely not the sea storm of the year! Isobars lines go till Liguria putting together in one stream northern African coasts and Italian ones. The object of my desire has got nothing to do with a place but it’s about a weather condition. Once I got that the place takes the second place. I change route without even thinking about it, standing still in front of the map of Italy.

Awakening the desire of surfing in Emiliano is very easy. He can’t say no, especially if I suggest him a surf trip defiantly. I text him with a mean: weekend waves only in Elba, you romans haven’t even the guts of coming…I try to appeal to his surf explorer soul trying to let him understand I would go on my own but the more we are the better it is. After 10 minutes he replies: no shit! I’ve checked weather forecast , we’re coming! Roncoz and Ale are coming with me! What do we know about Elba island and surf? Not much to be honest. I start gathering information, I call Stefano(Gighi) and all Tuscan people I know but not one of them has ever taken a ferry boat to cross the channel ( it’s a one hour trip) to take a look. Someone finds the phone number of the only local who’s actually not home and he couldn’t come with us and show us its spots. The only wave we are sure of is in the Stella’s gulf, it’s called Margidore( from the name of the beach) , and it should be a lefty. We will own the whole 147 km of coasts, we will check the south side inch by inch, those bays that go from Capoliveri’s beach to Marina di Campo. This stretch of coast is about 20 kilometers long and it seems to get swell both from southwest and southeast. For once we should find the spot on our own, understand how to get to the lineup, find accesses to the sea. The word has spread. Leo would like to leave this Thursday, Paolo clears his schedules and he is willing to stay till Monday. Now that eight people (including Ronchini) have joined the adventure I feel overwhelmed with responsibility! Sirocco isn’t that strong…and if we get the flat one? Will there be spots with active sea? Will the surfguide info be right? It’s finally Friday and I’m the slowest one to put myself together . I buy 15 Provia camera rolls and I gather everybody; they leave at about 20.00. it’s hot outside, through the mosquito net I can see the undertow foam and then it’s dark. I sleep basking in the thought of the swell growing and I don’t dream anything at all. Hot and wreathy sirocco at dawn, all I want is breakfast.

The smells, colors and shapes are covered in a muddy humidity. The sky is beautifully cloudy, the light is flat, the view is almost bidimensional. It’s dark outside but at dawn’s light we can see it’s cloudy , and this very mild sirocco doesn’t affect at all the dead calm that has been going for twenty days in the Tyrrhenian sea. Having a total withdrawal we’re willing to risk everything to surf, even a two days on the road looking for waves at Elba. Weather forecast is clear: sirocco winds pushing the weather front will be stronger on the northern Tyrrhenian and Nik, who’s the only one of us who surfed at Elba, is sure this is the right opportunity. Going north by car we drive on the Iron Road that three thousand years ago went from Portoferraio to Rome and it reached Greece beyond Adriatic sea. Our thoughts are actually different, we’re talking about forecast and on how the sea storm could hit the Elba south coast: the Tyrrhenian swell gets squeezed in the wedge created by the Italian coast to the east and by Sardinia and Corsica to the west, and Elba is placed on the top of it squeezed exactly where Italy and Corsica are the closest. We’re at perelli at a quarter past eight and we found Nik, Paolo and Leo crammed in a shabby tent. After having breakfast and buying morning newspapers (Playboy for Canetti) we board on a rusty ferry boat where there are only German pensioners apart from us. We leave Piombino harbor while it’s drizzling. In for a penny, in for a pound ..I’m thinking.

Ferry boat is cheap and the trip is short, we’re at Portoferraio on the northern side at 10.00 . the has been blowing for more than 12 hours, from a height we catch a glimpse of the south coast white with foam! We yell in the car and we give each other a high five, the sea storm is growing and this stretch of coast is sheltered compared to Lacona! First stop on Mount Calamita. The rock of this mountain are 4/500 years old and they are part of a fragment of the African continent, the first glance from the street is amazing: southern bays open up like curtains , Mount Stella, Cape Fonza and Mount Capanne overhanging a gloomy sea. The earth is red because of iron, it’s been more than 3.000 years since men have been digging metals on these mountains! The sea bed just outside the coast is more than 80 mt, swell lines are straight, we’re heading ovest. Lacona is the first spot we check, the sea is messy and small in front of Pinone, it takes one hour to check all accesses of Gulf of Stella and of Lacona’s bay. The Mediterranean scrub here comes up to the sand, the smell of eucalypti gets mixed with the smell of rotten sea weeds , of dried salt and juniper. Beyond the small Laconella’s peak waves are over one meter high and I’d love to dive in the sea but the quality is definitely poor so we decide to find something more sheltered. We go on toward west till Marina di Campo, an extremely long beach exposed to south east, but it seems to me the sea is even smaller than it was in Laconella. We decide to look for the left of Margidore that we know is to the far west of the bay, partially sheltered by the wind. We can see it breaking through from the beach: it should be two kilometers walking and the road between Lacona and Capoliveri allows us to catch a glimpse of the coast only in some times. Under the rock face a slow left break through, dirty with wind but surfable. We take the risk…it’s only us in the water when a local gets in the line up. He’s very kind but he’s got a pessimistic view of weather condition, he doesn’t think waves will last. He ends the conversation with a final: here there’s never a point break…some of us touches wood, some believes that and some laughs. It seems impossible to me, the wind is still stiff and the sea is growing each hour, tomorrow it can’t be flat! After a muggy afternoon we find an accommodation and we have a well deserved dinner. In the morning Emiliano wakes everybody up before dawn totally cheating on what time it is, he says come on come on it’s almost eight o’clock! The sky is very clear, there’s no wind, when we got there by car I realize it’s not even 7.00 yet… but it’s for the best.

We run to Margidore: what a disappointment! For a second it seems the local’s forecast has come true. A slow and unstable meter, rare sets, sadness and dejection and then to Laconella at 200 km per hour. The sun has yet to start warming up , I look at the sea from the car park and it seems wrapped up in steam. Dry salt steaming from waves gets trapped between the high bay walls. It’s not even 7.00 am yet and the sky is pink , the slanting rays of sun flood everything with light, we are alone in the water and there are sets often. Ronchini finds a comfortable chair and he takes picture after picture. The wave is mostly right and it enrolls in several sections along a reef almost parallel to the shore. Waves allow long and fast rides. While I’m resting in the channel I watch Emi and Ale go from section to section, riding by them they seem double the length. We meet nice longboarders from Pisa at the cafè and we talk to them for a while. They surfed the same bays to the west of where we are, by themselves as well. The day goes on in the same mood till the late afternoon: surf, food, relax and all over again. 50 km from here , in Tuscany the sea is almost flat, on our reef the set is still one meter good. This news makes us appreciate the day even more! The weather is summery and germans from the camping don’t miss the chance to swim and sunbathe. A guy gets out of a RW with a diving suit and bodyboard. He’s looked at us the whole morning with a smile half surprised and half thrilled and now he wants to experience first-hand what it’s all about. He floats in the inside for a while till a huge foam runs over him and he lands to the shore. I can see him laughing at himself in the foam.

After Eleonora’s fifth cappuccino we decide to go back. The shadows of the late afternoon cools down the air and a dream of another summer vanishes. We’re exhausted, Ale takes a pic (obviously not posted) of myself trying to warm down . after surfing for six hours my muscles are as elastic as the rocks where I lay down on. I look like a beached turtle. The grin on my face is the one of someone afraid of being tangled the whole life! I sit in the car and my back takes a hooked shape that won’t change for the next couple of days. The road to Portoferraio goes through quite high mountains. We stop to take some pics: it’s Sunday and the town is almost empty. Stella’s fort overlook the sea from the top, men and boats. We can also see our boat with the aft up with cars starting to get on board. The crossing is quiet, the sea seems to have gone down quite a lot. We say goodbye at Piombino’s harbor while a purple sunset covers the chimneys backlit.

Escaping along the Iron Road by Nik Zanella

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