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I'm home! Wow what a journey too... We left Ibiraquera at 11 in the morning, way too early for our evening flight but that was the only time we could get a lift. TAM airlines were amazing, they put us on an earlier flight to Sao Paulo so we could wait there instead of Florianopolis as there is not much there, and kept hold of our four 32-34kg kit bags and a suitcase. The best thing: they all went for free! We had a 6 hour wait in Sao Paulo in which chocolate French Crepes kept us happy, then the long 12 hour flight home. We were delayed an hour as they had to search for a guy's suitcase that hadn't got on the plane-a little worrying!
So, what did I think of Ibiraquera? Well, firstly, it is an amazing, beautiful place that so few people know about! I couldn't believe that the average number of windsurfers on the water was about 5 and the kilometres of sand had no one on save but a few families at the weekend! This was the same as the surfing there; we had many sessions of just a few of us scoring all the waves, with maybe double the people at the weekend. Of course this all changes after Christmas, the Brazilian Summer, but that isn't when the best conditions are.
So the conditions: we didn't have as much wind as we had hoped or was written on websites, but as with many places the locals said it has changed recently, and this year was also a cold year. However, the wind we got coincided well with the swell, giving us maybe 6-7 amazing big mast high days. Unfortunately for us these were mostly at the beginning of the trip when I was still learning port tack riding. October was definitely the best month. We also had all conditions varying from waist to mast high, cross off to cross on, port and starboard tack. I haven’t heard of a place where the wind switches 180 degrees and you can get a port and starboard tack session in the same day!
We had equal amounts of surfing and windsurfing, which I am happy about as they complement each other and it definitely helped my wave sailing. We could have surfed more at the beginning had we known the rips, and the days we neither windsurfed or surfed we could haved SUPed, kitesurfed or done slalom had we the kit. Basically there is an opportunity to get out everyday at Ibiraquera if you have the right equipment (hiring from Clube Kauli Seadi helps here!).
I will leave you with these pictures of a boom mount Go Pro of me doing a (rather wet) forward. They made me laugh as you see my facial expression progress, and until that footage I didn't realise I closed my eyes-must work on that!

A windsurf video is coming in the next few days, but for now here is our whale trip video that we made back in October but couldn't upload due to poor internet! We knew we couldn't miss an opportunity to do a video to Mr Scruff's 'Shanty Town'! Hope you enjoy it!