Julian Wilson, Hotel casual, Portugal

But, actually not that casual! Because while this was one of the spots outside of Supertubos that was actually breaking during yesterday’s lay day, it ain’t so easy to surf. “Supertubos might not be breaking but there are plenty of waves around still,” says our shooter in here and man on the ground, Ryan Miller. “Peniche has some wild geography. It is a peninsula with both south- and north-facing beaches, with everything in between. You can literally have it all. Onshore, offshore, north swell, south swell, too big, too small. If one doesn’t work, you can just drive 20 minutes and have something completely different. While Supertubos on the south side was nearly flat and straight offshore, the north side of the peninsula was chest high and onshore. This is the wave right out front of the hotel most the guys are staying at. This wave is hard as shit for me to surf, so I can’t even fathom how Julian makes it look so easy.” Jules won his first round heat on day one, which was in fact the first heat of the day. He beat Freddy Patacchia and Yadin Nicol and, while Jules caught the same amount of waves as Freddy, he seemed to be all over the lineup and kinda running it. There’s currently steam coming off this man and Portugal’s certainly somewhere he can do well (he won last year’s event). So, uh, you know where to put your money.