Unlocked: Shark-Eyed Prince João Mendonça In ‘Same Same’

“People would always say that I’ve got the shark eye thing. Right before a shark takes the bite, the eyes roll back in the head. When one of those waves comes, some people get that glazed look where they might as well have their eyes closed because they’re just going. You know?”

That’s what Holden Trnka heard from 2001 World Champ CJ Hobgood while he was trying to understand the psychology of fear, or lack of it, in people who surf waves most would prefer not to.

In the same piece, Al Cleland Jr. confessed to being on the shy side during his younger years: “For me it was my dad and my friends pushing me to get out there. I never actually wanted to paddle out.”

João Maria Mendonça (the ç reads as an ‘s’ — you’ll need to know this) has it too, the shark eye thing. On land you might not notice him. He’s quiet, reserved, even a little shy. In the water, paddling about, same story. But when the horizon darkens like bad news, and everyone else scratches for it, João holds his position, turns, and goes. And that’s how he’s building a reputation.

The 20-year-old grew up in Arrifana, a picturesque beach in southwest Portugal that made the fatal mistake of appearing on postcards, or was it social media? Now, it’s filled with bodies, soft tops, and the slow death of a good thing. He started surfing at three, and unlike Al Cleland Jr., João’s father wasn’t pushy. João was the one doing the pushing, pestering his dad to take him out. Rain, hail, or shine.

From his father’s restaurant overlooking the beach, young João would watch the right point at the north end, wedged between the sand and the boat harbor. The rocky bottom and the protruding rock mid-wave looked built to intimidate a kid raised on mellow beachbreaks.

“I kept hearing stories about that wave and that rock, and I was terrified,” João recalls. “One day when it was smaller, one of my father’s friends grabbed me and said, ‘Let’s go!’ I didn’t even have time to think. He pushed me into a wave and I remember feeling the fear, watching all those rocks beneath me. But I still had fun, and it unlocked something in me.”

That moment, at eight years old, was the first step toward the comfort João now shows in bigger, often cavernous surf. He kept pushing himself out there, and when it got too big to handle, he’d sit in the channel, watching and studying how others surfed it.

“João is not a coachable kid,” says his former coach, mentor, and friend Miguel Mouzinho. “I don’t think anyone could make him a better or worse surfer. He just has it inside him. He grew up in the water — surfing, fishing — and has a very intimate relationship with it. He has this rare love for the ocean that I don’t see in most kids. If it’s big, he’s surfing. If it’s small, he’s out there fishing or spearfishing anyway.”

Alex Botelho, a local standout, “was like a superhero to me,” João says, talking about the people he looked up to in his immediate surroundings. Nic von Rupp and João Macedo were also on that list, though they did their thing further north, where João now finds himself more and more often.

“We were at Off The Wall when he was twelve. He was a tiny spaghetti string back then, but obsessed with getting a proper stand-up barrel,” recalls Mouzinho. “He pulled into one but couldn’t make it out, then got a good one, but I think Zeke Lau burned him. He came back to the beach crying, then paddled straight back out and got an incredible barrel. Kelly and Shane Dorian were standing on the beach and saw it. Their body language made it clear how impressed they were.”

Now, in his SEOTY entry, you’ll see why João belongs in the conversation. The footage speaks much louder than he does, especially at Portugal’s heaviest slabs, including Cave and a left that shall remain nameless. There’s also an onslaught of warm and cold water barrels in Indonesia and Chile, all threaded with João’s elegant composure and filmed during his only clip-collecting trips for the edit above.

“Every time I surf a wave like that, I feel like I push things a level further,” he explains, referring to said left slab. “Anything below that level becomes a little easier. Maybe one day I’ll feel really chill out there, who knows — though I don’t think I’ll ever feel too comfortable.”

Luca Guichard, an Ericeira resident who grew up in the south, has watched this evolution up close: “João’s incredibly talented and makes the difficult look easy, especially in barrels. He’s almost always the standout in sessions here in Ericeira. He’s always had incredible style and remains super humble.”

“Grace under pressure” seems like one of those overused phrases that gets rolled out for anyone who’ll surf a heavy wave without visibly soiling themselves, but with João it actually fits. The shark eye thing only appears when it needs to. The rest of the time, you’d never know he had it in him.

While this edit showcases his appetite for consequence, João’s primary focus remains competition for the next few years. He’s grinding through the regional QS, competing in his final year of Pro Juniors, and hunting a national title. “I used to ask him if he’d rather be World Champion or win a specific event on Tour,” says Mouzinho. “His answer was always the same — ‘I’d rather win the Pipe Masters or Teahupoo.’ Always.”

He still lives in Arrifana but spends much of his time on the road, tapping into swells that slip through his contest schedule.

“Competition pushes me the hardest and allows for visible evolution in a shorter span of time, both as a surfer and as a person,” he says. “After each event I feel like I’ve gone up another step.”

“A lot of people see João as just a waterman and think he doesn’t have what it takes to do well in competition,” says Mouzinho. “When we got to contests and waves were small, he’d disappear — you could tell he didn’t even want to be there. But now he’s learning how to handle those situations better, and it’s starting to show in his results.”

In turn, every Cave barrel, every elevator drop, and every time he eats it helps build the kind of confidence that shows up in heats.

“I love surfing above all,” he says. “I don’t really draw a line between competition and freesurfing. They’re both just surfing.”

“I really think that if he puts his mind to it, he can do whatever he wants in surfing,” says Mouzinho. “Whether that means making it on Tour or making films — he has a lot to improve, but he’s got what it takes.”

João recently got his boat license, and when we spoke, he’d been spending more time fishing than surfing, which tells you something about either his priorities or just how flat it’s been. But with prime North Atlantic season upon us, that’s about to change.

If ‘Same Same’ — edited by Hugo Almeida and made possible by Billabong — serves as any indication of what João Maria Mendonça is capable of when the Atlantic (or any ocean, really) delivers, you’ll want to remember how to pronounce that ç. You’ll be saying it often enough.