Watch: “Four Cliffs” with Nic von Rupp

“I don’t think about death,” says Mr Von Rupp. Four Cliffs is the fourth installation of Nic’s My Road Series; an informal surf documentary. This edition Nic, Tom Lowe, João Macedo, Aritz Aranburu and more go on a European slab tour of the Ireland, Portugal and the Canaries. The boys have one of the emerald isle’s more notorious big wave spot Mullaghmore’s first paddle sessions beneath the cold beast.

“This all these waves at their best,” Nic tells Stab. “The thing about Europe is somewhere’s always pumping. You just have to be on it and willing to drive the extra hours to find those waves. Every mission we do is last minute, everything changes so fast. Especially in Ireland, it can be absolutely pumping then go to shit by the time you’re get ready to go out. If the swells on Saturday you fly off Friday night it only takes 2 hours to fly most places in Europe so we’re lucky that we can get on it so quick. We’re always looking for big storms.”

Liquid blue sensation. Photo: Carlos Pinto

“The nice thing about Europe is there’s less people hunting and there’s so much swell,” Nic continues “Growing up I always thought of Hawaii as the epicenter of big wave surfing, but the amount of swell we get in Europe’s crazy. We get 30 foot swells every week hitting somewhere in wintertime and I think people are just starting to realize that.”

The later the deeper. Photo: Carlos Pinto