Portugal
"The parking lot"Cape Sounio
al límitehoy al abrigo del cabo — mar de fondo de través/por detrás (nivel ciudad)
- ventana
- Go at first light, for the fish and for the parking alike — by ten the pull-off has cars and people swimming off the rocks. The wind builds through the day all summer. The best stretches are June and then late September to November. May is shut in Greece and so is the night, from sunset to sunrise.
- marea
- Tides are irrelevant, centimetres. The thing to watch is the slope itself: on a deep rock ramp like this the cold water sits low, and the boundary between it and the warm water above smears the visibility for a metre or so. On calm mornings that boundary is sharp and clean; after a blow it spreads and shifts.
- abrigo
- Named for exactly what it is: a pull-off on the Sounio road where you park on the gravel and drop straight in. The coast here runs south-west and the rock steps down from eighteen to forty metres. High ground behind takes the sting out of a north wind; from the sea side there is no headland to hide behind.
- condiciones
- On any northerly the water at the entry is dead flat, because the wind is blowing off the land over your head. The 100 to 200 degree sector kills it: on 135 the swell lands on open rock, backwash meets the incoming wave and the first ten metres go to soup while the deep stays clear and out of reach.
España