Amor Beach, the surfing arena of Pipa

With their long hair and boards under their arms, the first surfers were arriving and welcomed by the native fishermen who indicated where there was a beach with waves all year round. When surfers encountered this paradisiacal scenario, they soon understood that the rumors were real and that there was a pearl of the Potiguar coast.

With its famous waves, the Beach of Love became a reference of the national surf and postcard of our municipality. The most famous and trendy beach among young and cool is now the scene of several regional, state and Brazilian championships, being marked as a reference in the history of surfing northeastern. It has a strong sand bottom (beach break) having below the sand a slab that makes the wave work and on its two extreme sides is limited by dark and sharp stones remnants of the cliffs that at some point in the story were extended later Where are you from today?

Praia do Amor has not always had this name, known and named by the older residents as Praia do Afogados, has waves and is not a beach suitable for swimming in depth above the waist line even for experienced swimmers, due to the return currents which have already caused the drowning of several people throughout its history. Nowadays, this number has dropped considerably, much due to local volunteer lifeguards such as Camilo, Cristiano and Gelsson, among other instructors and surfers who attend the beach daily. Its scenery inspires romanticism and sharpens the senses, its waves attract the best surfers in Brazil and anyone who passes by there at any moment of the day will see a show of strong and many aerial maneuvers.

Local surfers such as Rafael Joaquim, Arlan Duarte, Madson Costa, Tom da Pipa and Patrício Marinho have traveled to Brazil and have done well in elite national surfing championships, training daily in the waves of Praia do Amor. With varying conditions throughout the year, it has become a barn of great surfers and an arena of modern and progressive maneuvers. With waves of east, southeast, north or northeast, the waves can reach up to 6 feet of face having sessions with short track and sessions with extensive track, days of tubes and standing waves, or days of more lying waves. With terral it is smooth and perfect, with maral it gains volume and gets stirred. Whatever the condition, the waves always work, until when the whole region is stopped, if you go to Praia do Amor, you will see surfers maneuvering and flying above the lip of the wave.

By Isaac Ache. Text originally published in Bora Magazine - issue 05 - Apr / May 2014