Monday, December 15, 2014

Alena Ehrenbold, Big Wave challenge in the Basque Country


As I already told you in another post, I had the opportunity to document with my pictures a cool project with a Swiss crew of filmmakers and surfers.



Surfer Alena Ehrenbold together with the Swiss television are working together in a TV Series called “winter challenge” where viewers experience extreme sport adventures by the hand of athletes in breathtaking scenery.

The “winter challenge” series showcases athletes dedicated to their sports that are crazy enough to try something spectacular proposed by the program, and that essentially no one ever tried before.



The series are six athletes with one goal: To conquer a long cherished challenge during the winter. The heroine of the moment, in the SRF series “Winter Challenge” Alena Ehrenbold, has to surf XXL waves and challenging low temperatures to run a race against time to gigantic rock faces and deep gorges. This challenge develops in the Basque Country at the North of Spain, where Alena, was trained by big wave surfer, Ibon Amaitrain.



After this project, Alena is one of the first Swiss women to try to surf big waves, and one of the few European to dare along French surfer Justine Dupont



The program will be on air on the Swiss Channel SRF2, and also retransmitted online in their site around March 2015; so be sure to don’t miss this challenge if you can.



Here are the pictures I took of the project a few weeks ago. I hope you enjoy them!


When we arrived waves in Playa Gris were pumping perfectly..

Alena preparing herself in the port of Getaria 

Breath in

Ibon's getting ready

Alena struggling with her jacket

The beautiful colors of Getaria's port. Ibon setting up the jet sky

They arrived in Playa Gris and searching for something to catch 

They decided to change the spot, by the time Roka Puta started tu pump better

Perfect waves, sun, and perfect light... I'm so stoked to be here!

Many came to see this mother nature's spectacle

This is her 3rd attempt




She finally catches her first big wave




The Orrúa spot, next to Roka Puta had some amazing sets too. Only for the bravest!

Orrua panorama

While we wait another attempt, other free surfers are successfully catching some other sets


Huge drop

Perfect right

Watching so many water breaking like this, is just insane

Alena and Ibon, so happy after the good results

It was big everywhere.. here the Getaria panorama 

6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks William! This is a really amazing woman :)))

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  2. Big Wave surfing has always captured the imagination of surfers and non-surfers alike. California is home to three bona fide big wave surf spots: Mavericks, Ghost Trees, and Cortes Bank.

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  3. The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesn’t disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought you’d have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining AVR VAN rental LAX something that you could fix if you weren’t too busy looking for attention.

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