Esteiro beach – or Playa de Esteiro de Bares in Spanish – is a beach used by surfers in northern Spain, in the Province of Galicia. It is a beautiful wide strip of sand that is rarely busy. Apart from the surfers, there are a few dog walkers, the occasional tourist and the odd, flower-sniffing entomologist, such as myself!

It is located near the Cabo Estaca de Bares (or Cape of Bares) on the road tp Viveiro. There is an attractive headland on the east side of the bay, which affords a good, elevated view of the surfers in the breaking waves. I have visited this spot before looking for flowers (and wrote a blog about a lovely Dianthus (‘pink’) flower called Dianthus monspessulanus on my other blog (Ray Cannon’s Nature Notes) (1). There is an excellent aerial photograph of this beach on Pinterest (2).

Surfing looks great fun, but it is clearly difficult to do well, and I have never tried it myself. Probably, I enjoy taking photographs more than I would surfing, who knows. I’ll have to try it sometime.

There is not much to say about these photographs. This set was taken recently, on 23 ‎April ‎2015. I don’t know any of the surfers, but it would be nice if they could see themselves and hopefully enjoy the images (at least the ones where they are upright!).

The surfers wait in the water for a good wave. Judging the best place to be to catch the waves is obviously quite an art. The action happens quickly, and even a good surf run only lasts for a few seconds. I selected a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second, which was probably OK. It is more a matter of when to press the shutter, as it is hard to judge whether a given surfer will have a successful run. The most dramatic photographs were when there was a ‘wipe out’! Sorry guys! But the ones where the surfer is riding the surf and trailing his hand against the wave are also nice. I particularly like the following image, where the surfer is completely encased by the wave, although it is hard to make out that there is a person inside the breaking wave.

1. http://rcannon992.com/2014/07/19/flower-of-god/

2. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/165296248799388356/