Words & photos by Anna Langer

I look around me and all I see is big wide smiles on sunburnt faces. British, Canadian, Austrian and New Zealand skin isn’t really made for the constant blaze of Portugal’s South, no matter the level of sun block. And despite their more sun-proofed genetics, even the Italian and South African skin starts peeling a little. But that doesn’t stop the seven girls on the Roxy Week at the Jah Shaka Surf Lodge in Southern Portugal from taking their first steps on their foamie surf boards.

With boundless energy, fuelled by the stoke of that one second of gliding effortlessly through the water, they throw themselves back into the foaming white water of Cordoba Beach on the West Coast of the Algarve. With a huge storm just calming down over the Atlantic, the whitewater barrels are just as powerfully smashing onto the shore, as the pull back out to the sea is strong. Far from easy conditions but they’re loving it anyway.