REMAKING MADEIRA
32.7607° N | 16.9595° W
Misheeeeeeee! boomed Cecilia, almost crushing Michi’s large frame with a huge hug as we both walked in the door. It was the 28th time Michi Mohr had come to Madeira Island. Even though he was based in Munich, he knew the waves of Madeira as well as anyone, and could more than hold his own in 15-foot surf.
Cecilia looked over to me and her face lit up. “Ehhhh tuuuuu!” she roared, and rushed into a back room. She came out with a surfing magazine from 16 years before, with a photo of myself standing next to a group of legendary big-wave riders. I couldn’t believe she remembered me.
Cecilia Sumares was to be our landlady for the next few days. She runs a guesthouse at Jardim do Mar, a small village on the south coast of Madeira. Michi had explained earlier that Cecilia thought of him more like a son than just another travelling surfer. In fact, Cecilia has been ‘mother’ to tens if not hundreds of surfers over the past two decades. She hadn’t changed much, but things on Madeira Island certainly had.
I hadn’t been back there since the early 2000s, when I was invited to the ISA big-wave world champs as an adopted member of the Spanish team. Sixteen years later, I was
