02:19 For the Indians of the Amazon, it was a punishment from God. The huge mass of water came hundreds of miles into the Amazon River and destroyed almost everything in its way. Now, this deadly phenomenon is attracting attention from outside of Brazil.
03:21 Manuel Dantas, Michael Russell, John Valente and Alexander Nico are four Portuguese surfers. The four men have travelled thousands of miles by plane, jeep and boat to the border between the states of Maranhao and Para in the north of Brazil, deep in the Amazon jungle. There is just one purpose to the trip: to be the first Portuguese to surf the longest wave in the world; the Pororoca.
03:51 " Pororoca, comes from the term ‘poroc-poroc’. In the indigenous dialect of the lower Amazon it means “the big roar.” The phenomenon happens between the full moon and new moon of the equinox, which is when the day is the same length as the night, and the stars become aligned. ”
04:12 The Pororoca is a tidal bore; a kind of tsunami coming from the sea and entering the Amazon River, and its tributaries, for many tens of miles. Its capacity for destruction is enormous. Trees, logs, mud ... everything is dragged into the river's course. Animals flee from the furious sound of the wave that for 4 days breaks the silence of the waters. A tidal bore can reach 6 feet in height, and its current can exceed 40 miles per hour.
04:47 Yet even at dusk, there are those who dare to take to the water with a surfboard, well ahead of the four Portuguese surfers, who are seeing the wave up close for the first time. But today, the tidal bore is small.
05:03 Manuel at night in the boat: "When I first saw it I felt a bit disappointed, to be honest. But when I started to move closer, and thought about surfing it, then the adrenaline came.”
05:19 Nico at night in the boat: "We’ll give it our best shot – obviously we’ll have unprecedented experiences here. Is a wave that requires such respect demoralizing for a surfer? On the contrary, I think it's a wave that will give us memories that we will never re-create elsewhere.
05:38 Micheal at night on the boat: “Tomorrow we will be much more exposed than we were today. Today it was nice that the men behind the wheel controlled the whole situation. ”
05:50 Moments later, darkness falls over the river, engulfing the man who just surfed the wave. Helio Burle does not waste a tide.
06:03 Helio: " I surf by day or by night. I have made several trips to the Pororoca. On the night of the full moon it is especially beautiful. The full moon Pororocas are so charming. The moon is silver. You surf the silver wave, and all you can see is the reflection of the moon. A few clouds pass in front of it and my god, everything is dark, and I can only hear the noise and see lots of white water in front of me. I grab my surfboard and pray not to be spat out.”
07:19 For a surfer, a tidal bore is a unique experience. The wave travels up the river for several hours. During this time it is possible to surf for several minutes. It would take many weeks at sea to get the same amount of time on the surf.
07:37 Alexandre Nico, a 40 yr old sports coach, was the first of the Portuguese to try the wave.
07:46 Alexandre nico: "The first day I surfed the bore, it was a strange feeling, neither great joy nor great sorrow. There was a lethargic feeling. It was something I can’t define. I thought I’d feel different, but when I actually saw the wave I felt detached from time and space and just surfed. “
08:13 Manuel Dantas follows; a sailor, and the youngest of the group.
08:20 Manuel Dantas "The impact, the strength, the amount of water is something that makes us realise how small we are and puts us very much in our place – there is no room for invention. I thought I was here to break the wave, doing manoeuvres I can’t do at sea. The first thing you learn from this wave is respect."
08:49 (slowly) "I'm not religious, but the first feeling I had was to look at the sky and say thank you. Because there are so few people in the world who have the chance to ride a wave like this that I think it is a blessing..”
09:10 Michael Russell is another veteran of the surfboard. The most experienced surfer of the group, he has taken first place in many surf championships.
09:24 Michael Russell "Lying on the board, you can feel the turmoil of the foam beneath your legs. There is a kind of show of force in the wave, which is something much greater than I ever experienced at sea.”
09:40 "It is a unique experience. It is difficult to differentiate between the thrill of being in the wave and the emotion of everything else. The arrival in the Amazon, the contact with the people, the exploration of the river. You see others get a beating from the wave and get left behind. So when you enter the wave the adrenaline levels are already very high, and once you’re surfing they can’t rise much higher.”
10:10 The last to enter the water is John Valente. Since he was small, this Portuguese journalist has dreamt of being on a surfboard on top of this wave.
10:21 " I remember perfectly the first time I ever surfed – the first time I stood on a board. I was nine years old. (pause) Surfing the Pororoca gives all of us the time to remember that first experience and enjoy that time again. (pause) I feel the energy moving from the water to the board, from the board to me, and I am connected to the tide, moving with it. I am in a position of command over a tide that is taking over the whole river.”
11:00 The smile on their faces says it all. But amongst the locals the Pororoca is associated with tragedy and destruction, and living close to the river is a treacherous existence. Gestrudes Coehlo looks older than her 66 years. She nearly drowned while trying to cross the river with her husband.
11:21 "I'm really scared. I have a fear of the Pororoca. I can’t walk far so use a canoe to get around. Only if you’re an old person can you understand. But what are you afraid of? I'm afraid of dying in a flood. That is what I am afraid of. (laughs) I'm not ‘at one’ with the water!
11:45 Most people who live near the banks of the river share this fear of the mighty wave. They also share one other certainty; that the tidal bore is sent by God.
11:58 " Yes, I think that - that comes from Him. I think that is true. I don’t know – it’s a struggle. Everything is sent by Him. By God. The Pororoca as well? Yes (laughs), why not?”
12:21 "I'm afraid of the tidal bore because we do not know where it comes from. It must be given by God because no one knows the origin of the Pororoca. There are places where it does a lot of damage and places where it doesn’t. There are places where it becomes dreadful. Then elsewhere she bursts and then dies down.”
12:42 "I think the Pororoca is a mystery. “and you think it is a punishment?” (repeats) No, no, no. It is not punishment. No. It is just the strength of God, his power, but it is not a punishment. "
13:02 It may not be a divine punishment, but each time the tide comes it does a lot of damage. 45 years ago there was a day when the force of water was so strong that it dragged a whale 100 miles upstream. The ribs of the animal were used as beams in some of the locals’ homes. Today only the chin bone is left.
13:30 Arnaldo Coelho "When she entered the river it was passing by here. She entered by the tide of the moon, beautiful…and then she reached the yard of the church. When that happened, the river moved with so much force that the wind that was driving it seemed like another tide.”
13:53 At that time, Ivan Rodriguez was still a young man. Like everyone else, he had never seen a whale.
14:01 Ivan: "It was midday - I was sitting down eating lunch when she arrived. We had a 44 rifle and 44 bullets. We thought it was something else, not a whale that I had never seen, and so I gave her 5 shots. She didn’t budge. So then we tied her with ropes, six ropes. She shook and they broke at once. The elders said, ‘it will break through the fence and eat everyone’. And that's what made me shoot her. If we had known that she was a whale we would not have shot her. What did you think it was? We thought it was another beast, another animal; we couldn’t tell what it was at the time.”
14:44 Arnaldo: And then the people destroyed it. They cut the fat off the creature - there were metres of fat.”
14:53 The waters of the Amazon, far from transparent, are full of hidden dangers.
15:01 Sergio Laus "We have already lost cameras, camera video, motorboats, and larger vessels. It is also dangerous because the river is full of wildlife; snakes, piranhas, alligators – particularly around the edges. It has candiru, which enter humans through the urethra, which can be very unpleasant. “
15:25 Valente "This issue is the least of my worries. I've surfed in places known to have sharks. When I went to Hawaii there were 4 fatal shark attacks, all in the place where I was surfing. It is something I’ve always joked about – it doesn’t bother me.”
15:48 Alexandre Nico "There's one shark that is like a swordfish. I think I saw the beak of one coming from the water, but it was so sudden, that the instinct was just to lift my feet and keep myself steady on the board. “
16:04 Sergio Laus is the best informed about these waters. Seven years ago he surfed the Pororoca for the first time and is now in the pages of the Guinness Book of Records. He managed to surf without stopping for nearly 35 minutes. In seven years, Laus has discovered the full potential of the wave - and all its traps.
16:30 Sergio Laus "We’ve had several problems in the past. Spending two and a half days lost in the Amazon jungle without anyone knowing where we are; not knowing where we were ourselves. Eating capybara, which we hunted in the woods, and taking water from the river. I had an accident where I fractured my 5th lumbar vertebra, and I almost lost the movement in my legs. I took on the wave and she put me in my place.”
17:10 Nico to Manuel: "Today it is like this: Sergio is in the boat. I’ll be on the jet ski. When Sergio indicates to me I’ll move to the back of the wave, and you will surf along the wall there. I’m always back there to rescue you.”
17:25 Today is the third day of the wave, when the Pororoca comes with maximum strength. The equipment is all checked carefully, the boards are prepared, and jet skis are used for faster recovery of surfers who fall behind.
17:42 A few local surfers also take advantage of what might be the best day of the coming months. For some, the Pororoca is more than just a wave.
17:53 Noélio Sobrinho "I have this bond with the Pororoca forever. A spiritual connection that started in the surf, and now is a divine bond with the Phenomena...and I made this homage to the wave.”
18:08 Noélio Sobrinho "I always heard talk of the Pororoca, but it has always been linked with tragedy. A boat overturned and the passenger died. We don’t know who he was, but he had a family. And yet today the wave has become a source of income for the local residents. Today you have drivers in the region, and people to serve coffee.”
18:30 Helio, the man who likes to surf the wave during the full moon, joins the group. Helio has left Hawaii and California for more intense adventure in the jungle.
18:46 Helio: "I had an adventure in the Amazon River, in a little Trimara, with a dog, a monkey and a parrot! I built the boat in California, in San Diego, and sent it to Port Itaqui. At Itaqui I put it on a bus, and crossed the Andes to the headwaters of the river Naples. I went to Ecuador and Peru. I stayed in Port Tabatinga on the border of Brazil. It was great. “ “How long did it take?” “About 7 months. “
19:19 From one day to the next, the passage of the tide crosses over the bottom of the river. The navigation channels constantly changed place.
19:29 Glauco : “ I am hitting the bottom to see if it is shallow, or if it has sufficient depth for when people will be in front of the wave. If we do not pay attention to that, the wave will catch us out and finish everything.”
19:45 If the problem is not the depth of water, it may be mechanics. And when the engines fail, there are only a few seconds to leave the boat.
19:58 By chance, despite the force of the wave in this part of the river, nothing serious happened. This is another characteristic of the Pororoca –totally unpredictable, it is constantly changing, depending on the depth and width of the river.
20:14 Nico "Sometimes the wave came up with a little more wall, sometimes it was lying lower. Obviously this has implications for the surf. We had help and guidance from Glauco. It is important that he could control the boat so that it dominated the wave, and could direct us left or right. It was going so fast though, that the wave threw us a few surprises.
20:41 Manuel Dantas "It is irrelevant whether or not we are accustomed to surfing. We are used to surfing the waves of the sea, where the bottom is defined and we know more or less the weather conditions. We can go to a beach knowing what the wind and tide conditions will be like. (pause) That was what initially shocked me here. There's nothing here I already have some knowledge of, or have had a similar experience of before. “
21:54 Glauco: "Here is the wall of death. This is where the wave rises highest and more people surf. Further down it may go a little higher, but we can’t get there safely. So we surf it here; the river is large here so it is a good place. “ And that name is only a joke or real? I’m just kidding. Thank God there have been no fatalities. 20 "
22:35 The wall of death is the most dangerous part of the wave. It is also the most exciting. Michael Russell and Manuel Dantas were keen to surf it more than once.
23:12 There was a moment, however, when the fury of the current overwhelmed the two surfers.
23:24 Micheal "We were stuck in a whirlpool. We felt this huge mass of water. My feet were stuck in a whirlwind, and I lost the leash to my board. I tried to keep hold of the board. Then I hit against a wall, and when I looked, the board was flying into the middle of the branches, and I became disorientated. Then the foam turned to the colour of mud. It was a different experience!
23:56 Manuel "My feelings were a mixture of fear in trying to escape and then confusion as to how I did escape without being hurt."10"
24:04 This was not the only sticky situation for the surfers. In another incident, Michael Russell lost the wave, and the pilots of the boats forgot him. He was left behind in the middle of the river for nearly half an hour, with a single thought; fear of attack by a wild animal.
24:23 Micheal " The possibility of these things happening is always in the back of our minds. There is a danger of piranhas, the danger of stingrays that spawn in the clay...there are stories of river sharks – there are stories of many things. And, there are alligators along the banks.”
24:55 The local people say that the Pororoca is no longer what it once was. Still, the elders admire the courage of the surfers.
25:10 Mr Ivan "I think they have courage; the Pororoca was always tough. If it is still like it was in the time when I caught its surf, I guarantee you they surfed well.
25:22 "The Pororoca used to be very problematic. You’d be here, and it would come bursting from over there, with a terrible height of 3 or 4 metres, colliding with everything. Trees, everything, getting churned up in it.“
25:40 Rapid erosion is another consequence of the tide. Very quickly the river expands by several metres. The house Maria de Jesus lives in with her husband and two daughters is similar to many others in the region - made of sticks and clay, it has no electricity and few comforts. Soon, the family will have to move house for the fourth time.
26:07 "I've lived in three houses. The first fell in the water. The second fell in the water. And we have the same problem here. If we do not move we will fall in the water here too. “
26:25 This family lives only on what nature gives them. The main work of Maria de Jesus is extracting seeds from coconuts to feed the chickens and make flour or oil. Her husband, Joseph, works in the field.
26:45 “I farm, I fish, and the women break coconuts. I dig coal and we sell it. All this goes along steadily. This is enough to live off? Yes, it gives slowly – we survive right? You’ve never thought of going elsewhere? No, but now I'm thinking about it, because we cannot stay here. Everyone is moving on, and we cannot be left alone.”
27:13 The question is - where can they go?
27:20 The nearest town is Arari. It has 20 thousand inhabitants, but work is scarce. There are few cars in Arari, and you don’t see a single tourist here. Allegations of corruption levelled at the former mayor compounded these problems – however, voting against him in a recent election has brought a new optimism to the people.
27:58 The local children don’t often escape the daily routine of going to school and playing football in the streets. But when the Pororoca comes along the river, and the tide rises, the more courageous get a chance to show off.
20:20 After three days of surfing the best points of the river, where the wave is strongest, are already identified - as are the places where danger lurks.
28:35 Glauco: "Did you see that? The mouth of the Cai river. On the left, here, it is very small – it comes, it comes, it comes. And it will end over on the right. (pause) It gives more than 15 minutes of wave.” 15 "
28:53 Micheal has strictly followed these instructions.
29:08 The last day of surfing has been the best for everyone, but the veteran surfer managed to be on his board for more than 18 minutes.
29:48 And yet it is after the fourth day, when the four men are beginning to comfortably inhabit the wave and try out their tricks, that she starts to disappear. Until the next equinox, the waters of the Amazon will return to calm and tranquillity.
30:07 Valente "We are surfing in waves that were generated by the moon, the force of attraction of the moon. There is no influence of the wind here. And that is a fascinating thing.”
30:21 Nico: “The surfer enters another dimension. Manoeuvres become fluid. You can be connected to the wave and the sheer scale of the surf gives immense pleasure.
30:36 Valente There is a kind of vertigo. At times it seems we lost contact with our surroundings, and were someplace different.”
30:46 Manuel Dantas "The impact of seeing it for the first time, I’ll never forget. The mixture of shock and the adrenaline of wanting to be there was worth the trip.”
31:00 Michael Russell "I take away from here the message that it is well worth coming back. "
31:08 Whether or not they return, Alexander Nico, Michael Russell, John Valente and Manuel Dantas have achieved their goal. They have become the first Portuguese to surf a wave that strikes fear into the hearts of the Amazonians. For them the adventure is over, but soon the big roar will be heard throughout the jungle again, as the Pororoca takes on its next challengers.
31:31 Finish –