São Paulo – Brazilian surfer Fabio Gouveia covered 1,800 kilometres of the coast of Morocco early this year, experiencing the waves of the country. Gouveia, called “master” by Brazilian surfers, travelled in the company of four professionals: Thiago Camarão, Marco Giorgi, Jean da Silva and William Cardoso, and went from Agadir to Dakhla, seeking the largest waves. Some of the best were found in Tan-Tan, in the south. "It is one of the least inhabited regions,” said Gouveia, explaining that there he found almost isolated beaches, at a site almost untouched by tourists.
“They are very hospitable, both the surfers and the people we met along the route,” said the surfer. Gouveia explains that from Agadir, the group headed to the village of Taghazout, where they started travelling the coast. Each one with his sponsor, the surfers established a service called surf camp, through which they got the entire infrastructure necessary to practice the sport in the region, including cars for transport, apartments for accommodation and specialized guides.
This, in truth, was Gouveia’s second trip to Morocco. He promoted another similar expedition, also to surf, in January 2011. The surf season in that region goes from October to March – when the waves are appropriate for the sport – and that is why he chose the month of January. Now, he has a list of other places in Africa that he would like to visit to surf in, like Mauritania, which is also an Arab country, Namibia and Angola.
Gouveia stopped competing in 2009, and has been into “free surf” since then. Free surfing is travelling to surf freely at different places. Even in the past, when he still participated in championships, he also used to travel world over to surf. With this, his list of travels with his board include France, Portugal, England, Spain, Scotland, the USA, Peru, Chile, Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador.
The surfer is sponsored by Hang Loose, Mormaii, Reef Brasil and Bleat. He says that in this kind of trip, each sportsman travels with his own sponsorship, but there are also routes with specific sponsors. In the case of the expedition in Morocco, the team was accompanied by professionals from magazine Hard Core, which recorded the adventure. Gouveia stopped competing to continue surfing, but in another way. “When you are competing, it is difficult to travel and relax,” he said. Gouveia, however, occasionally participates in championships to which he is invited.
Before ending his career, he earned several titles, among them the Brazilian professional champion in 1998 and 2005, and the world championship in the World Qualifying Series (WQS) in 1998. He was also the Brazilian amateur champion in 1987, the amateur world champion in 1998, in Puerto Rico, and the Hang Loose Pro Contest champion in 1990, in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo, among other titles.
Born in Bananeiras, in the interior of Paraíba state, but brought up in João Pessoa, the state capital, from an early age he has accompanied the movement of surfers and championships at Bessa beach. That was how he started competing and winning there. He soon went on to other beaches, then to other cities in the state and then to other states. In 2002, while he was living in Pernambuco, he decided to move to Santa Catarina, where there are many competitions. Today, at 42 years of age, apart from being turned to free surf (he travels four times each year), Gouveia also produces boards manually and accompanies one of his kids, who competes in surf championships.
*Translated by Mark Ament
