ABOUT MAGIKVANILLA SURF SCHOOL
Ericeira, since 2013.
HOW IT STARTED
In the summer of 2004, an Englishman drove a campervan to Portugal for the football and the surf.
Portugal knocked England out on penalties. He stayed anyway.
Steve had come for a tournament and a few waves. What he found instead, on Praia dos Pescadores — the fishermen’s beach, right in the middle of town — was Susie: Portuguese, and not expecting any of this either.
Which left the practical problem every couple from two countries eventually runs into. You have to pick one. There were candidates. There was, at various points, a shortlist. In the end it was not close — Ericeira has a way of settling these things — and in 2008 Steve left sunny England for the Portuguese coast.
Five years later, with rather more conviction than caution, they opened Magikvanilla Surf Camp.
ELEVEN YEARS OF BEDS AND BREAKFASTS
The camp ran from 2013 until 2024. Some people we met once. Some came back every summer for a decade. A few stopped being guests altogether and became friends, which is the part nobody warns you about when you start a business.
We worked alongside some genuinely brilliant people. We also, across eleven years, stood on the occasional sea urchin. Both of those are part of the job.
THEN, IN OCTOBER 2024, WE SOLD THE BEDS
After eleven years we let the accommodation go and became a dedicated surf school.
On paper it looks like a step backwards. It was not. Running a camp meant a great deal of every day went on bed linen, breakfast orders and booking spreadsheets, and comparatively little of it went on the water. Which is an odd way to spend your life when the water is the reason you moved. So we stopped. Now the whole business is one thing: teaching people to surf, properly, in small groups, at a beach we know better than we know our own street.
We are better at it than we were. That was the entire point.
FOUR THINGS WE DO NOT BUDGE ON
FIVE SURFERS PER COACH. NOT SIX.
Not six "just this once", not six in August when we could fill the spots twice over. Five. It is the difference between an instructor who watches you and an instructor who coaches you, and it is the one number we have never moved.
WE GET IN THE WATER WITH YOU.
Every session, every coach, every time. From the sand you can shout encouragement. From the water, you can tell someone their back foot is four inches too far forward — on the wave, while it is happening, when it still means something. Only one of those makes you a better surfer.
NOBODY STANDS AT THE BACK.
We split groups by level so the confident aren't held up, and the nervous aren't left behind. If you outgrow the group we put you in, we move you. You came here to get better, not to be managed.
NONE OF THE SURFER NONSENSE.
There is a version of surf culture that is cliquey, faintly superior and quietly intimidating, and we have never had the slightest time for it. If you are forty-seven and have never stood on a board, you are exactly who this is for. So is everyone else who thinks they left it too late.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT
Two of us are here every season. The rest of the team changes with it — and we would rather explain that than pretend otherwise.
Co-founder and head coach
Steve
In the water since 1990, teaching here since 2013. Patient to a degree that occasionally concerns the rest of us, and he is the loudest cheer you will hear on that beach. We are not going to sit here telling you he is a good instructor — that is what the reviews are for.
Co-founder, and everything that is not the beach
Susie
Portuguese, graphic designer by trade, and the reason anything runs on time. She built most of what you are looking at. If you have received an email from us, it was from her.
Role
Name
& EVERYBODY ELSE
We are a small business on a seasonal coast. February and August are entirely different jobs, so our team grows and shrinks with the season — we work with a pool of coaches we know, and bring in the right ones for the group.
Which means we cannot put twelve faces on this page and promise you will meet those twelve. Plenty do. You would arrive in September and find half of them were somebody else.
What does not change is the standard. Every coach is certified by the IPDJ as a Sports Coach in Surfing, federated with the Portuguese Surf Federation, and a qualified surf lifeguard and first responder. Every one is someone we have surfed with and chosen ourselves.
There is an upside. Because we build the team around the booking, we can match the coach to the group — which a fixed rota cannot do.
Steve is here all year.
WHERE WE TEACH: PRAIA DE SÃO JULIÃO
We teach mainly at Praia de São Julião, a wide sandy beach break about fifteen minutes from the centre of Ericeira. We hold licences for two other beaches as well, so we can move when conditions ask us to — but São Julião is home. Sand bottom, room to spread out, and waves forgiving enough to learn on. That is not a compromise; it is the whole point. Ericeira's reputation was built on reef: fast, shallow and unforgiving, and no place to stand up for the first time. São Julião is the opposite, which is exactly why we teach there.
THE COAST AROUND IT
Ericeira became Europe's first World Surf Reserve in 2011 — the second in the world. Eight kilometres of protected coastline just north of town, twenty-two distinct types of wave, and a few that will humble a professional. You will not be surfing those in your first week. But you will be staying ten minutes from them, and we will happily talk your ear off about every one. We have mapped the lot — distance, transfer time and who each spot is actually suitable for — in our guide to the Ericeira World Surf Reserve.
THE BORING BUT IMPORTANT PART
Every single one of our coaches is certified by the IPDJ (Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude) as a Sports Coach (Surfing Level 1 and/or 2) and is federated with the Portuguese Surf Federation. Every one is a qualified surf lifeguard and first responder, and a full first aid kit is on the beach at every session.
We teach at a licensed beach, we carry personal and public liability insurance for every participant, and we are registered with Turismo de Portugal as a Tourism Operator - RNAAT 142/2013.
We check the forecast every day and set session times around the safest conditions of the day on the right tide, which is why your lesson might be at eight in the morning or at six in the afternoon. If the ocean is not safe to teach in, we say so, and we reschedule your lesson.
Minimum age is seven. Under-eighteens can book group or private coaching with a parent or guardian present.
STILL HERE...
We have a line we use among ourselves and probably should not say out loud: we want people to be eighty-five and still telling somebody about the week they learned to surf in Portugal.
It is a ridiculous ambition for a two-hour lesson. It is also, far more often than you would expect, exactly what happens.
Come and see.
