After reading the testimonial by José Ferreira, the new Swim4fun coach here on the blog, I felt really eager to go swimming in Matosinhos!
I took advantage of a family commitment and combined business with pleasure, heading to Matosinhos for the weekend, hoping to meet Zé and swim in “cold waters,” rough and wavy just the way I love!
Spoiler: none of that happened… but it was wonderful all the same.
That weekend, Zé had a competition in Galicia, so the session in Matosinhos was with Bibiana—and it turned out to be everything I wasn’t expecting, and I still loved it!
Matosinhos beach is huge (both in length and width), and it gives you an incredible sense of freedom to swim! And without having to constantly change direction, like we do on the beaches in Cascais and Oeiras.
I brought the warmest wetsuit I had, but the water wasn’t cold at all. The sea was very calm the whole time—no chop, no currents, no waves, not even those little “baby waves.”
I thought, the sea has decided to take a break… something I clearly don’t know how to do—and it decided to calm me down! And you know what? It felt so good.
The session itself was an incredible experience, the kind that reminds us why we love the sea so much—even when it doesn’t show up the way we imagine.
And in the middle of all this, I can’t get a line from a Vitorino song out of my head:
“Nunca mais eu chego ao Porto
Ao porto de Matosinhos”
Well, I hope for the opposite. I hope to go back there many times! With more waves, perhaps. With colder water, who knows. But above all, with the same enthusiasm!
And of course, I have to give a special shout-out to the mastermind behind this brilliant idea: Congratulations, Bibiana, for bringing these classes to Matosinhos! It’s one of those simple ideas that just makes perfect sense—and feels even better when you actually experience it. I’m really hoping this is just the beginning and that these classes spread all along our coast. Because the sea deserves to be experienced in different accents, different temperatures, and different states of mind (including the more turbulent ones, like mine)!
Bou boltar! 😊 Rita Solá