Raw Adventure in Tarifa: Rafa Aguado

About 60 per cent of the adult body is made up of water but for some of us that percentage is higher. Rafa Aguado is one of those people. He first entered the world of windsurfing at age 14 when he competed in the Toro Andaluz edition in 1984. That competition was his introduction to Tarifa, and it began a lifelong love affair with watersports. Always on the lookout for new challenges, in 2024, he’s heading to Nazare in Portugal to take on the biggest waves in the world. 

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS IN TARIFA 

From a young age, Rafa dreamed of being a professional windsurfer. He got to live that dream from the age of 14 to 18-years-old when he competed in many windsurf competitions, some of which were in Tarifa. Despite his early passion for windsurfing, at 18, he followed the advice of his father, quit windsurfing and went to college in Seville to study engineering. He finished his degree in Sweden and ended up staying there for five years, working for companies such as Ericsson. 

But Sweden wasn’t the right place for Rafa because the “water is frozen most of the year.” After five years, Ericsson relocated him to Madrid. After 2001 dot-com bubble burst he found a place for himself in the world of I.T. start-ups in the late 1990s, initially in software and hardware design, and later, in sales. He had ten good years in that field but around 2009, at age of 39, he realized something was missing from his life and joined the Kite Surfing World Tour as a competitor for a year. 

Rafa joined the World Tour “for fun,” but he also had help from some of the biggest names in the world of kite-surfing. He still had deep connections with Tarifa, where his mentors included a 16-year-old Gisela Pulido, ten-time world champion, and an eighteen-year-old Jesse Richman, two-time world champion. Big Wave and Big Air kite-surfers, they helped Rafa prepare for challenging conditions on the water. When he got back to Madrid after the World Tour, it was Jesse who convinced him to move to Maui for a winter, which ended in over a year. 

NEW ADVENTURES IN TARIFA 

When he returned to the “normal world” in 2010, he knew that he wanted to do something different and finally, launched an accelerator program in Malaga connecting start-ups with investors from all over the world. For eight years, the accelerator was his passion till 2020 and Rafa lost both his parents to COVID in the space of two weeks. The loss of his parents changed everything. He relocated to Tarifa full-time and now spends every day with his dog (Kai, that means ocean in Hawaiian) on the water wing foiling  at Liam Whaley Pro Center in Valdevaqueros. 

Throughout this time, Rafa was windsurfing and kitesurfing. Back in 2018, his girlfriend at the time, Marina Alabau, an Olympic gold medallist, convinced him to try a new water sport called windsurfing foil. 

By 2020, Rafa placed 3rd in the world in his category for windsurfing foil (Grand Masters). Paris 2024 is the first year that windsurf foil will be an official category in the Olympics, as well as kite foiling. Gisela will represent Spain . 

Back to 2020 the Pandemic hit and everything changed. Around this time, manufacturers were adding foils to all boards for surfing, wind- and kite-surfing, and many people were urging him to try wing foiling. Rafa wasn’t interested, didn’t like the equipment, thought it looked funny, like an “injured bird on the water that wants to fly.” Rafa tried for a few days and voilá was ready for a new challenge and it turned out to be wing foiling.

These days, he calls wingfoiling “amazing” and it’s the activity that structures his days. Every day, he’s on the water for three to four hours.

And it was at Valdevaqueros that he met Noe Cantaloube, born in Reunion Island and raised in Tahiti, who planted the idea of surfing the biggest wave in the world at Nazare, Portugal. Noe challenged Rafa to add foiling Nazaré as the next challenge.

BIG WAVE ADVENTURES 

This is familiar territory for Rafa, being coached by a younger athlete encouraging him to push his abilities to the limits. But wingfoiling the waves at Nazare is no joke. Thanks to a thin stretch of headland jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean that surfers call “a creation of God,” the waves at Nazare reach up to 30 meters. Big wave season is September through March with the biggest waves in October and November, which is when Rafa and Noé will be heading there. 

Amongst the challenges of surfing waves this big is the speed the water moves at, meaning surfers have to be jet-skied out to the top of the wave in order to catch it. And specific to wingfoiling, the foil at the base of the board becomes a lethal weapon that can easily shred limbs in the case of a wipeout. Prepping for the big waves involves ensuring that everything is in peak condition, meaning the kit and equipment as well as physical and mental health. Noe has warned Rafa that the hardest part of the challenge is staying calm when things “get nasty.” 

Now at 54 years of age, Rafa has to work extra hard to take on the “monster.” In preparation, he will do the Wim Hof Challenge as well as practice apnea diving breathing exercises to better handle being under cold water for up to two minutes. To support his body, he takes a long list of supplements, no alcohol, time at the gym, good food and plenty of rest. He also needs the help of manufacturers like Duotone to tweak  his equipment to make sure it can perform at high speed.

AT HOME IN TARIFA 

Rafa has full respect for Noe’s sportsmanship and attitude to life and feels honoured to be part of the challenge. Whatever the outcome, he says he will benefit from the adventure both mentally and physically. In many ways, Rafa typifies the adventure spirit of Tarifa, always ready to take on a new challenge while living life on the water day-to-day. He starts his mornings at 7am walking his dog on the beach and then spends a few hours online for work before heading to Valdevaqueros. 

With more than seventeen types of trees from all over the world in his house, his home is an oasis of calm. He’s a big advocate of meditation and loves that Tarifa provides him with the right combination of activities to enrich his life. About his love of Tarifa, he says, “It’s hard to describe the connection with Tarifa, maybe something to do with how wild it is. Tarifa doesn’t have the best wind in the world but it has the most consistent wind. We have wind 95 per cent of the days of the month throughout the year. That’s just one reason that makes Tarifa unique. I’ve travelled all over the world and nowhere else compares to this. And I never get tired of being in the water here.”