On the coast of Mafra, where the bathing season begins on Saturday, “40% of the 30 lifeguards are Brazilian,” stated Ricardo Mestrinho, president of the Ericeira Predomina Azul Lifeguard Association.
Mestrinho explained that “recruiting national lifeguards is very difficult because it is a temporary job usually filled by young people,” most of whom “finish school in July, while the bathing season begins in June.”
In Peniche, where the bathing season started at the beginning of the month, “about half of the 36 lifeguards are Brazilian or Argentinian to compensate for the lack of nationals,” said Bruno Bairros, president of the Peniche Concessionaires Association.
In Ericeira, plans are underway to create a summer camp to encourage children and young people to become lifeguards and firefighters.
In Peniche, there are considerations to cover the training expenses for at least 15 trainees to ensure the course’s viability.
The bathing season begins on Saturday at beaches between Alcobaça and Mafra, spanning the districts of Leiria and Lisbon, with the necessary lifeguards in place to ensure beach surveillance, according to municipal councils and associations of concessionaires and lifeguards.
The recruitment of foreign lifeguards presents another challenge, finding accommodation, which in Peniche was resolved in partnership with the municipality.
In Nazaré, the municipal council is renovating a municipal building, called space “Ancora,” to accommodate lifeguards serving during the summer and throughout the year.
According to the councilor for the Environment, Salvador Formiga, “the space should be completed by August, and until then, lifeguards from outside the municipality are housed at the High-Performance Surf Center.”
Since 2017, Nazaré has had year-round beach surveillance, with five lifeguards during winter and 26 during the bathing season (starting June 1 and ending September 15).
In September, Peniche launched a year-round beach surveillance program, operating outside the bathing season with two vehicles, an all-terrain motorcycle, and five lifeguards, addressing 57 incidents.
For the first time, Torres Vedras commenced a pre-season lifeguard team of two lifeguards and a vehicle on April 18, ensuring beach surveillance outside the bathing season during Easter school holidays, the first half of June, the last half of September, and weekends in May.
A firefighter and a lifeguard patrol Mafra’s beaches on weekends and holidays outside the bathing season from April 18 to June 13 and from September 16 to October 31.
Wave sports and climate change have contributed to increased beach attendance outside the bathing season in this region.
In Torres Vedras, the bathing season begins with a sand shortage at the beaches of Santa Helena and Guincho in Santa Cruz (the municipality has been trying to replenish it for safety and access reasons), while in Porto Novo, algae accumulation has led farmers to remove them for crop fertilization.
