Surfing near Biarritz

[Alan M]

I am off on holiday to Biarritz in the summer. Does anyone know anything about recommended beaches & friendliness to boaters! Also, there was news of the oil tanker that sank, dumping its cargo on the French west coach beaches. If it's bad I may swop venues for my holidays this year. Any information, websites & etc. on both subjects would be welcome.

[morsey]

Did a trip down the french coast surfing and playing some moons ago. Biaritz main beach & north beach saw some fine surf action, memory says there were quite a few big rips running. The locals (boarders) thought we were from OZ due to an abundance of wave skis and little boats and seemed to be more friendly than those up north!

Just north of Biaritz is a place called Cap Breton which is separated from a place called Hossegor by an entrance to a harbour. The break on either side of this harbour wall kicks off, V.steep take offs and hard rail cut back central :) There were big sand banks along there which made strong rips and presume these could change the wave formation after big storms! Have memories of dodging ramparts in the water (maybe old wartime stuff).

A bit further north is San Giron, nice quiet place away from the hoards and expense of the main beaches and it had good enough surf for several weeks: Warm water, 3/4 feet every day, sun, copious amounts of strong continental lager.

Way up north is Lacanau ocean, If you are traveling past that way its worth a look. Had some big scarey days there. Very strong rips & evil dumping shore dump, but outside was well worth running the gaunlet of the odd trashing. The locals were not very friendly towards us! But we sorted this by driving down the strip handing out bottles of beer to all the surfers. Some friends have said that the place is not so nice anymore, I would still go again to check it out because the surf was tops.

Simon