Tag: Sessions

Storm in a teacup

Interesting to see how pumping waves in the Mediterranean Sea are often associated with weird borderline climatic conditions. Storms lashing especially the French Riviera are rare, but not unheard of. There’s usually a few prominent cases every year, of which only a few deliver actual swell up to our southeastern shores. The Mediterranean provides relatively little surface area making it tough for tropical like storms to develop, however it happens and when it does, storm in a tea cup is really what it’s all about.

This one was generated last week by a 992 HPa depression a hundred miles or so west of Corsica island. This configuration is a best-case scenario as it turns on solid south swells, two magic words for hundreds of desperate guys in this part of Europe.

Nowhere


This morning was cold in the south of Landes, but the sky was bright and things would slowly warm up throughout the day. First checks of the local breaks were promising with glass waves on a rising tide that suggested another fun day of surf. But that probably meant also the same crazy crowds and unmannerly players judging from the previous days.


That’s where a bit of experience of the region is helpful when time comes to escape from the mess. Fortunately, this coast stretches over miles of empty beaches, so there’s obviously a few sandbars here or there that are just pumping with no one or almost around. However, to play alone, you’d better know a thing or two: about poor access to these secrets and when the sandbanks are good, since they are constantly changing from one swell to another.


In these conditions, the ultimate weapon is a bike. The only way to investigate the coast further is exploring dirt tracks winding through a mixed wood forest of pine. Driving there is prohibited, anyway driving, biking, walking or whatever is at the risk of getting lost or stuck in a maze of forest paths, with few chances of finding good banks. You may also meet a bunch of gnarly friends out there among which a wild boar (a.k.a. big boy), snakes, drunk chasers and the occasional fuckin cops or aggro local.

But if you had the chance of being initiated, like I was years ago, finding yourself riding a bike loaded with board, wetsuit, water, food and others in tree labyrinths and dunes can be well worth the effort. Not to mention the stoke of being on your own in this sanctuary. As far as I’m concerned, these moments are savored at fair value.

Ghost sessions

As of today, ex-tropical cyclone Nadine has lasted approximately 19 days. Nadine has probably opened the door for a few depressions in the Mediterranean. This is likely to continue since she re-developped a second time into a tropical cyclone on September 24, and is forecasted to move north northwestward in the eastern Atlantic for the next days. So there was a few surf lately in the Mediterranean caused by a couple of moderate wind storms, nothing great, just typical med sessions.

More than anywhere else, surfing in the Mediterranean requires a lot of reactivity. You must always be on the lookout to enjoy these sporadic swells. Right place, right time, conditions come and go in a blink of an eye quite literally. We had another demonstration of how fast and unpredictable this can happen just the other day.

The wind was blowing steadily since hours, producing a decent windswell but pretty bad waves because of a strong onshore everywhere. There was a little hope that the wind could drop a bit in the late afternoon. So I decided to wait for that, hoping that the swell wouldn’t completely disappear in the meantime. I was quietly installed in the back of my van, laying in the convertible sofa bed installed specially so as to keep an eye on the conditions outside.

An hour or so has passed in the muffled sounds produced by gusting winds over the car. Quite suddenly, without any apparent reason, the wind died. This was quite unexpected and to give an idea, these webcam videos show how conditions were like, before, and half an hour later.

Before :


After :

In a matter of minutes, the wind picked up again, increasing in strength but in the opposite direction. It only took a few time for the wind to switch 180°, changing the conditions from depressing to almost not bad with now the offshore growing a nice white mane on top of the breaking waves.

That’s when a heavy thunderstorm broke out. Dark clouds followed by intense rain, hail and lightenings hit the area very quickly. The situation could have felt like the end of the world. The storm was big enough to cause a short blackout reported in the local news, but fortunately there was no damage. It was also probably the reason of the rather strange wind behaviour. Such manifestations of nature are not so common, but the chain of events wasn’t finished yet. What happened just after was also funny.

So I was chilling out in my van waiting for the wind to calm down as most meteo models had predicted, and I didn’t expect what was about to happen at this point. The parking was empty and there was barely no one on the beach. The moment I noted the wind had changed and the storm hit, it was glassing off and waves got far better. It all happened rather quickly, but cars started right away to fill up the parking and guys in wetsuits were already into the water. The situation was unreal. While I thought I was alone, all those guys showed up in the middle of this dramatic weather almost at the same time. They just came out from nowhere and did that at the precise moment when the wind turned offshore!

Needless to say, it wasn’t the session by myself I had imagined in my van. Sometimes, I really wonder how med surfers get their information. Anyway, it wasn’t the session of the year but the surf wasn’t too bad.

Leslie & Michael

Despite clean conditions on the pictures above, the swell generated by ex Cat. 1 hurricane Leslie and Cat. 3 hurricane Michael was a bit below expectations. Tide too low over the window of offshore winds, made worse by high tidal coefficients, all this resulted in fast and shifty waves on the exposed beachbeaks. Landes sandbars are fairly fickle especially as the swell gets bigger in size. But as everyone knows they can also get pretty much perfect, so better luck next time!

Now the question is what post tropical cyclone Nadine will do. Until now, it takes a rather unusual southward trajectory. Not so promising for the west area but chances to impact the Mediterranean are growing and maps start to predict a bit of activity. At least things should be interesting the next few days.