Surf Travel

... And Start West

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 5 February, 2010 : - - Technically not part of Europe, few would argue that Morocco has some of the best surf in Europe. Make sense? Since the 1950’s when US soldiers based in Kentitra began discovering some of the right hand point breaks dotting the coast here it began making sense to a whole lot of surfers.

Morocco remained very much an underground surf destination until Paul Witzig’s landmark film Evolution. Once the word got out though, Morocco has arisen as a staple on any global surfers hit list.

The 1000 odd miles of Atlantic Coast south of Casablanca fire on almost any swell with a N to NW swell direction. Morocco has the additional benefit of being far enough south from some of the caning North Sea storms that lash Spain and France as nothing but foul weather in winter, down in Morocco these storms often produce clean swell on the endless array of right hand points.

Most Moroccan surf trips start and end in the surf camps around Safi and there is nothing wrong with that at all. Overcrowding in recent years though has seen additional camps open up to the south around the Taghazoute / Agadir area; home to classic points such as  Anchor Point, Boilers and Killers. There is a lot in between though and as long as you are sensible about it, Morocco is a destination that you can conceivably explore yourself given enough time.

The Northern Hemisphere Winter is the time to visit. Any low pressure cell hovering around Europe is going to deliver the goods albeit a few days later and a couple of feet smaller along the Moroccan Coast. If you are time poor, head straight to Safi, the breaks around Casablanca and the capital Rabat are generally very crowded and lack the quality of the southern points.

Safi to Agadir is only 250 kilometres and a great way to spend a week on the road. The water never really gets that warm, even down south despite the fact  that you are on the border of the Saharan Desert but a 3/2 Steamer will get you through any Moroccan winter. Most of the points have very forgiving sandy bottoms so it’s a great trip for a group with a mixture of abilities.

 
Boilers : photo Tony Baker

Most shortboarders get by with a standard thruster and a longish pintail for the bigger days. A 6’8” should be plenty of length. If you are longboarding, leave the 9 footer at home and bring an 8’, you’ll catch everything you need to with that.

There are some epic spots pretty much off the charts down around the border with The Western Sahara. It’s advisable to bring a guide around that area of the country and under no circumstances should you cross the border by yourself; landmines, lack of fresh water and fuel and kids with guns are just some of your worries in that part of the world. If you can organise it correctly and safely though, you will be crossing the border into one of the last truly unmapped surf destinations.  Fill up your water bottles, check the fuel tank, put your affairs in order...and start west.

Postcards from Morocco

2'oclock in the afternoon was a strange time to arrive in Casablanca. It was late October, mid 90's. The two of us had flown in from London so the trip was an easy two hours. Everyone around us was burnt out though. Busboys and airline hostesses sat fanning their faces in the humid breeze. We cleared customs in a heartbeat, picked up our boards from special baggage and went to find our driver.

The concourse was basically empty and so when we saw a short stout driver in shithouse brown slacks, sandals and a stained business shirt holding a sign that said "Mr Adam" we knew we had found our man.

The figure standing before us held the sign close under his chin; above it, nervous eyes shifted left and right like a henchman extra from a Moroccan film set. Thick, jet black ringlets of hair were oddly parted to the side under the weight of a solid slug of poppy oil. The oil and sweat blended together staining his collar. I knew him from his photo, I knew him to be 'Driss Gellhab'.

We had spoken a lot over the past months and I had him on standby for the first big, clean swell of the season. We wanted to get down to Safi as soon as possible because it was a given it would be epic in this swell but from there the both of us had always wanted to see what the options were like as far south as we could get, right up to the border with Western Sahara.

The known spots were places like Anchor Point and Boilers but down further from them, a kilometre from the line was an amazing right hand reef / point combo that I wanted to check out. The challenge down here though was getting the swell to angle in just the right direction for the deep southern points to work.

More Anchor Point : photo Tony Baker

The blocking Spanish Canary Islands lie only 30 miles directly west, so the swell has to be either NNW or you can forget it. The satellite photo showed a two stage wave, first a point and then it seemed to wrap around into a reef, we named it Master Blaster. There was a small un-named town right nearby, we called it Bartertown...we watched a lot of TV back then.

Driss was happy with the plan. Master Blaster was on the Moroccan side of the line so that would be fine. He couldn't promise taking us over into Western Sahara but said he would do his best. We set out immediately and made Safi by late afternoon. Clean, uncrowded. Next day we got to Anchor Point and Boilers which were good but not epic, a dozen Frenchmen to each wave. We pushed down to Master Blaster. The land was different down here, burnt brown, hot desert wind whipping sand around your ankles from the heart of Africa...apocalyptic.

The set up was beautiful, a million years of off shores had built and groomed the sand around the point and reef. It was about a 500 metre paddle through deep cool water and then you were on top of Master. Heaving right hand faces that sped along to the hollow end game that was Blaster. We surfed it by ourselves for four hours, Driss stood by the van on the beach the whole time smoking foul smelling Russian cigarettes. Out the back we could see the swell wrapping further south over the line now into the Western Sahara.

I knew that every point for 1200 km’s right down to the border with the hell that was Mauritania would be firing. We got ashore and put the word on Driss. It took him a little while but he soon came around. I gave him all of the US Dollars that we had left for the border bribe. Driss pulled the van up to the line and there they stood, obsidian skinned teenagers with early model kalashnakovs in uniforms of a country that didn’t exist, manning the border that flew a flag of a country no one recognised.

One of them had spray painted a Transformers stencil onto the magazine of his rifle...I think it was the autobot one. I had a brief image of Driss getting out of the car to talk things over and then when it all broke down he goes running off into the desert, bullets cutting all around him. As it turns out it all went pretty smoothly; so we put away the passports, roll up the windows…

...and start west.

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Adam Waldie

Surf Travel - Surfersvillage