The first world-class European surfing spot to attract Australian, Hawaiian and Californian surfing legends was La barre - just north of Biarritz, in France. It was a big powerful and consistent beach break that really put France on a map for surfers in the 60s. The wave is gone since 1970, though. It only breaks in the abyssal memory of a lucky few. Here’s the story of La Barre, and how it vanished.
Let there be waves
La Barre was less than 100 meters south of the Adour river mouth, which is basically why it existed. Long story short: currents from the north carry a lot of sand along their way through the Landes, and clash with the estuary of the Adour River, forming an uncanny break for surfers to enjoy. So La Barre was in fact the miraculous child of these two currents - definitely something worth thanking mother nature for.
It just seemed to turn any swell into dreamy smoking barrels.
Year after year, the sand simply did not move and peeled anything from knee-high up to 4 meter (which was probably considered to be the limit of what mortal men could handle at the time) into jaw dropping waves. Head back to The Duck Dive #2 for a refresher on what big swells and french sand can do. Otherwise, here is La Barre for ya (1968):
1968 goes down as its most memorable year - as international legends came to compete in the first European surf competition ever. With Nat Young, Keith Paull, Billy Hamilton and a 16 years old Wayne Lynch coming to try it out, French surfers discovered a whole new world: that of boards shorter than 10ft. They saw these guys ripping (read going more vertical) and doing things they never even considered in their wildest dreams. Imagine being one of the first person surfing in your country and choosing an entire lifestyle out of it with your few surfer friends, only to realise that some other dudes are 10 times more advanced and riding boards you never even thought of. You’d go like S. Cazenave “Waaahou you know, they are gods, really really really gods”.
Two of the 60s best surf films were shot there, by the same surf gods mentioned earlier - Evolution and The sunshine sea:
And God created women
Didn’t it occur to you that these guys came from Pipeline, Bell’s Beach and Malibu? There had to be something else than funny currents to bring them all the way to France…
Anyone ripping at La Barre in the late 60s definitely got a taste of La Dolce Vita - something best carried out by Arnaud de Rosnay’s persona. Reportedly, French girls were just as good as French waves, and the two combined gave La Barre a certain panache in the international surfing scene.
We're not entirely sure which one the surfers preferred... Even the editors of Surfer were reluctant to choose.
Here’s a little extract from the 1966 article dedicated to France:
Griffin and Stoner writing to the editor of the magazine:
“Boy i’m sure glad you gave us that tip about asking cab drivers. Probably me and Griffin would never have found the ocean if we hadn’t asked a cab driver in paris Yesterday. (…) Boy it was a long ride - ten hours. (…) We’re staying at a hotel right on the beach here at Cannes. But you know the surf is really terrible. It’s really flat, almost like a lake. We were going to leave yesterday but Griffin wants to stay to finish a painting he’s doing of a French Girl called Annette Bonplaisir. He met her at the beach and boy she looks good in her bikini. (…)”
In the mean time Arnaud de Rosnay was writing to the same Magazine editor:
“Where are Griffin and Stoner? Everyday I wait at the train station and I am missing some of the greatest surf of the year. My colleagues in Le Surf Club of France tell me that the surf is eight foot and glassy at several of the surfing breaks near Biarritz. I am becoming very angry that Griffin and Stoner do not show up.
Vive de Gaulle”
Gone with the sand
While the magic sand helped bring the worlds best surfer’s to France - the opposite was true of cargo ships coming to the port of Bayonne (which is inland, along the Adour River). The sand was blocking the estuary and cargo ships were only getting bigger. For years we played a silly game with nature, digging up to 1 million m3 of sand, until we built a 1.1km jetty north of the Adour estuary blocking the northern currents. Eventually, the jetty created a smaller south-north current that brought more sand to the estuary and completely altered the way the beach south of the Adour river works. It is still a touchy subject…
La Barre was on the far right of the picture. It still gets waves, but it does not break the same way. You can definitely still surf on the very same beach, but it won’t be young Catherine Deneuve you’ll be pushing down the waves.
Will it ever come back? The answer, my friend is flowing in the sand…
IG of the Week
This is an extract from SUGAR for JOSIE - which I loved. Watch it for a warm mind-surfing sesh with lovely Josie.