I am a wild beach in Seignosse

Where to start? I suggest letting the beach speak for itself.

I’m a wild beach in Seignosse that’s suffering the effects of global warming and human experimentation. Rising temperatures, wave-free weeks in May, new marine species, erosion exacerbated by tractors picking up garbage from the beach, dogs disturbing my migratory birds, big electric tires, and even bipeds on motorcycles ploughing the dune illegally. Nevertheless, I remain wild because I’m far from shops and restaurants, and Seignosse remains a village surrounded by forests, far from the urban centers of the Basque Country.

Winter, a season of respite

As a beach, my favorite season is winter, when there’s little human activity. My raging ocean and violent wind regimes chase away bipeds and their quadruped friends, and even the tractor that cleans me stops raking my sides every day. Migratory birds can now find some food and a place to lay their eggs.

Spring and summer: balance and sharing

When spring set in this year, I sculpted a lovely sandbar just downhill from the parking lot so that my favorite surf school could educate its students about protecting my fragile equilibrium and help them understand my changeable nature. Like every year, new surf schools had sprung up when there were already quite enough of them, but homosapiens like to all go in the same direction, with no overall vision. In any case, the beach was almost deserted, and I felt in relative symbiosis with the bipeds.

Then summer arrived and I drew a huge sandbar some distance away for deserving surfers. At every tide, I would roll waves onto my back ideal for learning, and I was so vast and generous that the Ki Surf School students always found a space where they could evolve in peace. With the exception of a few outbursts of anger, on three occasions from huge waves, the apprentice surfers were able to learn to ride small, perfect waves.

The mornings were as calm and magical as ever. It’s the perfect time to feel truly in nature, the parking lots are empty, the beach is back to itself, the light transforms nature into a living tableau.

A respectful relationship with the ocean

As a beach, I get on well with Ki Surf School because, like the other, we’re not at all into the delusion of mass tourism and the outrageous exploitation of resources. We’re more into contemplation, admiring the timeless cycles of nature. The infinite horizon brings us back to our insignificance, and we’re not bitter about it – on the contrary.

I think Eric’s students share his vision of surfing as a hedonistic act of selfless symbiosis with nature. In any case, I’ve noticed that they’re taking a liking to this activity, that they understand my different states, that they accept that they’re not in a power struggle with the element, but that they’re bowing to nature’s order by conforming to the cycle of the tides and climatic variations. As a result, every year they become a little more autonomous. Saltwater men.

Autumn then arrives, and the Landais refer to this period as the ” Indian summer “, as temperatures generally remain mild until the onset of winter. The swell starts to build more frequently, the wind patterns are favorable to the formation of more regular waves, all the European surfers migrate in their vans, their Airbnbs or sleep on the beach in the headlights of the damned tractor in charge of picking up everything that drags on my back, down to the driftwood that once belonged to me.

With very few thunderstorms and little rain, I think the surfing season has already been excellent for Ki Surf School and its students!