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Eurojem: La Graviere
La Graviere - Hossegor, Les Landes, France
43°40’ N 1°26’ W
What is it? Powerful, hollow beachbreak. La Graviere breaks right and left close to shore off a steep sandy beach. Although it can also be a fun manoeuvres wave on smaller days, La Graviere is basically all about dropping in late and pulling into to heaving sand-bottomed pits.
Best winds: East wind is offshore. Between Easter and the end of October, on hot days seabreezes often come up by mid/late morning. Morning and dusk are often the best bet for clean conditions at such times.
Season: All year, although winter often sees too much swell/not enough sand. Spring and autumn seem to be more consistent.
Who’s in the line-up? Yan Benetrix, Seb St Jean, Laurent Pujol, Sancho, Miky, François Liets, Gerard Bensoussan and Fabrice Gelez among others.
Swell window: NW swell lines up better in Hossegor, often favouring the rights.
Nearest airport: Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne (BAB). 25mins by car.
Interesting fact: Surf Europe used to rent the amazingly well situated house right on the dunes overlooking the peak, until we got evicted.
The first thing you’re going to notice when you paddle out when the first bit of whitewater hits you is the power of the wave, it packs a punch. Bear in mind that even on smallish days, every wave that breaks here can snap your board, so pick your waves carefully. Most of the year, chances are it’s going to be packed anytime it’s breaking well. On days when it is really crowded, there’s a reasonable argument to be made for getting a decent, uncrowded surf in elsewhere in the Hossegor/Seignosse area, then heading to La Graviere to watch it go mental, already surfed-out, stoked and unstressed.
Laurent Pujol’s Golden Rules for surfing la Graviere:
1. Don’t wear a leash.* You’re less likely to break your board, it’s less likely to hit you and it can’t anchor you to the bottom. It also means you pick your waves better. The bigger La Graviere gets, the less you want to wear a leash out there for all the above reasons. The wave breaks really close to shore so the swim in is pretty easy.
2. Timing your paddle out is crucial. What I normally do is wait on the beach for the biggest set, and then jump in the shorey as the biggest wave of that set breaks. That way you get the suck out from all that water running out off the beach pulling you out to the line-up.
3. La Graviere jacks out of really deep water before it hits the sandbar. Because of that and because it makes paddling easier, I’ll ride a longer board like a 6’4” up to a 6’8” even though a lot of other guys ride shorter boards. It’s not like Chopes or somewhere where it’s always in the same spot. Sometimes you need to move quickly sideways, the peak could be a few yards either side of you and you need to get there fast. With a bigger board I like to be mobile, to be a sailor.
4. Don’t drop in on the boys, and don’t expect to get the bombs. Just like everywhere else, there’s a tight crew of locals who live right here and surf the place really well. When we go to places like Mundaka for example, all the boys there get all the bombs and do laps back to the peak, and it’s the same here for us as it is everywhere else.