Belharra, France.

This video was shot last friday at Belharra (outside Saint Jean de Luz, France). Enjoy.

http://www.surf-report.com/fr/new/page-1058-belharra…++6m+et+plus.html

That looks fun. It also looks like the consequences aren’t so bad if things go south. Are you in the video?

What are you guys riding?

Quote:
This video was shot last friday at Belharra (outside Saint Jean de Luz, France). Enjoy.

http://www.surf-report.com/fr/new/page-1058-belharra…++6m+et+plus.html

Hats off to the guy who paddled in!

When I lived in France: 1991 - 1994 I would surf a place called Monalivet - “Le Gurp”

In the mid winter is would be macking and no one out? I loved surfing in France.

You guy’s have such good surf. Even Quiberion was good!

OK, guys, answering all of you:

-Belharra works once or twice a year on mega-swells. I wouldn’t exactly call it “fun”, although on that precise day, it appears to have been rather “sloppy”. but we have seen it much more hollow and terrifying in the past.

-No, i’m not in the video. Never was, never will be. Too old for that kind of stuff…

-Yeah, hats off to the guy who paddled in (on a 12’6"). Those are ocean waves, almost a mile off shore. If I were not a moderator, I’d say that this wave might be a good challenge for a certain wooden 13 footer…

Hey balsa, I was in france last summer (mid-late september) and I believe that I’ve seen belharra working. You could see it from the coast, really impressive. We where searching for a spot that day because hossegor was closing out, in biarittz they where towing-in :|, in saint jean we where just too late to surf the pointbreak (tide coming up) and hendaye was too crowded (never seen something crowded like that, they where even surfing the dike). Eventually we surfed in capbreton.

We’ve seen avalanches getting big swell too. By the way, guetary is nice ;)!

About the 12’6" gun used that day (I wasn’t there either) :

http://moodsofthebay.blogspot.com/2009/01/amazing-day.html

Thanks for the link PierreB ;-).

In the video -shot when the tide was way too high and the big sets were not happening anymore- you’ll see (min 2.30 i think) that one rider does tow-ins the Puerto way… that is jumping from the jetski right at the peak of the wave. Don’t be fooled, him and the other 2 paddle in surfers paddled into some really big sets without the help of jets earlier on. They had to use this Puerto technique later when the waves would hardly break at all.

And for those who think those waves were soft, ask Pilou (French big wave charger) who suffered a horrible beating that almost knocked him out.

I’ve read assumptions about this session based on the video only in another forum and i just want to clarify the the situation before they start getting paranoid. What happened that day was a first: Belharra was surfed without the help of the jet skis by some of the best big wave chargers from France (Yann Kazadjan and Pilou) and the Basque Country (Axi Muniain).

Why -in spite of this fact- there were 7 or 8 tow-in teams in the water that insisted on towing in totally escapes me.

Cheers!

NiegÃ

Hola Niega, let those people who never paddled out there speak (me included). Some people just can’t help putting down other’s achievements. It did take a monster bunch of “cojones” to be out there that day. Cheers.

Salut Balsa. I totally agree with you.

Btw, check here the video clip of the very first wave Axi Muniain paddled into at Belharra on his leaded 12’6’’ on that Friday the 16th:

http://www.310project.com/video.html

I hope that the guys from shaperoom.net also see it and stop saying nonsense.

Cheers,

Niegà

I’m sure that someone will find a way to comment on the wave saying that it’s not that big or not that hairy, but hat’s off in my book. I’m not much of a big wave guy myself, and have a lot of respect for those who will paddle into a wave of that size anywhere.