Day 9: Last Day in Biarritz = Huge waves

Way to go Biarritz, should have told us that the party arrives on the weekend.  Of course, the best weather of all came at the end of our trip, giving us ample sun for an awesome beach day in
Biarritz.  On top of that, we were less alienated today because many more English-speaking people had arrived.  We didn’t talk to many of them, but it was still good to know that we weren’t the only ones who didn’t speak French.

Dad, Nick and Lucas left in the morning to go hiking in the Pyrenees Mountains without me due to a miscommunication.  Apparently they thought I had no interest in going hiking with them, so I got to spend a day on the beach with Mom instead.  The difference between today’s beach and yesterday’s beach was simple – the waves were huge today due to high tide. 

Naturally, I seized the challenge of fighting the ferocious undertow with a side of head-slamming waves.  I must have looked ridiculous running out with the boogie board into the ocean, only to be spit back out onto the shore, completely confused as to what had just happened.  I had no idea how the surfers were able to get out as far in the ocean as they did because every time you moved out a few feet, the monstrous waves would throw you back another 10.  All of this fighting the waves with a board was tiring and fruitless so I decided to just ride one wave in and call it a day on the boogie board.  Curse those huge, continuous waves!

Someone surfing the waves that I failed to get past

 Once I put the board down, I headed over to the swimming area which was essentially a big wave pool.  There were lots of people stationed a few feet out from the shore in the water being buffeted by the waves crashing onto the shore.  I ventured farther out since it was pretty shallow.  The waves were just as big as when I was attempting to boogie board only this time I could go underwater and avoid the tug of war between me and the ocean.  At one point, I made it so far out that I was unable to touch the ground anymore, which was fine – I know how to swim J. However, when I tried to return to shore, I couldn’t make any progress.  I tried swimming hard and realized that I was actually getting pulled farther out into the ocean.  I was a little afraid at this point because I was getting tired of swimming so much so I tried to ride some waves with my body.  Luckily I was able to catch a few to move me in to the point where I could touch the ground again.  I felt the tremendous undertow/riptide pulling at my feet again but I had a strong hold in the sand that allowed me to walk back in.  That was the first time that had I had ever been stuck in what seemed to be a “riptide”.

When I returned to Mom, we decided to break for lunch because she wanted to try one of their salads.  I wanted a glass of wine so we went to the same restaurant we went to the first night, the Players Bar/Restaurant.  They gave Mom a huge salad and my wine tasted like grape juice so it was overall a good time.

The beach called us back again to hang out and do the same stuff I was doing before.  Mind you, the water was still ice cold and when I came out of the water, my hands and feet were numb.  The trips into the ocean became shorter and shorter because I had no body heat left to spare.  Of course, while warming up on the beach, I saw plenty of topless women.  Very few were anything you wanted to look at but every once in a while you would see one that wasn’t so bad.  But I digress.

Mom and I returned home about an hour before Dad, Nick and Lucas got back from hiking. We shared each others’ experiences and from what I gathered, I guess I lucked out in being left behind.  They can still say they hiked it, but the experience itself didn’t sound fun.  Probably the biggest fault in their planning was bringing a small bottle of water to split between three guys.  I revise that statement: it was more a lack of planning to bring a small bottle of water for the three of them.

We went back out to the beach at low tide to try and catch more waves (yeah this day never ended apparently).  We pretty much encountered the same struggles as I did before.  There was not enough time between waves to make any progress out into the ocean, so once you were unable to touch the ground, you couldn’t make any more progress.  We saw surfers that were actually getting to go into the “tubular” waves but unfortunately us boogie boarders had no chance.  I realized later that most boogie boarders had fins on so that they could ride waves and also get around easier.  Flippers were a luxury that we did not have.

Brothers sitting out on the beach

 After some more ocean fun, we headed back to shower and change for dinner.  We were able to get out to a restaurant called Arena Café right on the coast.  It was a really fancy restaurant with relatively good prices.  I ordered some sautéed calamari for an appetizer as well as some grilled seafood assortment for dinner.  It was a dinner that was so big that even I was unable to finish all the food.  The waitress was really nice and told me I would like the grilled seafood better than my first choice because the first choice was apparently at the end of the batch of food for the night.  We also ordered wine with our meals in these huge wine glasses.  Halfway through our meal, a huge wind picked up and knocked some table umbrellas over, causing a lot of chaos and forcing us to move inside.  Right about the end of dinner, a lot of people started coming into the bar, ready to start partying in what seemed to be a really nice place.  Too bad we had to get up early the next morning.

I think Biarritz turned into a Miami Beach on the weekend nights because droves of college students started showing up all over the place.  Not that they had to be in college anyways because the drinking age is so low here.  Throughout the whole weekend, no one was ever carded, not even Lucas.  I guess the French just don’t really care about that stuff or at least don’t have problems arising from it. Before I go, here are a few things I was thinking about:

• If I ever go back to a foreign country, I will at least learn some of the language before I go. It is very frustrating seeing so many people your age and being unable to communicate with them.
• Learning to surf in a beach town would probably be a good plan seeing how there were tons of people doing it.  It can’t be that hard, can it?
• I guess it isn’t that weird to go to a topless beach, but I think a completely nude beach might be a little more uncomfortable. Not that I was uncomfortable at a topless one.
• One thing I have learned from this week is that it is probably easier and less stressful to have everything loosely planned out ahead of time rather than completely “going with the flow”