Visit to Wesh windsurft park - Leucate

On our family drive back to France from Barcelona, we passed by Leucate. This windsurfing town, famous for its windsurfing speed strip now boasts the first windsurfing rail park. I managed to convince the family to make a slight detour so we could visit.

It also turned out to be windy so I was super stoked that I might get to sail. On our way to Leucate, we drove by several beaches jammed with windsurfers, kiters and learn to sail operations. We also saw a few well stocked windsurfing shops.

When we finally got to location of the Wesh centre, I was excited to find a fully stocked windsurfing rental operation. I quickly got a wetsuit, harness, 5.8 and 100l Naish concept board, and headed out to the water.

My kids hung out in the car playing video games and my wife chatted with many of the French windsurfers at the beach hut.

I sailed for 2 hours and then started feeling guilty about leaving the family on the beach. It was the first time in months I'd abandoned them, so they readily forgave me when they saw the size of the smile on my face.

My loving family captured a duck jibe from shore

Unfortunately the ramp and rail were not set up. In fact the ramp looked to have taken a beating over the winter. I'm not sure I would have tried it anyway. I did do a bunch of nice upwind 360s in the straps and got some downwind 360s as well.

The Wesh centre ramp

The location is a nice protected bay, where the Tramontine wind comes out to the sea. It felt a lot like the walk down to Doug's in the Gorge, but with a Bonaire waist deep area and very small chop. The warm weather, good vibes, muddy water, dry hills, parking lot full of RVs, windsurfing gear trailers and seeing the French TGV trains going across the other side of the bay probably were some of the many things that reminded me of being at the Columbia River Gorge. 

The path looks like the one to Doug's

I enjoyed sharing my copy of Windsurfing Mag with them. I happened to have the "Ripping up Rails in France" issue, so I left it with the Wesh crew. That turned out to be very handy and good karma, as then next day we realized that my wife left her ID at the cash. Luckily they had our postal address on the magazine cover and could mail it to us!

All the facilities are right on shore

It is very cool that in France there are so many windsurfing rental shops right on the beaches.

A great session!