ILE AUX VACHES
I had heard a lot about this wave over the years and to be honest was a little disappointed when we first arrived. There is no view of the break from the car park and to check it out you have to follow a narrow muddy footpath to a tiny rocky island. I think the fact it was gloomy and raining did not help my first impressions! The thick blanket of cloud was not showing too much promise of breaking into sunshine and with the tide still too high to walk out onto the tiny rocky island to shoot, Jamie made the decision to grab a quick sail before the action heated up later in the day. Out on the water the sea was in a state of recovery from the previous night’s storm. The winds were turning nicely cross to cross off, but where it had been blowing onshore the previous day the Atlantic still had some cleaning up to do to make the conditions perfect.
Even so there were some chunky sets hitting the island well over mast high and totally sailable. The frustrating thing was the tide was too high to get out onto the island unless I wanted to risk wading through waist deep water with big tidal surges racing between the rocks, I think not! Jamie at least managed to sneak in an hour of sailing before the conditions and tide started to improve and for the last two hours or so of the day the break started to show its true colours.
When you witness a Traversa sailing session it makes you wonder how he doesn’t totally destroy his body. Even with his incredible timing and board skills, there are an inevitable amount of heavy wipeouts, but he always seems to somehow come out unscathed. Traversa weighs a mere 60 kilos and consequently has an amazing ability to manoeuvre his way around in offshore conditions through all the lulls and squalls of unpredictable stormy weather. Thomas sailed right through ‘til dark smashing every lip that presented itself with no remorse. He had driven 1250 km the night before from Marseille and was determined to clock up every second possible riding this epic wave.
