Medusa Day

Off to the Atlantic today. Deciding which beach to go to is always a problem with our family. I say family - it's actually the three families (Lauren, Cathou and Vero, the three sisters). Sometimes it's the Dune du Pilat, Petit Nice used to be popular, but the sand isn't pure there anymore, so we go to Plage le grand Crohot. Don't ask me what it means - I don't know!

Anyway, a trip to the beach with a French family invariably means a grand picnic too, with much cake baking and preparation before you can get out the door. Then when you arrive, there is the grab the picnic table game and finally we get to eat. There were about twenty of us, so al the car boots seemed to be full of food and drink. Then comes the trudging walk over the dunes in blazing sun and carrying more luggage than Scott took on his expedition. At last we're at the beach and it's apparent immediately that the Atlantic isn't playing ball today. The waves are enormous - maybe 3 or 4 metres just before they hit the beach. Normally these waves are the reserve of Lacanau a little further up the coast where they hold the surfing championships each year.

There was no real swimming or bathing possible, but we still had loads of fun in the water. Anyone daring to dip their feet in the sea was destined to then be sucked down the beach and into the water. If you were fool enough to go in up to the thighs, a tons of water would batter you into the sand every few seconds, sometimes turning you upside down and removing your trunks into the bargain. If you feel really brave, the thing to do is go just beyond this and float up to the top of the waves, to just before they break and you can watch the water pounce on the thigh-high fools.

This may seem the amusing thing to do, but once up there, you realise that if you don?t swim towards the shore after each wave breaks, the sea will eat you for dinner as you get sucked oceanward. Your only hope is that you get tossed the 15 feet down into the crashing wave, keep you trunks / bikini etc about your person and are rolled up the beach with the arriving wave, keep enough breath in your lungs to hang on for dear life and escape the safety of the sand before the next wave.

I took this pic with my phone just before we left. The seas had quietened down a lot by then, but they had closed the beach for bathing as the Medusa had arrived. These jelly-fish seem to come in shoals and sting anything they come into contact with. Capucine was unlucky and was stung before the lifeguards noticed the invasion. She was OK though.