March 2011 (ROTM#27) Bidart, France

This picture was sent to me by Alexis Emanuel who has sent me some amazing pictures of rip currents from France. This one is on a beach at Bidart in the Basque region of France, near Biarritz and not far from Spain - a great surfing coastline.

The main rip in the photo is the big dark gap towards the bottom right. The waves are obviously pretty big and high-energy rips like this often tend to pop up and disappear from time to time as wave sets come and go. I guess you could call it a high-energy flash rip. It's location also looks to be influenced by the headland and the seawall constructed out of rocks.

Big surf and rip on the French Basque coast