September 2023 (ROTM #177) Plage de la Lette Blanche, France

France has an amazing coastline. In fact, it has several coastlines if you include both the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea coasts. While the Mediterranean coast is not known for it’s surf, the south-west Atlantic coast certainly is as it receives consistent swell and is a surfing mecca. Surf, wine, cheese and baguettes. It’s a special place. The beaches are also beautiful as you can see from this picture of Lette Blanche Beach or ‘Plage de la Lette Blanche’ in the Vielle-Saint Gerons region, about halfway between Biscarosse and Biarritz if you know your south-west Atlantic coast.

There’s massive dunes, big wide beaches and big, big rip currents, which are influenced in size by a combination of the swell waves and larger tide range. There are multiple channelised rip currents in this picture - just look at the dark gaps between the areas of whitewater and sandbars. The rips are part of what coastal scientists would call a ‘Transverse Bar and Rip’ beach, which is a type of beach characterised by a series of welded sand bars and rip channels. On this day the rip channels occur about every 150 metres or so down the beach.

This picture is courtesy of Christian Vigna who was filming the beach with a drone as part of an international rip current safety documentary produced by Jason Markland and Steve and Erin Kudzius that will be coming out later in the year. Stay tuned for more information about that!

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