Approximately 50 years ago, surfers first started riding the waves in the French Antilles…
There are many advantages to surfing in the Caribbean: warm crystal-clear water, reef breaks continually creating waves, and little, if no, difference between low tide and high tide. Which means it was not by chance that surfers discovered this new Eldorado for their sport, far from its birthplace in Polynesia. Three pioneers—Philippe Cazé, David Blanchard, and Antoine Claverie—recall the origins of this celebrated sport in Guadeloupe, Saint Barthélemy, and Martinique.
A SMALL HAVEN FOR INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS ~ He was born in Morocco and went to school in Biarritz at a time when the first French surfers conquered the waves in this Basque region; he left to try his luck in Salvador, finally landing in Guadeloupe: Philippe Cazé is “the first to have to gone in the water” and surfed the waves of the Antilles archipelago in the 70’s. “I brought two boards over from Puerto Rico… and two or three others from Biarritz—including a Barland Rott at that time—and I got started like that,” he notes. “With François de Corlieu and Patrick Abadie, we first surfed for a long time at Petit-Havre …, before expanding to the entire north coast: Anse à la Gourde, Le Moule, Anse Bertrand, Port-Louis… We surfed for about 10 years without seeing another person as it were,” recalls the former coach. “It wasn’t until a handful of additional surfers arrived in the 80’s that the precursor to a formal structure for surfing in Guadeloupe was created in 1985, the Karukera Surf Club in Le Moule and the Reefer Surf Club in Saint Barthélemy. “With these two clubs, we were able to create the Guadeloupe Surf Committee,” adds Philippe Cazé, who served as vice president of the French Surfing Federation for three terms, under the direction of Jean Saint-Jean then Alain Farthouat.
In the 90’s, winning a first title as champion of France, propelled Guadeloupe onto the professional circuit and marked the beginning of a long series of trophies and champions (Adam, Boyer, Benghozi, de Corlieu, Frager… to name just a few). “Then we headed to the Pan-Americans, which took place every two years… each time I composed a team with at least two surfers from Saint Barth…”
LORIENT, ST. BARTS, F.W.I. ~ “I remember a group of Americans who, I think, were sailing around the world. They stopped in Saint Barth and went surfing,” reports David Blanchard. In the 80’s, and for the first time, surf fever hit the island. On the beach in Lorient, fascinated by the wave-tamers come from afar, Jules and André Brin discovered their future passion. Making friends with the surfers, the two brothers inherited a pair of boards: that was the beginning of riding the waves in Saint Barthélemy.
Promoted by the brothers Brin at first, then by the coach and surfboard shaper Éric Chaumont, the sport grew little-by-little in Saint Barthélemy. In the early 2000’s, David Blanchard, one of the first kids on the island to surf back then, took over the reins of the red, yellow, and green surf shack in Lorient, the Reefer Surf Club, and helped the island climb the ranks in international competitions. “I trained a young surfer by the name of Dimitri Ouvré, who, at 14 or 15, started training in France … before becoming the double French champion, champion of Europe, and world champion with the national team.”
And that was just the beginning, according to David Blanchard, who continued to train more French champions from Saint Barth, including, among others, Nina Reynal, world champion Tessa Thyssen, and rising stars Thomas and Noé Lédée, having held vice champions of France and Europe titles, and first cousins once removed to the legendary Mario Lédée, the first surfier from Saint Barth to win the champion of France title in 1997.
ON SURFERS’ BEACH ~ In 1979, Antoine Claverie, still a student, landed in Martinique. Riding his board for the first time in Le Lorrain, the surfer made a surprising discovery: “I came across some kids surfing on plywood (called a “tott”), which was really crazy,” he reveals. “One or two years later, we were still only seven or eight surfers when we met some kids from the neighborhood of Beauséjour, who were already surfing and at a pretty good level.” Gilles Gautry, Denis M. Desvignes, Danny G. de Viremont, etc… the group got bigger and met regularly at what they called Surfers’ Beach (Anse Bonneville). It was several years after Philippe Cazé, arrived from Guadeloupe and added this little group to increase the level of competition in the French West Indies. “Then we said it was time to create a committee in Martinique. With Valérie Brasset, François Delanne, and Bruno Lehoux, we founded the Madinina Surf Club in La Trinité, then with the guys in Basse-Pointe another club, and a third in Grand-Rivière… and we were able to be in communication with the FFS,” continues the first president of the Martinique Surf Committee. It was circa 1998 that a certain big-wave surfer, Christophe Hans Mouginot, joined the tribe to create the first surfing school on the island and structure the committee’s training sessions. The committee became a league, and Martinique was on the way to creating its own list of champions, such as Jérémy Brasset, Justin Delanne, Xavier Canesson, Emma Jacob, and many others…
SURFING HAS AN ANCESTOR IN MARTINIQUE: THE BWA FLO, A TECHNIQUE PRACTICED BY THE AMERINDIANS AND EMPLOYED AS OF THE 19TH CENTURY BY ISLAND RESIDENTS TO CARRY GOODS FROM BOATS ANCHORED OFF SHORE. USING A TREE TRUNK LIKE A LARGE BODYBOARD, GRIPPING ONTO STRAPS AND BRAVING THE SWELLS, THE BWA FLO WAS LATER UTILIZED BY FISHERMEN BEFORE BECOMING A SPORT, WHICH CONTINUES TO EXIST PRIMARILY IN GRAND-RIVIÈRE AND BASSE-POINTE.
Photographies par Hugo Martin, surfeur et photographe sportif
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Autor : Olivier Aussedat
