The History of Surfing in Monta

In 1963, Marcel Monge was keen on swimming along the ocean coast (at Lacanau and then at Montalivet). He tried his hand at surfing. The sport was all the rage on the west coast of the USA and was beginning to make its mark on the Basque Coast.

Marcel built himself a board so he could ride the waves. His attempts weren’t very successful, but he then learnt that there were two or three prototypes in Biarritz and that they actually worked. He headed there straight away and met the famous de Rosnay family, Jo Moraitz and Barland senior, the maker of ‘boards’, as they were called at the time. ‘I bought two of them and got some advice.’ The adventure began. Each board was 3.30 metres long and weighed 15 kilos. “My early days were dreadful. There was always something wrong: either the waves, or I’d fall behind because I lacked power, or I’d stand up too far back – in short, it was a nightmare!”

Not from the Médoc, a bit of an outsider, Marcel was the beach’s main attraction. “He’s going to drown,” the locals thought. But through sheer determination, it worked out. “I was putting on my own little show in the small and big waves. Youngsters like Johny Sanchez, Jean-Jacques Quillac, Joe Petit, Sylvain Burzacchi… followed my lead. Things were buzzing along the seafront near the old tourist office.”

It was then that André Peyruse, the mayor at the time, asked Marcel Monge to set up an organisation. This marked the birth of the resort’s surfing culture, with the creation of a clubhouse for the surfers. In 1971, the first Montalivet Surf Club was founded. “Very quickly, other young people joined us to learn this new board sport. We were the first club in France with such a high proportion of young women.”

It wasn’t long before the good results started coming in. Marcel Monge and his daughter Cathy climbed the podium steps (French champions at Lacanau, several podium finishes in Europe, and participation in several world championships). It was later that the Montalivet Surf Club, in agreement with both presidents, merged with Kokoloko to form the Montalivet Kokoloko Surf Club…which now has nearly 300 members.