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Phelps Comes to Morocco
Essaouira, Morocco
March, 2005
”No one ever comes and visits you in Morocco,” Captain Christoph used to tell me. “Sometimes Europeans you have met abroad, sometimes expats from Paris, but never someone From America.”
Christoph was generally right about this statement. I have been telling people in the states for 5 years how wonderful Morocco is, but no one ever came. Until this year.
One of my oldest friends, Dave Phelps, contacted me in December and told me that he was coming to visit me in Essaouira to have a surf holiday. I told him sure, come anytime in March. I was surprised when he emailed me in January and said he actually had a ticket for March 6 – 19. People often say they are going to come, but this was the first time someone actually had a ticket. I was stoked, this is a great time on year in Southern Morocco and I Couldn’t wait to show him around. We had had a great winter of surf so I was hoping for the best.
Directions are easy to Essaouira, fly to Marrakesh, then take 2 ½ hours from the airport to the coast. That’s it. I could have rented a car and picked him up, but I wanted him to experience Morocco how I did for the first time. It was magical riding through the dessert in the middle of the night, stars shining, some brewskis for the ride, thinking, “I wonder if this guy is taking me to Essaouira of out somewhere in the dessert to kill me…”
But really, it is cool doing it on your own and I wanted him to get that experience. He was to arrive at the airport at 10:30PM, so I figured that he would arrive in Essaouira around 1:30PM.
I was staying on the roof of the hotel Beau Rivage and Dave had directions on how to walk there from the taxi. Anita, the Captain’s widow, went out on the terrace with beer and wine around 1:00AM and drank until 3:00AM waiting for him to arrive. At that point she went down to her room for bed and I stayed up until 4:00AM and no Dave. Oh well, what could I I do? Where the hell was Phelpsy?
The next morning there was a knock on my door at 7:00AM. It had to be Phelps.
“Dude, I can’t believe I’m finally here!” he exclaimed as he entered.
I asked him what happened and why he was so late. Typical airline thing, they changed his flight, he arrived late and they didn´t have his surfboard or suitcase. He wasn’t sure what to do. He stayed in the airport for most of the night chatting with and English guy and that finally, at around 5:00AM he decided to take a taxi.
It took us two days of calls and visits to Royal Air Moroc with no results until finally we both went to the Airport to collect his things. Everything was cool after that. Dave liked Essaouira, we had some nice surf and we had a chance to wander around the town.
Dave was really lucky in that the whole time he was here, for almost two weeks, we had great surf everyday. We spent our first few days surfing in Essaouira, and at the end of the week, just when the swell was biggest, we hired a car and went south to Sidi Ifni.
We left in the morning a tried to find a spot to go out before Agadir, but everything was maxed out. The swell was probably about 8-10 feet in most places. We couldn’t find anything so we continued all the way down to Sidi Ifni which is about a 6 hour ride from Essaouira.
We arrived too late to surf but it was still pounding so we were sure to surf in the morning. I knew about some hotels and we found a great hotel right on the beach in front of the surf spots. It was off season so the place was empty. Our room had a window overlooking the break. It was really cool.
That night we has dinner at a tapis place and the guy who ran it told us about all the breaks in town. He also told us that it would be best around 12:00PM at high tide. We were really excited for the surf the next day.
We were up early and the sets were rolling. We ate some snacks and waited for the tide to roll in. There was a great left rolling just outside the window and a right to the right of that. I was antsy. By 11:00 we couldn’t wait any longer. The wave was great.
It took Dave a few waves to get used to the backside on my big 8 foot fun board, but soon enough he mastered his rail grab and was making the sections no problem. I was having a great time on Phelps’s 6’4” tri-fin., probably my best surf day all winter. I was having so much fun that I was in the water for about 4 hours until I started going over the falls because I was so Tired. “I saw your downfall,” Phelps told me. He was watching from the roof of our hotel as I started to flounder.
We had some beers and watched the sunset at the beach front bar of our hotel and had a excellent dinner at the Paella place. What a really awesome day in the south.
The next day the swell had dropped, so we began to drive north again. Nothing looked good around Agadir so we drove all the way back to Essaouira and went out there. I love our beach break, always at least two feet and never a crowd.
The rest of the week we hung out in Essaouira and surfed almost every day. Funny thing about Morocco, usually when to paddle out you are alone. But within an half hour, some kids always show up in the water. It almost like they don’t know if there is surf until they see someone else surfing. This was torturing Old Phelpsy. I could only laugh and say, “That’s the way it is here.”
During the evenings we would hang with friends and also go to a great musician's house, Sadik. He is a Gnoua master who loves to party and play music with foreigners. It was good to have Dave meet the cool the Moroccan people.
Man, his trip went so fast, but it was so cool to have a homeboy come and visit. He had such a good time that he says he will come next year and bring his girlfriend, and this time I don’t doubt it!
Good Old Pheplsyyyyy!!!!!!
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