Caños de Meca

The Levante in Tarifa is once again blasting at a stubborn 20 to 45 knots today. There really isn’t a single kiter out on 12 kilometres of beach. Even the big air pro riders in the Balneario are taking a break today. We drive to Getares, the next kiteable beach in the direction of Algeciras. Just 16 kilometres from Tarifa as the crow flies, we once again find ourselves on another planet in terms of wind. A light kiteboarder is bobbing through small waves in just under 12 knots on his 13.

We head back to Tarifa and check the wind at Valdevaqueros. It doesn’t actually feel all that strong and bucking. But that’s typical. The nasty wind doesn’t come all the way down to the beach, especially on the first Levante day. It only bucks a few metres further up – and then extremely. Even Liam Whaley advises us to move on today.

So we do. Caños de Meca is about an hour’s drive north-west of Tarifa on the Atlantic. I had known about it for a long time. But anyone who drives 2,800 km across Europe seems to run out of steam in the last few metres. Today, my friend is the driver and I am very grateful for that.

The spot in Caños de Meca is near the lighthouse at the end of the tarmac road. You can park for three euros behind the last bar. The car park is packed. There are around 50 kiters in the water and a few more on land. This means that the small bay is already close to its maximum capacity.

We set up immediately, me on the 10 XR and my friend on the 9 Bandit. The next one and a half hours are exactly the kind of kite sessions that people like to travel across Europe for. Even if it’s the only one of its kind in a whole month. The Levante is at a wonderfully laminar 18 to 25 knots. No comparison to bull riding in Tarifa. I go out over a fairly small but pithy shorebreak.

The bay of Caños de Meca offers super varied waves. The beach runs out flat in the far west. The waves here form cosy little kickers in which a few waveboarders cruise. At Levante, you can use them well in both directions, from the front and from behind. In front of the lighthouse, a few rocks peek out of the wave troughs at low tide – but the waves over the reef are also much more powerful than the small ones on the beach.

In the centre of the bay, the waves are up to one and a half metres high today and come from different directions. With just under 50 kiters, it gets pretty crowded in the bay. There are no beginners here – but behind the waves, kiters on a collision course keep popping up unexpectedly. Everyone pays attention, everyone is considerate. But Caños de Meca is definitely not a beginner’s spot in today’s conditions.

After a while, I notice a few waveboard kiters who always seem to be heading for the same spots in the middle of nowhere. Normally they either ride the big waves out on the reef – or the smaller waves directly in front of the beach.

Here in Caños de Meca, however, the best and biggest wave by far is about halfway between the two starting spots 50 metres out. There are always some nice Klabautermänner of a good two metres here today. They also break from time to time further out.

I’ve found my sweet spot and keep shooting myself up to eight metres into the sky. The sun sends one last ray through the dark storm clouds. The fun knows no bounds…