Is Mundaka Dead?

Andy Irons - Billabong Mundaka 2004
Photo ASPWorldTOur / Tostee

One of the world’s best left-hand sandbars has mysteriously vanished. Will the sand return?

The winter of 2004/2005 was as strange along the farthest recesses of the Bay of Biscay as it was weird in California. But in Spain the problem wasn’t so much too much rain as it was lack of swell. Beginning in January, the fabled left-hand sandbar which breaks along the river mouth at Mundaka began to suck -- from lack of swell, but also from another phenomenon that no one there had ever seen. As winter faded to spring, local Spanish surfers and disappointed travelers were left standing along the atalaya overlooking the left sandbar at Mundaka scratching their heads: “Where’s the beach?”

Mysteriously and tragically, the sandbar that created one of the best sand-bottom lefthanders in the world had just disappeared.

Some say the disappearing sandbar was caused by the dredging of a channel at a shipyard four kilometers from Mundaka. The local Basque government is taking the situation seriously, understanding the importance of Mundaka and surf tourism to Spain’s global reputation and the local economy. “We live from tourism,” hotel worker Maria Rosario Alkorta was quoted in a short news piece on the Internet. “In the summer more than 10,000 surfers gather here. If they don't come we'll run into difficulties.”

Craig Sage was quoted in the same Internet piece: “Surfing tourism is essential for this place, but there is something more. Mundaka is the symbol for surfing in Europe. If we lose it, it will be like losing part of our soul.”

If Sherlock Holmes surfed, he would be all over this: The Case of the Disappeared Sandbar. A nullified Mundaka is not a good thing for the local or the global surf scene. It’s as if all of a sudden, over the course of four months, Malibu just stopped breaking, or the Superbank went kaput. The mystery has yet to be solved and the future of Mundaka is still in doubt.

Excerpt from SurfMag.com Newsletter.

Also read: Billabong Pro Mundaka Off for 2005