5 Photos: Quiksilver Festival Lay Days

I finally kicked the jet lag. You got a bit of my long journey in the last article I wrote (You are here: Hossegor, France) and since then I feel like I haven’t stopped. Long days hunting for waves fueled by baguettes, chocolatines and plenty of café allongé. Everyone is in high spirits just being in France and I think tomorrow will be another huge day of incredible surfing at the first day of the Inaugural Quiksilver Festival. I feel like I just got here and I’ve already witnessed so many wild sessions go down that you will likely see in a movie one day. If the forecast holds then tomorrow will be another classic day in the southwest of France.

Here are 5 of my favorite photos from the last couple of days here as I tucked myself in dreaming of more tomorrow.—Brandon Guilmette

AL CLELAND AND MIKEY WRIGHT WERE THE FIRST GUYS TO PADDLE OUT THIS DAY AT LES CULS NUS. IT WAS 6-to-8 FooT OUT THE BACK WITH SOME HUGE SECTIONS and lots of current, but the boys gave it a crack. i actually think little hughie vaughn got the wave of the session and did a pretty big punt.

The swell was pretty unruly around hossegor TODAY so a lot of the crew were going surfing down in capbreton. the waves reminded me of a really fun day in newport beach. within 15 minutes i watched NOA Deane get probably 6 waves and this was one of them. A classic.

the quiksilver store in hossegor is one of the best surf shops I’ve been inside in a while. it’s got everything you need, plus a bit of iconic surf memorabilia. This trophy is from the quiksilver and roxy pro france and has all of the past champions engraved on it. local boy jeremy flores was the last one to put his name on it in 2019. seems fitting. stoked to have the event back in france. I wonder who might add their name to it this year?

Lungi slabb came all the way from australia to be here for the quiksilver festival with a broken foot. He’s still wearing a boot, but being a taem player he still hopped on board to come get amongst it. He was down the beach this day filming the boys surfing and seemed to be having a blast doing it. Super cool grom, Super cool name.

Right when I pulled up at prevent i saw sierra kerr get this wave. i haven’t had the chance to see her surf in person in a while, and i was itching to watch this session go down in some fun, punchy wedges in capbreton. Jackson dorian, josh kerr, noa deane and sierra were all out. she did this double arm layback carve that was so sick pretty much right as i walked up.