Mission Unpossible

IN EUROPEAN SURF LORE, MOROCCO HOLDS A PRETTY MAGICAL SPOT. IT IS THE LAND OF BUSTLING MARKETS, TASTY TAGINES, CAMELS AND A WHIFF OF THE ANCIENT. ROPING RIGHT POINTS READY TO BURN YOUR THIGHS WHILE THE SUN DOES ITS BEST TO SINGE YOUR MELON. WAVES LONGER THAN YOU 'VE EVER SEEN RIFL ING ALONG THE EDGE OF THE DESERT IN THE CONTINENT THAT WAS HOME TO THE VERY START OF OUR SPECIES. WE 'RE NOT ONE FOR HYPERBOLE HERE AT CARVE, BUT THERE 'S SOMETHING MYSTICAL ABOUT MOROCCO, IT 'S JUST LIKE YOU 'VE FALLEN INTO AN INDIANA JONES FILM.

- SHARPY

Well. You'd hope it is. The days of posting up at Anchors in a van and whiling away the winter in a mellow haze of barrels and dust are long gone. Taghazout is no hippy trail enclave of free love and dubious morals. It's a proper surf town these days, which must be a bit confusing for the Berber fisherfolk who have called the joint home for centuries. The only nomads you see are the digital kind sipping on chai lattes supposedly doing some work in-between yoga sessions.

Progress is no bad thing. If you want to do your van thing, there are plenty of empty points and beaches to the north where you can chill and work on your point break surfing. But if you want a decent apartment, a good burger or a new board, wetsuit, fins then Taghazout has got you covered.

It was our destination of choice when we pressed the go button on a winter trip that coincided with Storm Dennis. The points love a chunky NW swell, and we wanted to get some high-performance turn waves in the can for Markie Lascelles twin-fin film project; having already nailed the tubular footage in Scotland (as seen the last issue).

So we got some aggravatingly expensive last-minute flights (damn that half term) which saw us flying out to Agadir via Casablanca with Royal Air Maroc and back direct with easyJet.

That's the thing with a Morocco mission these days - it's supposed to be a doddle. Fly into Agadir with easyJet, grab a motor, and you're in Taghazout in an hour. If you get a cab, you can even do a bunch of epic spots around the town without a car as they're in walkable distance. So you can do a foreign mission on a real budget.

Unless you do it in the middle of a fork off big storm.