Morocco’s New Wave
The surf is up on Morocco’s Atlantic coast thanks to new sustainable tourism and energy initiatives
Morocco’s 3500km North African coast is where the Atlantic trade winds originate. Hot air over the equator rises towards the cold North Pole and as the earth rotates beneath the air mass sinks into a heat-induced low over the Sahara. These winds are perpetual and constant and represent the biggest wind energy movement in the world.
Merchants, adventurers and sardine fishermen have been navigating the swells off this wind-whipped coastline for centuries. Now it is surfers who flock to the waves of Taghazout, Tamraght and Imsouane between Essaouira and Agadir. Since the 1960s, the country’s surf scene has grown steadily. Now there are over 100 camps and schools and 95 named breaks, as well as top riders such as Olympic competitor Ramzi Boukhiam and five-times National Champion, Maryam el Gardoum, who runs the country’s first female-led surf school, Dihya.
Lily O’Hara is a co-founder of Surf Maroc, the country’s leading surf and yoga centre. “When we first opened in 2003, Taghazout was a little fishing village with rough roads and few facilities,” she says. “Now there are cycle lanes all the way to Tamraght, skateboarding parks, fibre-optic cable, the beaches are spotless and we’re introducing e-bikes to our properties.”
They’re also working on a new project in the Taghazout Bay Resort, a billion-dollar development which will include nine new hotels, holiday residences and world-class sport and leisure facilities. Luxury hotels such as the Fairmont Taghazout Bay and Hyatt Place have already opened, the latter with a world-class 18-hole golf course designed by Kyle Phillips.
A focus on environmental and social issues sits at the core of Morocco’s tourism strategy. The hope is that Agadir and the Taghazout Bay Resort will be linked to the vast wind farms further south. The continent’s largest is at Tarfaya and more are planned in Laâyoune and Dakhla. The latter has the country’s highest wind potential of 330-462W/m2 and is a cult destination for in-the-know kitesurfers who fly across a blue lagoon favoured by dolphins and flamingos.
Surfing and luxury leisure resorts aren’t the only key indicators for Morocco’s coastal tourism growth. Culture looms large, too. With a history that includes the native Amazigh as well as Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Andalucians, Portuguese, French, Spanish, English and one of the oldest Jewish communities outside of the Holy Land, this southwestern seaboard has long been a porous border between Africa and the outside world.
Essaouira – Morocco’s most beloved seaside town – was the principal port during the 18th and 19th centuries. Built in the mid-1700s on the orders of Sultan Mohamed Ben Abdellah, it was originally called Souira (‘the small fortress’) but it soon became Es-Saouira (‘the beautifully designed’) thanks to the handsome kasbah architecture of Théodore Cornut, who built the fortifications of Roussillon and St Malo. Renovations totalling $32 million are almost complete and have resulted in the restoration of the atmospheric Skala port, the Portuguese church, Shrib Atay Square and Beit Dakira, ‘The House of Memory’.
Now a museum and cultural centre, Beit Dakira was the home of Simon Attia, a wealthy Jewish trader who was known as the ‘Merchant to the Sultan’. He died on a Saharan mission in 1882 and his wife created a synagogue in their house in his memory. It was the most beautiful among Essaouira’s 47 synagogues when the city had a majority Jewish population and it is now an essential stop on tours that brought nearly 80,000 Jewish pilgrims to the Kingdom in 2022. The synagogue along with other Jewish heritage sites are mapped by the Diarna geo-museum.
André Azoulay, King Mohammed VI's Senior Counsellor and advocate for Moroccan Jewish culture and heritage, was present at Beit Dakira’s 2019 opening. While Azoulay has an extensive economic and social government portfolio, as a Souiri Jew he is a passionate about his home town’s unique cultural heritage. His Essaouira-Mogador Association has transformed the ‘Wind City’ from a quiet seaside town on the hippie trail into a cultural force supporting world-class events, scholarly research, conferences, interfaith Shabbat dinners and 17 music festivals, including the renowned Gnaoua World Music Festival.
The latter celebrates Gnaoua, Morocco’s hybrid African-Sufi soul music, a spiritually inspired artform of guembri masters backed by troupes of acrobats, drummers, castanet-shakers and dancers. “Twenty-five years ago, when I started out, there were maybe three cassettes of Gnaoua,” says maalem (master) Rabii Harnoune. “In 20 years, the festival has totally transformed things. Now people come from all over the world to experience Gnaoua. You can even find guembri videos on Youtube.”
“Gnaoua has many new fans now,” Rabii continues, “and new mixes are being created.” Recently he’s been collaborating with V.B. Kühl on an electro-gnaoua album, a bridge between the ancient traditions and new. Like Kühl, international jazz, reggae, blues and funk musicians come to the festival to play with masters like Harnoune, vibing with the propulsive melodies and syncopated rhythms of the Gnaoua wave as it builds to its crescendo. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever experienced.
