Gambia

Where to surf in Gambia

This sliver of West Africa was created when the British fired a cannonball from the Gambia River and drew a wiggly border to match the snaking river at the distance the cannonball landed. This action effectively splintered Senegal in two, and while the country is only 25- 50km wide, it follows the river inland for 480km, making it a long way round for Senegalese looking to avoid Gambian taxes! It's the smallest mainland African country, roughly equivalent to the island of Jamaica or the county of Yorkshire in the UK.

The Gambia receives less swell than its neighbour Senegal and suffers from gently shelving beaches with mainly mushy close-outs. The Gambia river has long deposited sand and sediments on either side of the rivermouth, silting up the coast and stealing power from the swell.

Beaches on the south side of the river like Cape Point and Bakau tend to pull in more swell from the deeper water, but there are few, if any good setups. Most tourists will end up surfing the Fajara and Senegambia beaches, but further south there are some headlands with flawed pointbreaks that rely heavily on the sand distribution and a big NW swell. Check How Ba, Bator Sateh, Gunjur and down towards Kartong, where some soft, rock-anchored righthanders break off the headlands. The end of the road brings you to a SW-facing bay where the ever-shifting sands could on rare occasions, line up some long rights.