Hauts-de-France — Cayeux-sur-Mer - Brighton to Fort-Mahon-Plage

Cayeux-sur-Mer - BrightonLe CrotoyFort-Mahon-Plage

1. 

   Cayeux-sur-Mer - Brighton

   sea · beginner ok

   Brighton is the kite beach south of Cayeux-sur-Mer, under the Brighton lighthouse (Phare de Brighton) by the hamlet of La Moliere, on the open Picardy coast at the south side of the Baie de Somme.

   intermediateadvancedlarge rigging room

   In seasonOct to Mar

   The model here carries the month's average wind rather than a count of windy days: it reaches 16.4 kt in February, the strongest month it models for this spot.

   Cayeux-sur-Mer - Brighton: the long version, the launch and the rules

   More on Cayeux-sur-Mer - Brighton

   The wind is synoptic westerly: SW, W and NW are the directions that work, west arrives side-on, north is irregular, and E/NE reportedly does as a fallback compared with Le Crotoy. October to March averages above 20.4 km/h (about 11 kt); March to October drops to about 15.7 km/h (about 8.5 kt), so the season is winter, in 6.8 C water. Tide decides the day. Around low water, roughly 1.5 to 2 hours either side, the sandbanks dry out and the water behind them goes flat and shallow, which is when the schools go out; at high tide you launch off a galet ridge into chop and small waves, better for freeride and tricks than for a first lesson, and the passages between the banks carry real current. Drive through La Molliere to the last roundabout, park at the barrier and carry everything over the pebbles. The 2026 summer kite ban covers the beach in front of the town at chemin des planches; whether it reaches the Brighton launch is unconfirmed, and no rescue arrangement for independent riders has been confirmed either. The Pointe du Hourdel to the north is a protected area with seals on the banks; stay off it.

   Getting on the water

   Drive through the hamlet of La Molliere to the last roundabout. A barrier stops cars there, so you park, carry the gear and cross the galet ridge to the sand.

   If it goes wrong

   Nothing is arranged for kiters. No lifeguard post covers the Brighton/La Molliere beach and no club watch is recorded. Sea rescue is CROSS Gris-Nez, reached on 196 from a phone or VHF channel 16 (2026).

   Rules and access

   2026: kites are banned in summer on the town beach at the chemin des planches entrance, where the parasols and the swimmers are. Riding is otherwise open except toward the protected Pointe du Hourdel.

   Everything on Cayeux-sur-Mer - Brighton

2. 

   Le Crotoy

   bay · beginner ok

   Le Crotoy is the beach on the north side of the Baie de Somme mouth, a wide shallow sandy bay that is flat to a bit choppy in a west wind.

   intermediateadvancedlarge rigging room

   In seasonall year

   The model here carries the month's average wind rather than a count of windy days: it reaches 16.4 kt in February, the strongest month it models for this spot.

   Le Crotoy: the long version, the launch and the rules

   More on Le Crotoy

   West is the direction: SW comes in onshore, NW side-shore, and both are fine. Anything with east in it is offshore and a bad idea. The bay empties at low water, so the session is built around high tide: about 2 hours of water on small coefficients, 4 hours on big ones, with coefficient 60-90 the sweet spot; above that the beach at high water is a narrow strip. North or south wind brings more current and a gustier, less regular wind. It is a good place to learn and to work on freestyle, with a gentle sandy slope and standing depth well out, and kiters generally take the right side of the water with windsurfers on the left. People ride all year; the water is 20.1 C in summer and 7.0 in winter, so it is thick neoprene for months. The bay is a national nature reserve: kites stay out of the reserve itself, keep 300 m off the seals and the roosting birds, and do not go near the fenced or buoyed areas.

   Getting on the water

   Beach launch on the north side of the Baie de Somme at Le Crotoy. Kiters tend to use the right side of the water area and windsurfers the left, and there is room for both.

   If it goes wrong

   No lifeguard post and no club watch on the north beach are recorded. Sea rescue is CROSS Gris-Nez, on 196 from a phone or VHF channel 16 (2026). On the ebb the likelier trouble is being left standing on a drying bank several hundred metres out, which is a walk rather than a call.

   Rules and access

   2026: inside the Baie de Somme nature reserve, keep 300 m from seal and bird resting or feeding areas, stay out of fenced or buoyed exclusions, keep high-sail sports including kitesurfing out of the reserve, and do not beach on purpose near the sandbanks the wildlife uses.

   Everything on Le Crotoy

3. 

   Fort-Mahon-Plage

   sea · beginner ok

   Fort-Mahon-Plage is the open-coast beach on the Picardy coast between the Baie d'Authie and the Baie de Somme, and at low tide it is immense: flat sand, more room than you can use.

   intermediateadvanced

   In seasonOct to Mar

   The model here carries the month's average wind rather than a count of windy days: it reaches 15.8 kt in February, the strongest month it models for this spot.

   Fort-Mahon-Plage: the long version, the launch and the rules

   More on Fort-Mahon-Plage

   At high tide it shrinks to a strip under the seafront and the launch gets tight. The wind is synoptic, SSW to NW, with W to NW the main setup at side to side-onshore; October to March is the season and the rest of the year is lighter, and the historic station average of 9 kt from WSW with 14 kt gusts for 2016-2018 tells you to pick your days rather than turn up. The water is open sea, choppy to rough, with real waves once swell gets into the bay, 18 C in summer and 8 C in winter, so it is a full suit in every month. Currents run on both the rising and the falling tide. Beginners can learn here with the school on the flat low-tide sand; for everyone else it is a long-reach freeride and big-air beach with space to burn. It is a family resort in July and August, and no municipal kite-zone order or summer hours have been confirmed, so ask before you rig in front of the town.

   Getting on the water

   Large sandy beach with the most room at low tide, but the seafront itself is closed to kites: the launch has to be outside the banned stretch, north of the nautical base or south of the last building on rue des Vagues, toward Quend.

   If it goes wrong

   No kite-specific rescue. The town keeps a permanent SNSM station and a seasonal lifeguard post whose season runs weekends from late April to 31 May, 11:00 to 18:00; daily in June, 11:00 to 18:00; daily in July and August, 11:00 to 19:00; daily the first week of September, then weekends to the end of September, weather permitting. The post answers on 03 22 31 63 22. At sea it is the CROSS at Cap Gris-Nez, 03 21 87 21 87, or 196 from any phone.

   Room to rig

   large at low tide; reduced at high tide

   Rules and access

   2007, and still carried on the town's list of permanent orders: kite-towed board sports are banned on the beach of Fort-Mahon-Plage and inside the 300 m band, from the boat park of the nautical base at the north end — the crossing channel included — down to the last building on rue des Vagues at the south end. Only rescue, police and surveillance craft are exempt. The 2022 buoyage plan draws the same beach: a 300 m supervised bathing box in front of the town running 600 m out, a 200 m buffer zone where nothing at all is allowed, and a 200 m crossing channel by the nautical base signed for sailing boats, windsurf and motorboats at 5 knots, with no kite permitted anywhere on the plan. 2023, renewed every year: from 1 March to 31 August the northern beach, from the nautical base to the pointe de Routhiauville, is regulated to protect nesting ringed plover — a staked and signed zone closed to walkers and dogs, dogs on the lead over the rest of that stretch. Between the two, the legal ground for a kite is outside the banned frontage, and in spring and summer the northern side is squeezed by the bird zone. Ask locally before rigging.

   Everything on Fort-Mahon-Plage

• No major airport in the immediate area; Paris is the realistic air/rail hub for the region

Kite bag rules for your airline

Type the carrier you are flying: what it charges for a kite bag, and the year of the policy that says so.

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Every carrier, with limits and what riders report at the counter →

1. Le Crotoy is a tide window, not a beach: two to four hours around high water depending on the coefficient, and if you misread it you sit on the sand watching the sea take hours to come back.

   consensus×3 riders

2. Le Crotoy is the forgiving one in the bay: shallow for hundreds of metres, mostly flat with some chop at the top of the tide, and the place people fall back to when it is blowing too hard everywhere else.

   consensus×3 riders

3. Cayeux and its Brighton end are the mirror image - a low-tide spot with flat pools that appear as the water drops, big pebbles and a shore break, and the standing advice for anyone still learning is to go somewhere else.

   consensus×3 riders

4. The land side has more rules than the water: paid parking at Le Crotoy enforced by wardens who hand out tickets, no riding in front of the built seafront and the sea wall, and a hard line at the yellow buoys running from the Pointe de la Maye to the Hourdel that marks the nature reserve.

   consensus×3 riders

5. The current is what catches people out here, not the wind. It runs hard in an estuary, it matters most on the ebb, and once the wind goes side it pushes you out of the bay while the water is draining.

   majority×2 riders

6. Le Crotoy is a victim of its own reputation - packed at weekends, and because the beach shrinks at high tide everyone ends up launching at the same time in the same strip.

   majority×2 riders

7. Fort-Mahon is the wide-open end of this stretch - enormous at low water, west to north-west side-onshore, choppy rather than flat - but it carries no rescue cover and gets busy enough in season that the zones and hours are taken seriously.

   majority×2 riders

• Jules Verne lived in Le Crotoy for nearly eight years in a house called 'La Solitude' and wrote parts of Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers there; Jeanne d'Arc was also held at Le Crotoy's castle in late 1430 before her trial in Rouen.
• Victor Hugo visited Cayeux-sur-Mer in 1837 and described it as 'buried in sands in a wild landscape'; its wooden beach-cabin boardwalk is billed locally as the longest in Europe.
• Every seafront villa in Fort-Mahon-Plage was dynamited by German forces in the Second World War; the town was later awarded the Croix de guerre 1939–1945 in 1948.

What we could not settle. Ride here? These are the gaps worth filling.

• Is 'Hauts-de-France — Cayeux-sur-Mer - Brighton to Fort-Mahon-Plage' the name riders actually use for this area?
• What do a bed and a day out cost around Cayeux-sur-Mer in 2026?
• Is Beauvais or Lille the nearer airport for Cayeux-sur-Mer, and how long is the drive?
• Is Cayeux-sur-Mer easy to work from and to visit alone?