MapSenegalSomoneSomoneSomone

Somone

Thiès Region · Somone · Département de M'bour

also known as La Somone, Somone lagune, Lagune de Somone

Part of Somone →

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

lagoonbeginner-friendlylow crowds

On this page

The spot
Wind
Forecast
Month by month
Water
Level
The scene
Launch
Schools
Tips
Getting there
Photos
FAQ

Riding essentials

Season

Nov–May

Months riders and schools name

How windy

11-12 kt

Character: mixed

Room to launch

room to launch not rated

access rules on record, below

Water

lagoon

28.4 °C in summer

Hazards

Reported by riders

Level

Beginner to advanced

With a caveat: see Your level

BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced

Crowds

low crowds · busy Nov Dec Jan Feb

Schools

named at this spot

From the airport

30 min

Diagne International Airport (DSS)

When it fills in

No onset time is published for this spot.

Nearbystraight-line distance

Backup spotsWhere riders go when the wind doesn't work here.

Ngaparouno page yet
Toubab Dialawno page yet
Yoff
Ngor
Plage Monaccono page yet
Cap Skirring

The spot

Somone is a lagoon spot on Senegal's Petite Côte, and the lagoon is the point: shallow water, regular wind, a sandbar holding the Atlantic off, and none of the resort traffic that comes with Saly.

School

Booba KiteSurf School teaches on that water, and it is the one solidly documented kite activity here.

Tidal estuary

The lagoon is a tidal estuary at the Somone river mouth, so low tide and the current in the inlet decide the session more than the forecast does.

Protected area

All of it sits inside the Aire Marine Protégée de La Somone, a community reserve from 1999 that became a marine protected area in 2020 and now covers about 4,098 hectares of lagoon and offshore water, with eco-guards, control posts and closed periods for breeding species.

Season

Plan around the November-May dry season even though year-round riding is advertised, because August 2026 forecasts showed rain and light wind.

Who should come

This is a supervised beginner and freeride lagoon with mangroves and birds around it; if you want big wind and open water, ride somewhere else.

The wind

locals call it Harmattan / northeast trade-wind season at national scale; locally only regular/constant wind is documented

Direction

cross-shore

Direction to shore

cross-shore over the lagoon

Dominant direction

NE in the dry-season Senegal climate pattern; Somone-lagoon-specific wind direction is unconfirmed

Kite sizes

891011121314151617

metres · typical quiver highlighted

The quiver, in words

For a 75-85 kg rider the dry-season lagoon wind of roughly 12-16 kt is 12 m riding, with a 10 m for the stronger Harmattan afternoons between January and April.Below about 11 kt, which is common from June to October, it is a foil day or nothing.The bands are read off the wind statistics for the lagoon, not from a school's rental quiver.

Character

mixed

Average strength

about 14-16 kt in the windier dry-season months, from monthly averages for Somone; no long-term kite-station average at the lagoon is published

Typical strength

February and April historical mean wind speeds nearby run around 17.8 mph and 16.7 mph, roughly 15.5 kt and 14.5 kt. Forecasts around the lagoon in 2026 showed kiteable days near 5.8-6.1 m/s, about 11-12 kt. None of these are measured afternoon riding averages.

The lagoon wind is described as regular and the setting as secure. Nothing independent confirms how reliable it is, how gusty, or when it fills in.

Senegal's dry season runs November to May under dry northeast and Harmattan influence. Year-round conditions are advertised locally, but late August and early September 2026 still brought days with rain, light wind and a low breeze probability, so the practical kite season is recorded conservatively as the dry season.

Forecast

Live forecast

Windguru Windfinder Windy

Month by month

–Jan
–Feb
–Mar
12 ktApr
–May
–Jun
–Jul
–Aug
7 ktSep
–Oct
–Nov
–Dec

avg knots per month · season highlighted

Monthly averages. Highlighted: the months riders and schools name (Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May).

Measured at Dakar (city climate station), ~50 km from the spot (not stated on page (WeatherSpark uses a multi-year, MERRA-2-based modeled climate record, typically ~1980-2016; no exact station-year count given)).

Every figure, month by monthKnots · Wind from · Air

Month	Knots	Wind from	Air
Jan	no figure	N	21.7 °C
Feb	no figure	N	21.1 °C
Mar	no figure	N	21.7 °C
Apr	12.1 kt	N	21.7 °C
May	no figure	N	23.3 °C
Jun	no figure	N	26.1 °C
Jul	no figure	W	27.2 °C
Aug	no figure	W	27.8 °C
Sep	7.4 kt	W	27.8 °C
Oct	no figure	N	27.8 °C
Nov	no figure	N	26.1 °C
Dec	no figure	N	23.9 °C

How this was measuredmeasured · not stated on page (WeatherSpark uses a multi-year, MERRA-2-based modeled climate record, typically ~1980-2016; no exact station-year count given)

A ground station recorded this, at the distance the page names.

A station this far away — often inland or at an airport — can understate accelerated local wind. The typical daily max and the direction are columns of the table above, month by month. Highlighted months are the riding season from the spot record.

Dakar (city climate station) · weatherspark · not stated on page (WeatherSpark uses a multi-year, MERRA-2-based modeled climate record, typically ~1980-2016; no exact station-year count given)

The water

Type

lagoon

Standing depth

The Somone lagoon kite spot is rated shallow and secure for learning. No measured depth range exists.

Tides

Tidal estuary/lagoon connected to the Atlantic at the Somone river mouth; tide tables show semi-diurnal tides, and the lagoon is very shallow at low tide, limiting lagoon visits.

Temperature

28.4 °C summer · 19.1 °C winter

Wetsuit

Boardshorts/rash vest in the warm rainy-season months; a shorty or light spring suit can be useful in the cool upwelling months, especially February-April when Somone sea-temperature averages are about 19 °C.

Currents

The lagoon mouth is tidally active. Morphodynamic work on the inlet reports ebb-dominant currents over 1.5 m/s, and the mouth current is described locally as dangerous. No kite school has published guidance on it.

Conditions

The lagoon is the mouth of the Somone river, separated from the Atlantic by a sandbar, with mangrove and bird habitat inside a protected area.

The lagoon is used for kitesurf, surf, paddle, canoe and pirogue activities.

Open-ocean surf exists on the beach/sandbar side, but the kite-school activity is on the lagoon.

The lagoon also has oyster-farming activity reported locally.

Your level

BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced

Booba KiteSurf School coaches beginner, intermediate and confirmed riders and presents the lagoon as shallow and secure for progression. The advanced appeal is flat-water freeride and coaching rather than waves or strong wind; no advanced-rider reports have surfaced.

The scene

What riders come here for

flat waterlagoonbeginner lessonslagoon ridingfreerideSUP and no-wind lagoon trips

Who it suitsbeginner

Small Petite Côte fishing and resort village with an eco-tourism lagoon, quieter than Saly but with hotels, restaurants, pirogue tours and a growing second-home crowd. The kite scene is one small local school rather than a destination crowd.

Launch and rules

three ways on to the water, and what each one asks of you

With a school or a boat

2 schools name this spot

See who they are

On your own

Room to launch is not rated

Read the access rules

Somewhere else

2 spots nearby

All 2 spots within 40 km are under Nearby

Rescue

+221 77 181 76 02

Rescue — full text1 min read

Nothing formal.

The school teaching on the lagoon is the practical contact and the working pirogues are the only other boats on the water; no rescue boat, jet or lifeguard cover is known to operate here.

Booba KiteSurf School: +221 77 181 76 02, contact@boobakitesurf.com.

National emergency lines are 17 for police and 18 and 1515 for fire and ambulance.

The one place worth a plan is the inlet, where the ebb runs hard.

Launch

Lagoon-side launch used by Booba KiteSurf School at Lagune de Somone. The exact rigging beach, usable wind angles and low-tide launch limits were not documented in public sources.

Hazards riders report 10 reported

Wind

Rainy-season squalls, rain and lighter/less predictable breeze from June-October

Bottom

Oyster farming activity in the area (shallow-water obstruction risk)

Protected areas and rules

Lagoon sits within a protected nature/marine reserve - be mindful of environmental rules
Currents likely at the lagoon's ocean inlet/mouth
Protected marine/community nature reserve with mangrove, bird habitat and eco-guard supervision
Tidal current at the lagoon mouth; academic and travel sources flag strong/dangerous current potential at the inlet
Very shallow lagoon at low tide can restrict navigation and expose bottom features
Oyster farming/activity in the lagoon area, creating possible shallow-water obstruction risk
Pirogue, canoe, paddle and ecotourism traffic inside the lagoon
Mangrove edges and wildlife-sensitive areas

Rules & access

1 min read

The protected area

2026: the lagoon sits inside the Aire Marine Protégée de La Somone, 4,098 hectares created from the 1999 community reserve and raised to marine protected area by presidential decree in 2020. Seven control posts staffed by thirteen eco-guards from the surrounding villages handle surveillance and issue visit permits, and the AMP enforces a non-building zone, mangrove restoration areas and closed periods during species breeding.

Kiting access

Ecotourism is organised and priced - pirogue tours, the ecological trail - and nautical activity is listed among the permitted uses, but no kitesurf-specific permit, launch zone or seasonal restriction has been published. Check at a control post or with the lagoon school before launching independently.

Access rules drift faster than anything else we hold — check locally, and propose an edit if this has changed.

Schools that ride here

Rider tips

Call Booba or stop at an AMP control post before riding on your own, because no kite zoning inside the protected area has been published.
Check the tide first: at low water the lagoon goes very shallow and both the pirogue trips and the kiteable water run out.
Give the lagoon mouth a wide berth unless a local confirms the current is manageable at that tide stage.
Bring a big kite or a foil if you travel outside the dry season; late rainy-season days sit at 5-6 m/s.
Treat the mangrove edges, the bird areas and the oyster-farming zones as no-go unless a guide tells you otherwise.
Sleep in Somone or Ngaparou for quiet, and go to Saly when you want restaurants and nightlife.

Getting there

Airport

Blaise Diagne International Airport (DSS)

Route

Road transfer or taxi from DSS to Somone on the AIBD and Petite Côte road network, about 32.7 km and about 30 minutes by car. Somone is about 77 km south of Dakar, next to Saly and Ngaparou.

Transfer

30 min

Cost level

medium

Staying

Somone has beach resort rooms, guesthouses and villas, a quieter lagoon alternative to Saly. Royal Horizon Baobab is the big all-inclusive, with smaller properties and villas spread around town.

No-wind days

Pirogue trips in the Somone lagoon, mangrove/birdwatching walks, SUP/paddle/canoe with local operators, Bandia wildlife reserve day trips, surf lessons on the ocean beach, restaurants by the lagoon, and nearby Saly/Ngaparou/Mbour excursions.

Photos

Only candidate titled directly with the spot name Somone — Tbo47 / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

FAQ

When is the best time to kite at Somone?

The conservative planning window is the dry season from November to May, when Harmattan-driven northeast winds are strongest.

Is Somone suitable for beginners?

Yes, Booba KiteSurf School teaches beginner through advanced riders directly on the shallow, sheltered lagoon.

Are there kite schools or rental at Somone?

Booba KiteSurf School operates on Lagune de Somone, also offering surf, paddle and pirogue tours.

Are there rules or restricted zones?

The lagoon lies inside the Aire Marine Protegee de La Somone, where eco-guards supervise rules and non-building zones, so riders should check with the AMP post or the school before launching.

What are the main hazards?

The lagoon mouth has tidally active currents reported over 1.5 m/s, and the lagoon becomes very shallow at low tide.

The bigger pictureEverything about Somone

Last updated: August 2026