OUR STORY

From Mirleft, with the sea in our blood

We are two brothers, born and raised in Mirleft, Morocco.
Our connection with the sea started long before we discovered surfing. Our father and grandparents were fishermen, so the ocean was always part of our family and our everyday life.
When I was a toddler and I became sick, my mother would take me down to the sea in a little paddle and wash me in the water. I didn’t know it at the time, but the sea was already becoming a big part of my life.
Then one day, we discovered surfing.
We used to see tourists coming to Mirleft with their boards, heading into the ocean and doing something that was completely new to us. The first time I saw people surfing, I instantly wanted to be part of it.
My older brother started surfing before me. As the younger brother, it wasn’t always easy for me to follow. Our parents wanted us to concentrate on school and build a secure future. They had worked hard themselves, and they didn’t want us to struggle financially or end up in the same situation.
Surfing wasn’t something they saw as a career.
But for us, something had already changed.

Finding our way

Eventually, I became a qualified surf instructor and started working summer seasons for different surf schools while studying at university.
After two years, I realised that university wasn’t for me.
I wanted to work. I wanted to surf. And, most importantly, I wanted to build something of our own.
So I started very simply.
There wasn’t much information online about what to do in Mirleft at the time. I would walk around, talk to people and ask if they were interested in surf lessons. I’d show them around, tell them about the area and help them discover the town.
And something interesting started happening.
People would get in touch with me again that same evening.
Many of the people I met decided to extend their stay in Mirleft. Hotel and Airbnb owners also started calling me when their guests wanted to surf or find something to do, because it worked well for everyone. Their guests were happy, discovered more of Mirleft and often stayed longer.
That’s when I started to realise that maybe I was good at this.
Not because I was thinking about how much money I could make.
I was enjoying it.
Seeing people smile, helping them have a good experience and showing them the place where we grew up made me happy.

One board, one shop, one step at a time

After working hard and meeting more and more people, we found a tiny shop on the main street of Mirleft.
We took it and turned it into our first little surf shop.
At the beginning, we didn’t have much. A few T-shirts, some shorts and not much else.
Slowly, slowly, we started making our own ponchos, hoodies and small branded souvenirs.
After about three months of hard work, we managed to buy our first second-hand board for rental.
It was a red board, bought from a guy who was travelling around Morocco in his camper van.
We still have that board today.
A month later, I went to Taghazout and bought three second-hand shortboards for my brother and me.
It wasn’t a big business.
It was just the beginning.
Along the way, lots of people helped us. People showed us how websites worked, how to use social media and how to work with TripAdvisor and other platforms. Little by little, people started finding us online too.
And the more people we met, the more we realised that what we were building was about much more than surf lessons.

From surf shop to surf camp

For a while, we used different accommodations around Mirleft for our guests.
But we started thinking:
Why don’t we create a place of our own?
So we took a mortgage, bought the land and started building.
The construction took a year.
There were plenty of challenges, plenty of hard work and plenty of moments when we had to keep believing in what we were doing.
But in 2017, we finally opened our doors.
I still remember the first couple who stayed with us.
After everything that had happened—from watching tourists surf in Mirleft, to learning to surf ourselves, working as instructors, approaching people in the streets, opening that tiny shop, buying our first red rental board and slowly building a business—we finally had our own surf camp.
And we were ready to welcome people into it.

More than surfing

Over the years, surfing has taught us much more than how to ride waves.
It has taught us to respect the ocean and nature. It has helped us learn languages, including English, French and Spanish. Most importantly, it has introduced us to people from all over the world.
Some of the people we first met more than 12 years ago are still our friends today.
Some have come back to visit us again and again.
That’s one of the things we are most proud of.
We started with very little. We didn’t have a big plan or a big investment behind us. We simply loved surfing, loved Mirleft and enjoyed meeting people.
Everything grew step by step.
And even today, that’s what we care about most.
We want people who come to stay with us to experience the Mirleft that we know—the ocean, the waves, the people, the nature and the feeling of being part of this little place on the Moroccan coast.
Because for us, this has never been just a business.

It’s our home, our passion and a way of sharing the place we love with people from all over the world.