The lack of dominant winds and the almost complete bisecting of the narrow shelf by several canyons make the region off the northeast Spanish coast an ideal area to test the hypothesis of topographic modification of the general coastal flow. Analysis of in situ data (June 1983), combined with an intense study of satellite imagery, indicates that the canyons act as deflecting barriers to the southward current. The flow is deflected offshore on the downstream side of each canyon, in accordance with the simple shallow-water theory.