The Fuerteventura surf guide

Welcome to Fuerteventura

Surfing in Fuerteventura

Fuerteventura's surf is in the north of the island, on two coasts that meet at a corner. The north shore runs west from Corralejo along a dirt track, past the hamlet of Majanicho, with a string of reefs in front of it. The west coast starts at El Cotillo, a fishing village where low cliffs drop to a long beach. The swell is the same on both. The wind is not.

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El Cotillo is where the island learns, and the reason is the way it faces. The beach looks west, so the north and north-east winds that sweep the north shore run along the cliffs here or come off the land. January is its month, with sixteen clean days out of thirty, five lost to the wind and nine too small. Famara, across the strait on Lanzarote, has ten in its best month.

The reefs of the track are the step up, and they pay for the wind El Cotillo escapes. Majanicho, a point with lefts and rights in front of a few fishermen's houses, gets four or five clean days in October, its best month. El Hierro, a right over lava a little further west (the reef, not the island), gets ten in December, exactly Famara's split. When they work, they are the best waves on the island, and everyone who lives on it knows.

The season is the archipelago's, October to March, with the water at 18°C in February and 23°C in October. In summer the north shore belongs to the kitesurfers and El Cotillo keeps small, warm waves for lessons. Learn at El Cotillo, and save the track for a winter morning with the wind gone south and a couple of seasons behind you.

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