Famara is the beach the whole island learns on: sand, left and right, workable at every stage of the tide, on a north-north-westerly swell with a south-easterly offshore.
December is its best month and the breakdown is the lesson: ten clean days out of thirty, nineteen blown out, one or two too small. The swell is almost always there and the wind takes it away nearly two days in three. That is the trade the Canaries make: the same Atlantic exposure that keeps the winter reliable brings the trade wind with it.
Across three kilometres of beach it rarely gets crowded, even when the surf is up. The rips are real, and on a beach this long they are the thing to ask a school about before paddling out alone. That is also what makes a week here comfortable: the camp picks the section, you do not have to guess it.
Spot sheet
- Level
- Beginner, Intermediate
- Wave
- Left and right
- Bottom
- Sand
- Water
- 18 – 23 °C
- Wetsuit
- 4/3 mm → Shorty
- Swell window
- NW – N
- Ideal wind
- SE
- How often it works
- Consistent
- Crowd
- ●●○○○
- Danger
- ●●○○○
A month in figures
In December, the month the forecast guides single out for this coast:
Shares of the month, from the published forecast statistics. The model reads a grid, so neighbouring breaks share a figure: this describes a stretch of coast, not this wave on its own. The other eleven months are not published.
What to watch for
- Rips and undertow
Technical figures read off published surf guides. Where two disagree, the sheet says so.
Other spots in Lanzarote
See all spotsWhen this stops being enough, the step up is Arrieta, in the same village.