May is the month the coast works and nobody is on it. Swell keeps arriving from the North Atlantic at a size that suits somebody improving rather than one that tests an expert, and the banks have had two calm months to organise themselves.
Daylight changes the arithmetic. Fifteen hours of it means the tide comes round twice inside a surfable day, and this coast moves more than four metres between low and high water: a bank that closes out at high tide can be the best thing on the beach three hours later. December gives you one look at that. May gives you three.
The water reaches 16°C, which is where a 3/2 becomes comfortable, and the schools are running without the queues they will have in six weeks.
