Zicatela is a beach break over sand that behaves like nothing else with that description. Deep water runs almost to the shore here, so a south-south-westerly swell arrives with its energy intact and the wave stands up in one movement rather than building. The offshore is from the north-east.
November is its cleanest month: sixteen clean days out of thirty, thirteen blown out, one too small. Those are good numbers, and they are not the reason to think carefully about this wave.
The reason is the difficulty. This is a harder wave than Mundaka and harder than the points at Jeffreys Bay, and its bottom being sand changes nothing about that: what hurts here is the lip and the volume of water, not the seabed. Sharks are the listed hazard and they are the least of it.
A first week in Puerto Escondido happens at Carrizalillo, ten minutes west. Spending an afternoon on the sand here watching is worth doing, and it is what most visitors end up doing instead of paddling out.
Spot sheet
- Level
- Advanced, Expert
- Wave
- Left and right
- Bottom
- Sand
- Swell window
- S – SW
- Ideal wind
- NE
- How often it works
- Consistent
- Crowd
- ●●●●○
- Danger
- ●●●●○
A month in figures
In November, 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
- Sharks
Technical figures read off published surf guides. Where two disagree, the sheet says so.
Other spots in Puerto Escondido
See all spotsOn the days this is too big, or for somebody starting out: Carrizalillo, in the same village.