Surfing in Morocco in April

Most months on this coast choose a level. Winter belongs to the points and summer to the sand. April is the one month that serves both at once, because the swell sits halfway between the two: 1.4 m on average, with enough period left to reach the points on a good day and not enough size to close out the sandbars on a big one. Two people at very different levels can book the same week and both come home happy.

Count the clean days, when the swell is surfable and the wind leaves it alone: Banana Beach in Tamraght and La Baie at Imsouane give three in a week, Anchor Point three, Hash Point two. The points are starting to fade: Killer Point is down to one day in a week, Boilers and Cathedral Point to two. An experienced surfer in April picks the day rather than the break.

For the one who is learning, April is the easiest month of the year on this coast: the sandbars at Banana Beach and Devil's Rock break small and soft whenever they break, and with crowds at medium an instructor has time for you. For the one who already surfs, the days to watch are the swells that still reach Anchor Point and Hash Point, and a camp that follows the forecast puts you on them the morning they arrive.

The weather turns for good in April: nine hours of sun a day, two rainy days, the air at 23°C. The sea is still at 18°C: summer weather over a winter sea. For a mixed group the arrangement that works is Tamraght, where the sandbars are a walk from the village and the Taghazout points are ten minutes away by car. One of you walks to the lesson; the other drives north at first light.

An experienced surfer in April picks the day before the break, and on this coast that day most often ends at Anchor Point or Hash Point. Anchor Point is clean three days out of seven, Hash Point two, and the exposed points are fading faster: Killer Point to a single day in a week, Boilers and Cathedral Point to two. The swell has dropped to 1.4 m and its period has shortened from winter's long groundswell, so a forecast swell now decides whether the points break at all, and between swells the coast is small.

What April gives back is room. Crowds are medium, and on the days a swell does arrive the queue at Anchor Point is short by winter standards. Surf the morning, while the offshore holds, and check Hash Point first on a smaller day: it sits sheltered at the top of the village and needs a real swell to reach it, but when one does it is a walk from the camps. The water is still 18°C, a 4/3 for anything long, and with the air at 23°C and nine hours of sun the rest of the day is spent outdoors. Panoramas at the south end of the village is the fallback on a rising tide, faster at low water and easier as it fills in, with rocks at the entry.

April is also the month to bring someone who is learning. Sleep in Tamraght, where the sandbars are a walk from the village and at their easiest of the year for a first week, and drive the ten minutes north to the points each morning; camps in Tamraght start at 34 € a night. If you are travelling alone and the points are the whole reason for the trip, March is the better month, with four days at Anchor Point instead of three. Come in April for the company of someone learning and for whatever swell the week sends, not for a guaranteed run of point days.