Surfing in Morocco in November

November is when the season arrives. The swell reaches its winter size, 2.2 m at a period of 12.5 seconds, the points are back at their best for experienced surfers, and crowds and prices climb back to high. Of the four peak months, November has the warmest water: 19°C, against 18 in December and January and 17 in February. A 3/2 full suit is enough for a long session, which it will not be again until May.

Counting the clean days, a surfable swell that no wind has chopped up, La Baie at Imsouane, Banana Beach and Anchor Point give four in a week. Boilers, Banana Point and Cathedral Point give three, Killer Point and Hash Point two. The exposed points still lose some days to the wind, which is why December, not November, is their best month. The long period puts several breaks to work on the same morning, and the wind picks between them.

For an experienced surfer this is the start of four months on the points, before the Christmas crowd and the wettest weeks of December. For a beginner it is a good month on the right sand: the sandbars at Tamraght are clean four days in seven, but the bigger swells need steering around, and a camp that moves its lessons to Devil's Rock on the big days makes the difference.

The weather is the cost. November is the second wettest month, three rainy days and 42 mm, and the sun gives about seven and a half hours a day, among the shortest of the year. The air is still 24°C, warmer than any month from December to April. Camps fill again, so book ahead, and look for one that moves its groups to follow the swell; from now until March, that is what a camp is for.

November is when an experienced surfer gets the Taghazout points back, in the warmest water of the winter season. Anchor Point is clean four days out of seven, Boilers, Cathedral Point and Banana Point three, Killer Point and Hash Point two. The swell is at its winter size and period, 2.2 m at 12.5 seconds, and at that period several breaks work on the same morning, so the decision each day is made by the wind.

The week falls back into winter habits. Surf the morning offshore. On a stormy morning, when the open coast is a mess, walk to Hash Point at the top of the village, which is almost never blown out; on an onshore morning in Taghazout, drive the twelve kilometres to Boilers, whose channel between the hills and the sea keeps it clean when little else is. Anchor Point fills the moment it breaks, rocks in the line-up and a hollow take-off at the stone end. Killer Point carries walls as good with far fewer people, because the paddle is long on a big day and the regulars surf it all year. At 19°C a 3/2 carries a three-hour session, which February will not allow.

Sleep in Taghazout, camps from 21 € to 110 € a night, and book early: crowds and prices go back to high in November, and the good camps fill. Imsouane, ninety minutes north, has Cathedral Point, three days in November on a short, fast right that barrels at low tide. If you are choosing between November and December, December gives Boilers four days and Killer Point three, their best month, at the cost of the wettest weather of the year and the Christmas crowd. November trades a day on the exposed points for a degree more in the water and calmer weather.