March is the turn. The rains ease through the month, the cyclone risk drops off after the first fortnight, and the Southern Ocean begins to wake up: the first swells with any size behind them start arriving from the far south.
They arrive filtered, which is the permanent condition here. Every swell that reaches Tofo has had to get past Madagascar, sixteen hundred kilometres of island lying across the window, and what makes it through has either squeezed up the channel or come round the top having lost most of its energy. March is when there is finally enough being generated for a useful amount to survive that.
The water is still at 28°C and the village is quiet again: the South African holidays are over and the season has not started.
