Ribeira d'Ilhas is the wave inside the World Surfing Reserve that everyone has seen, a long right peeling down a reef in a natural amphitheatre. It works on a west-north-westerly swell with a south-easterly offshore, and at all stages of the tide.
December gives it twelve clean days out of thirty, seventeen blown out, one too small. The middle number is the one that matters: the swell is permanently there, and the wind is the entire game on this coast. Checking a forecast the night before is not optional, it is how surfing works here.
The bottom is reef, with rocks in the line-up, so you go in knowing where your feet are. And it is busy whenever it is on, which comes with being the country's postcard wave.
Spot sheet
- Level
- Intermediate, Advanced
- Wave
- Right
- Bottom
- Reef
- Water
- 14 – 18 °C
- Wetsuit
- 4/3 mm + boots → 4/3 mm
- Swell window
- W – NW
- Ideal wind
- SE
- How often it works
- Consistent
- Crowd
- ●●●●○
- Danger
- ●●●○○
A month in figures
In December, 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
- Rocks
Technical figures read off published surf guides. Where two disagree, the sheet says so.