Surfing in Sri Lanka in December

The north-east monsoon is properly established in December. The south coast does what it does from now until March: clean mornings, dependable waves, and a string of breaks between Hikkaduwa and Mirissa that suits everybody from a first lesson in Weligama bay to the reefs at Midigama. The east coast has been shut since October.

The forecast is not what you plan around. The island fills from about the twentieth and stays full into the second week of January, and Weligama in particular is small. The first fortnight is the same surf with half the boards on it, and it is the single most useful thing anybody can tell you about a December trip here. The second fortnight is the busiest stretch of the Sri Lankan year.

That makes the choice of village heavier in December than in any other month, because what varies between them is the crowd and not the wave. Weligama is the shortest transfer and the only sand, so it fills first and hardest. Midigama has four reefs over two kilometres and room on them even now, and is dark by nine. Ahangama has The Rock, which holds the best measured week on the island, and it has the evenings: rooftops, kitchens worth the walk, cafés that open early, and enough people arriving alone that nobody eats alone. In the busiest fortnight of the year that is either exactly why you are there or exactly why you are not.

Five coasts in the world are at their own peak in December and Sri Lanka is the warmest of them by eight degrees: 28°C against 20 in the Canaries and 18 in Morocco, with Spain at 14. If you are weighing a Christmas trip against a European one, that is the number the decision turns on, and the second number is that the Canaries and Morocco both rate a level below Sri Lanka for anybody still learning.

For an advanced surfer, Kabalana in December is the pick of a full south season, and the reefs east of Ahangama are what the week is for. Plantations runs clean four days out of seven in December on its way to five in January, and December is the month the whole stretch comes properly back on: clean mornings, dependable waves, and a string of breaks from Hikkaduwa down to Mirissa.

Kabalana is the pick of them. The Rock breaks both ways over a reef several hundred metres off the beach and works at any tide, which means the paddle is part of the deal and what you judged from the sand is not the wave you meet at the peak. Urchins on the bottom. In Midigama, twenty minutes east, Plantations and Lazy Left are running on the same swell, Rams Right is short, hollow, shallow and the only wave on this island filed as expert, and Coconuts at the eastern end goes ragged first when the wind turns. Four reefs, two kilometres, and you pick by shape rather than by conditions.

Where you sleep matters more in December than in any other month, because what varies between the villages is the crowd and not the wave. Weligama is the shortest transfer and the only sand, so it fills first and hardest. Midigama has room on all four reefs even now and is dark by nine, which its regulars come back for. Ahangama has the strongest reef on the coast and the only real evenings: rooftops, cocktail bars facing the sunset, kitchens worth the walk, cafés that open early. In the busiest fortnight of the Sri Lankan year that is either exactly why you are there or exactly why you are not. The east coast has been shut since October and stays shut until May, so everything worth surfing this month is on twenty minutes of one road, and the train from Colombo stops in the middle of it.