Surfing in Sri Lanka in February

Nothing has changed in the water. The north-east monsoon has run since November and runs through February, the south coast from Hikkaduwa down to Mirissa gets the same clean mornings, and the wind pattern that gives January its five days out of seven at The Rock is the same wind pattern. February has its own count and it barely moves: Plantations comes up clean in seventy per cent of the month against January's seventy-four, and Weligama in fifty-one against fifty-three. Read as a week, that is the same five days at the reef and the same four in the bay.

What changes is who is standing next to you. The fortnight either side of New Year is the busiest of the Sri Lankan year, and February sits clear of it: a February line-up at eight in the morning looks like a January line-up at six. The camps have beds, the bay at Weligama is workable after breakfast rather than from first light, and prices have come off the peak.

So February is the month to take Midigama if you were ever going to. Four reefs share two kilometres, Plantations matches The Rock for consistency, and February is thin enough that you can have a whole peak. The price is reef under all four and rocks in every line-up, which is why a first trip still belongs at Weligama, fifteen minutes west. Take the train down rather than a car: the line from Colombo runs beside the water for the last stretch into Ahangama and Midigama, it costs a fraction of a transfer, and in February it is not full.

Three coasts in the world are at their own peak in February, and the other two are the Canaries at 18°C and Morocco at 17. Ten degrees is the gap, and it is the whole argument for the flight: at some point a wetsuit stops being an inconvenience and starts being the thing that ends your session.

Midigama in February is full south season with room in it, which is the argument an experienced surfer needs for February over January. Plantations runs clean five days out of seven, level with January, and February is thin enough that a whole peak can be yours for a morning. Four reefs across two kilometres, all on the same swell and the same offshore, and the crowd factor on Plantations is the lowest of them.

The cost of Midigama does not change with the month and should be said every time: reef under all four breaks and rocks listed in every line-up. This is the step up from the sand at Weligama and it is not the place to take the step. Fifteen minutes west is where you learn; here is where you arrive already able to. Lazy Left is the gentlest entry to reef, Rams Right the opposite and the only wave on the island filed as expert, and Coconuts at the eastern end reads the wind for you: when it goes ragged, the others are about to.

Take the train rather than a car. The line down from Colombo runs beside the water for the last stretch into Ahangama and Midigama, it costs a fraction of a private transfer, and in February it is not full. Once you are here the four reefs are a walk apart, which is unusual on this island and the whole reason people come back to this village rather than to a prettier one. The trade is that nothing happens after sunset: two or three kitchens, a scattering of guesthouses, and dark by nine. The people who return come for that. If you want the reefs and an evening, Ahangama is twenty minutes west and has the only real nightlife on this coast: rooftops, cocktail bars facing the sunset, and kitchens worth the walk. Sleeping there and driving to Midigama in the morning is the arrangement most returning surfers end up at.