Surfing in Sri Lanka in May

The south-west monsoon sets in during May. It puts wind and rain on the south and west, and it turns the same airflow into an offshore on the east coast, so Arugam Bay, Whiskey Point, Peanut Farm and Elephant Rock come alive over a few weeks, in that order and not all at once.

Understand the geography before you book, because it is the part people get wrong. Arugam Bay is about 320 km from Colombo and the road goes through the middle of the island rather than along the shore: six to seven hours, with published estimates stretching to nine. It is a travel day. Do not book a flight that lands in the evening. Once there, the four points are spread over about twelve kilometres, so a tuk-tuk or a scooter is part of the trip rather than an optional extra, and the camps run the shuttles.

The waves are a different proposition too. The south is a chain of reefs you walk between; the east is a run of long right-hand points you drive between. And the east is limited by size rather than by wind, which is the single most useful thing to carry with you: at Peanut Farm even in its best month, six days in a hundred are blown out and fifty-nine are too small. In May the season is still filling in, so you watch the swell and let the wind take care of itself.

Two coasts are at their own peak in May, Nicaragua at 29°C and South Africa at 18, and Sri Lanka is not one of them: it is good rather than excellent, with the east still building. That is the case for coming anyway. The town runs on its season and closes after it, so May is Arugam Bay waking up, with the main street opening rather than open, prices low, and the points empty for another six weeks.

May is the month the island turns over, and for an experienced surfer heading to Arugam Bay it turns over in your favour immediately. Pottuvil Point, the long right at the northern end of Arugam Bay, runs clean five days out of seven in May. That is better than anything the south coast produces at its own peak in January, and there is nobody on it for another six weeks.

The mechanism on this side is worth carrying with you because it is the reverse of the one you have been reading all winter. The east loses its days to swell that is too small and almost never to wind: at Peanut Farm, even in the heart of the season, six days in a hundred are blown out. On the south coast a quarter of the days go to wind. So the forecast you watch here is a height and the one you watched in January was a direction, and in May, with the season still filling in, the height is the only number that matters.

Four points across twelve kilometres, and only one of them has anybody on it. The Main Point made the name and is the only one of the four over coral, with a crowd to match. Whiskey Point is twenty minutes north with nothing listed to catch you. Peanut Farm sits at the end of a track through scrub and is the most productive of the four once the season is running. Elephant Rock is forty minutes beyond that and stays empty in August, never mind May. Almost nobody drives past the first point, which is the entire opportunity. The south is finished — Plantations at five days in a hundred — so there is nothing to look back at. Arriving now rather than in July buys the same points with a fraction of the people and a town that has not filled up.