Surfing in Sri Lanka in November

The north-east monsoon sets in through November, so the offshore returns to the south coast and the breaks from Ahangama to Hiriketiya start working again after five months off. The east coast is finished until May.

The season builds rather than arrives, and that is the thing to plan around. In a week, count on four days out of seven at Plantations in Midigama and three in Weligama bay, but those are averages over a month that changes as it goes: the first fortnight can still look like October, the last like December. Almost half of November is blown out at Plantations. If your dates can move inside the month, take the back half.

Prices have not caught up with the conditions yet, which is the argument for the month. The camps are reopening, the bay at Weligama holds a fraction of the boards it will carry at Christmas, and the sea is 29°C. For a first week, November costs less than the same week in February and the conditions are most of the way there.

Getting there is easy in a way Arugam Bay never is. Weligama is two and a half to three hours from the airport, the shortest transfer of the five villages, and the coast train to Ahangama and Midigama runs beside the water for its last stretch.

Where to stay follows the usual pattern. Weligama for learning, on sand at every tide. Midigama for the four reefs and quiet nights. Ahangama for The Rock and the evenings, with rooftops and cocktail bars facing the sunset. Hiriketiya, at the eastern end, for a cove that holds a wave when the open beaches close out, and a village of lanes and early nights. In November all four have room, which will not be true again until April.

If you already surf, November in Midigama is the south coast season restarting, and you get it six weeks ahead of everybody else. Plantations gives four days out of seven and the other reefs are working again on the returning offshore. The variable this month is the wind rather than the swell: just under half of November is blown out at Plantations, which is why the second fortnight is where it becomes worth the flight and the first is where it is merely cheap.

Midigama is the base for the same reason it always is, and the reason is room. Four reefs share two kilometres, they all break on the same south-south-west swell and the same north-easterly offshore, and in November there is almost nobody to share them with. Lazy Left peels, Plantations breaks both ways, Rams Right is short, hollow and shallow and strictly for experts, and Coconuts closes the run at the eastern end. The Rock, off Kabalana beach at Ahangama a few minutes west, is the other reef worth the ride: both ways, any tide, urchins on the bottom.

The east is finished until May. Pottuvil Point is down to about one day in seven and the town at Arugam Bay has shut, so there is no reason to cross the island. Everything worth surfing in November sits on a short stretch of the south coast road, the train from Colombo stops in the middle of it, and the whole stretch is emptier than it will be at any point between now and April.

Prices are still a step below the winter peak, and the evenings are there if you want them: Ahangama has the rooftops and cocktail bars, Midigama is dark by nine. If you already surf and want this coast without the season on top of it, the last two weeks of November are the best trade in the Sri Lankan year.