Surfing in Sri Lanka in September

September is the last month of the south-west monsoon, and on the east coast it behaves like the tail of a good season. The days that work are as good as July's. There are simply fewer of them, and the offshore grows unreliable towards the end of the month.

Be precise about fewer, because the figure behind it is a warning rather than a detail. At Whiskey Point, the gentler break twenty minutes north of the bay, one day out of seven is worth paddling out for in September, and eighty-three days in a hundred come in too small. The wind is not the problem; it almost never is on this coast. The ocean simply stops sending enough. The Main Point needs less swell to stand up and holds together better, which is why it is the one to watch this month.

Against that, everything else improves. The European holidays are over, Arugam Bay empties in the first week, prices drop, and the points that had an audience in August have nobody on them. By October half the town has shut, so this is the last month it is fully open.

And if the ratio does not suit you, September is the month the alternatives are strongest, which is worth saying plainly. Four coasts are at their own peak in September and all four are somewhere else: Senegal at 29°C, France at 21, Portugal at 18, Ireland at 15. Sri Lanka in September is good rather than excellent. If you want a guaranteed week rather than an empty one, the Atlantic is where September is.

September at Arugam Bay is the east coast season signing off, and for an advanced surfer it signs off well. Pottuvil Point is clean five days out of seven, level with July, and the difference is that the town has emptied. The days that arrive are as good as the peak; there are simply fewer of them and they come with nobody in the way.

The break to watch this month is the Main Point, because it needs less swell than the outer points to stand up and therefore holds together best as the ocean starts sending less. That is the opposite of the advice for July, when the answer was to drive past it, and it is the kind of thing that only becomes visible once you have the whole year in front of you rather than one month. Whiskey Point at sixteen days in a hundred is at its own yearly high and still the thinnest of them; Peanut Farm needs more than it is getting; Elephant Rock needs more again.

Take the first half of the month rather than the second. The offshore grows unreliable towards the end of September and half of Arugam Bay has shut by October, so the back end of the month is the season closing around you rather than running. What you get for the timing is the best value of the Sri Lankan year for somebody who already surfs: peak-season quality, off-season prices, and twelve kilometres of right-hand points with nobody on them. If you can be flexible about size, this beats July on every count except certainty. Book a scooter for the week rather than a shuttle: with the town half empty the camps run fewer of them, and the whole value of September is being able to look at four breaks before choosing one.