Calima Surf

The camp

Calima puts its guests up in four houses in Caleta de Famara, all about a hundred metres from the beach, and the school assigns your house when you book: you do not choose it. Every room is private, for one or two, and the bathrooms are shared. The newest, Oceanic House, has a roof terrace with hammocks that looks out over the sea and the Famara cliff; Green Waves and Vela Latina have terraces with a barbecue. Each house has a fitted kitchen, and you will use it, because no meal is included.

The lesson runs from ten to twelve on Famara beach, eight students at most to an instructor. On an ordinary winter day the swell is there and the wind arrives in the afternoon, which bothers nobody standing up in the whitewater for the first time. In December, the best month, a week brings about two clean days, when the beach opens into peaks breaking left and right: those are the days to be in the Intensive or Total Experience group, which stays out until half past two. The water drops to 18 °C in February and reaches 23 °C from August to October. You can learn here all year; if you already surf, come between September and the end of February. Good surfers have rock-bottom waves around the village, and the Advanced camp drives to wherever on the island it is working.

The beach is a hundred metres away and the school a hundred and fifty, so you will not need a car all week. You walk to the lesson, and from the third day the board is yours until six. On Tuesday and Friday evenings the school's gym runs balance-board sessions and a review of your photos. Maike founded the school in 1996, has surfed since 1981, and when he is not teaching he is out at San Juan or La Santa. Most of the students are learning, many are Spanish, and as many come alone as with a partner or friends.

With no meals, the village feeds you. Within a hundred metres of the houses there are three supermarkets, six fish restaurants, an Italian, a burger bar, a bakery and a pub, and around half past twelve the fishermen sell their catch on the pier. Caleta de Famara is a fishing village of sand streets inside a nature reserve, facing La Graciosa: evenings mean a barbecue on the terrace and a drink at the pub, not a night out. Nights turn cool from November to July, so pack a jacket. Right for a first week of surfing, alone or as a pair, with no car, if you would rather cook or pick your own table than eat at set times.