Kima Surf Hiriketiya

The camp

Kima's Hiriketiya house stands on an acre of jungle, two hundred metres from a beach. A pool in the middle, cabanas round it, two of them with a plunge pool of their own, and a 150 m² gym. The day turns around those as much as around the sea: yoga at one, and again at six on weekdays, an ice bath three times a week, tomorrow's sessions posted the night before.

What you buy here is guiding, not lessons. Two sessions a day, seven days a week, in small groups split by level, the tuk-tuk paid for and the video waiting when you get back. Hiriketiya Bay is a short drive away: a three-hundred-metre horseshoe whose headlands wrap the swell, so it still holds a wave when the open beaches close out, and it fills up fast. Kima also surfs A Frames, Easy Rights and Corners, and the guide decides the night before where the group goes.

Hiriketiya goes to bed early, so the house fills its own evenings. Monday to Friday, dinner is a themed buffet, burgers, Indian, Indonesian or Sri Lankan, and on Friday the whole camp gathers round the barbecue. At the weekend you eat out in the village.

Two things before you book. The board is not included; you rent one. And a complete beginner is in the wrong package: learning to stand up is a separate five-day programme. Kima is for somebody who can already ride a wave and wants to surf twice a day without working out where.