Surf Life Tenerife

The camp

Surf Life Tenerife is a surf school on Playa de las Américas, recognised by the Canary Islands surf federation, and for the week it houses you with a partner: La Tortuga hostel in Fañabé, on the Costa Adeje. It is two neighbouring Canarian villas on a quiet residential street, each with a garden and sun loungers, a covered terrace and a small pool. The living room, orange sofas and a guitar, has the hostel's name painted on the wall. You sleep in a dorm of four at most, in a double or twin room, or alone in a single; a separate wing with three bedrooms, a kitchen and two bathrooms is kept for families and groups. El Duque beach is ten minutes away on foot.

On lesson days the school van picks you up at the hostel: fifteen minutes by road to Playa de las Américas, you change at the school, and the break is a hundred metres away. A lesson runs two hours, twenty to thirty minutes of theory and then at least an hour and a half in the water, with no more than six students to an instructor. With beginners the instructor goes in wearing fins and no board, to push you into the wave and help you back out. Anyone already catching waves goes out to the line-up for green waves and first turns. The time moves every day: the school surfs at mid-tide, somewhere between 8am and 7pm, and sends your schedule two days before you arrive. Allow four hours from pick-up to drop-off, and five lessons over seven nights, with a day off.

Las Américas is sand with reef around it, on the lee coast: the north-east trade wind crosses the island before it gets here and arrives off the land. In January, the best month, expect three properly clean days in a week, and every other day too small for an experienced surfer. Those small days belong to the schools, and their whitewater is where you learn. When the main peak has nothing, the group walks five minutes to the far end of the beach, where three more peaks suit beginners and intermediates; when the whole beach is flat, the boards go on the van to another beach in the south. The water is 18°C in February and 23°C from August to October.

No meals are served: the breakfast buffet is suspended, and each villa has a full kitchen with free coffee and tea. The group life happens in the evening. On Wednesdays the hostel throws a barbecue with plenty for vegetarians and vegans, then everyone heads to a flamenco bar with live music; the team also takes students out to the local tapas bars and burger places. The Achamán club is five minutes' walk away, and Las Américas, fifteen minutes off, has the loudest nights on the island. For a first surf week on your own, with people around you in the evening and the transfer from Tenerife South included, it works; if you want to surf when you choose, with no van and no tide timetable, look for a camp on the water.