Yokomosurf

The camp

Yokomosurf is a surf school on Calle Baliza in Caleta de Famara, and its surf house is on the same street. You ask for it at the Yokomo bar, which the owner also runs. Inside there is a lounge with a TV, a shared kitchen with a big table, two bathrooms, a patio where boards and wetsuits dry, and rooms with bunks or a double bed. The beach is a hundred metres away, the supermarket fifty.

Lessons are two hours a day in small groups on Playa de Famara: sand from end to end under the Risco cliff, breaking left and right at every tide. A first week means whitewater and then your first green waves. The swell is rarely missing here; the trade wind is the catch, rising through the day and spoiling about two days in three even in December, the best month. Count on the mornings. The school offers no trip to another break when Famara is blown out. The water runs from 18 °C in winter to 23 °C at the end of summer.

Pachi López runs the school and teaches; he has surfed for more than twenty years, from Hawaii to the Canaries. The team includes Lenny Perdomo, a professional for seventeen years, EPSA European champion and twice Canary Islands champion, and Sofie Kaiser, a lifeguard. Group lessons come with photos and video. If you already stand up, there is an improvement clinic and lessons with Lenny, booked separately, and yoga for surfers every day, at extra cost.

No food is included: you cook in the house or eat out in the village. Caleta de Famara is a quiet fishing village with sand streets, and everything is on foot: the beach, the shop, the bar, the places to eat. No car, and no shuttle to wait for. Right for a first week on a tight budget, or a long weekend, in a village where the evening ends at the bar round the corner rather than in a club.