Fuerteventura

Fuerteventura is one of the Canary Islands, situated in the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Africa. It is the second largest and I think the least touristed, a lovely place with heaps of good surf.


November the 19. my girlfriend, surfboard, and I went to Fuerteventura for one week. It was one of these package solutions where everything was included. Flight, bus to the hotel, and guides to assist if there was any problems. All week we had ok conditions, often there was either cloudy in the morning or in the afternoon and the air temperature was between 23 - 26 degree Celsius. Well first thing first, we rented a car and got the "Wannasurf spotguide" lined up with a map of the island.


Playa de Esquinzo
First surf spot was Playa de Esquinzo, a beach break on the west coast, a little south of El Cotillo. From what I could read in Wannasurf this sounded like the perfect warm up spot.


When we got there a southern wind was hauling and the waves was massive, a least compared to what I'm use to. A consistent swell on 2-3 m was rolling in and it often closed out quite fast. Not just the conditions I had hoped for, for a warm up. Anyway Sophie was giving me the "you 're are kidding me" look so I knew time was running short. I ended up having a nice session riding some of the biggest waves ever, even without any serious wipeouts.


Next day the wind had dropped totally and the sun was shining from a deep blue sky. After the successful session the day before I was hungry after more bigwave surfing ;) So we went back to Esquinzo and this time Sophie gave me the thumb up. We nearly had the beach all to ourself. It was just beautiful.


The waves was same size as the day before, if not a little bigger and more glassy.


I think this is the best suf pic from the trip, taken by Sophie, it captures both the epic conditions and the expression of deep deep concentration. Lovely... thanks Sophie.

Another one in front a massive closeout

The lineup

A German

And naturally I also took some nasty wipeouts. Sophie caught this one, which was a gentle one.


Rocky Point
After the first two days at Esquinzo the swell was getting bigger and the wind was shifting into NV and increasing. Instead of going back to Esquinzo I went out to Rocky Point, a spot just outside of Correlejo. A nice and really forgiving wave breaking on a lava reef. I spent two days out there and got a lot of good long rides. No action pics as Sophie was enjoying the sunbeds at the hotel pool and I was too busy surfing.


This is Correlejo with rocky point in the background to the left. The small wave in front is Punta Elena reef just in front of our hotel.

The next few days the NW wind was picking up and even Rocky Point was getting blown out and the east coast was some decent swell.


Punta Elena
At high tide Punta Elena offered some small fun waves. Usually I spent the afternoon out there. It was sometimes really shallow, like 30-50 cm but the waves was not at all powerful.





All put together Fuerteventura is a really nice place with heaps of good surf. Definitely a place I will recommend.