Fun days in Majanicho

A few days after the storm Ciara ended in Europe, the swell it created reached the Canary Islands.

Majanicho is a little village located on the north coast of Fuerteventura. When the swell is small there is a fun righthand wave breaking far out on the reef.

When the swell gets too big for the outside break, like the last few days, the waves start breaking inside the sheltered bay that offers a lot of protection.

I have stayed quite a few nights here already before, the last few days was probably the most fun ones so far though. The swell started arriving the first day in the afternoon and continued the entire second day.

Day 1

The outside reef was reserved for the windsurfers today.

Checking the surf from the office.

Early signs of the swell arriving.

This wave in the in the middle of the bay starts breaking at high tide.

The waves were growing throughout the day.

Llenazo in Majanicho

The most packed I have seen this spot.

A variety of surf vans.

I had a great session in the afternoon of the first day. I caught some nice set waves sitting out the back and had fun with a couple of german surfers. It was pretty big and the drop was fast and fun. I wasn’t able to connect a wave running the entire reef though, and made that the goal for the next day.

A nice turn on the wave and a surfer looking to jump in.

Day 2

The second day I stumbled out of bed here I don’t get tired of taking pictures of my van.

The waves in the morning with low tide were already more consistent than the day before.

The waves outside of the bay were yuuuuge.

A wave peaking up in the next bay.

It was already looking pretty good and there were people out, but the waves are best at high tide here, which would be at 4pm so I had to wait and save my strength.

When it’s high tide the waves start breaking on a part of the reef that is exposed during low tide, making the wave longer.

While I waited and cooked some lunch the waves were getting more and more consistent.

If you stay in the right spot of the wave you can get a long ride.

Like this guy.

This wave in the middle of the bay was big today.

Just before I went in, two guys who had already surfed, were talking about how much you had to paddle today because of the strong current. I thought it didn’t look to bad from outside, but sure enough they were right.

The current was much stronger than the day before and you needed to paddle a lot to get in position for the waves. Luckily after more than a month of non-stop surfing it wasn’t too much of a problem, but more like a fun challenge.

I caught a few long waves (100m) running the entire length of the reef before my arms turned to noodles. I was happy enough with that as that was the goal of the day. The length makes it great for practicing turns, and I hope I get to surf it like this more times.

There were waves being ridden everywhere you looked the entire day, and I wanted to document it for the future. A great day of surfing for a lot of people.