The World’s Most Consistently Offshore Waves

Remember when the phrase “onshore is the new offshore” started doing the rounds? Well, if you excuse the French, what a load of bullshit. Every surfer knows that you can’t beat surfing in offshore waves. Sure, the pace of aerial progression has helped burnish the seabreeze’s reputation, but you don’t get textured surfaces, spray in the face, and drops not out of place without offshores. The offshore is, has, and always will be king.

But what waves are more offshore than most? To find out, we trawled through surf-forecast.com statistics. The site has compiled swell and wind data for its 7,000 spot guides since 2006 and made it available to all users in the form of easy-to-read graphics. It’s like the WikiLeaks Data Leak, just without the diplomatic cables, exposure of state and corporate secrets, and doesn’t come with the threat of a Russian extradition.  

For wind, the stats show how often and how strongly the wind blows from different directions for each break, measuring offshore as a percentage. You can search by the month, season or year and even compare waves in different locations. Using the SURFER AI supercomputer, better known as a washed-up journalist, these waves came out on top.

Playa Gigantes, Nicaragua

In terms of wind, Nicaragua hit the surfing geographical and meteorological jackpot. The Pacific Coast of Nicaragua has Caribbean trade winds that funnel through the mountains, over a narrow topography, and are maintained by a temperature difference between Lake Nicaragua and the coast that creates offshore northeast breezes more than 300 days a year. The stats back it up, with offshores registered 78% of the time across the whole year, which rises to 83% in summer. Not good for airs, but damn good for surfing clean waves.

Cloudbreak and Restaurants, Fiji

Even with Cloudbreak breaking along a fringe of coral in the middle of the Pacific, the iconic left is offshore 56% of the time year-round. This might not be as high as others on this list, but the number gets even better when you consider the prevailing south-to-south easterly winds, while not technically offshore, provide clean conditions as the wave hugs the curvature of the reef, and bends back to face the wind. Restaurants, which break just off the island of Tavarua, is more protected, less open to swell, but more consistently clean, with year average of offshores blowing 75% of the time.  

Santa Cruz, CA

Putting a US mainland filter on the selection process, it’s Santa Cruz that, ironically, blows other surf hubs out of the water.  It’s best known surf spots face south and are sheltered by mountains from the prevailing strong northwest winds and sea breezes that ruffle the rest of the Central California coast. Add a daily land breeze cycle and extended periods of Diablo and Santa Ana winds, and the data skews glassy. If we look at Middles at Steamer Lane, it logs 65% offshore on the average year-round stats, with onshores registering at just 16%. The offshore component cranks up to 75% in April. Do Santa Cruz surfers have smoother styles than the rest of the country? Maybe it’s a lifetime of avoiding the chop?  

Panama, Caribbean Side

The Caribbean side of Panama delivers both clean conditions and consistent swells in ridiculous numbers. Surf-Forecast’s data since 2006 shows that Paunch Reef in the Boca Del Toro region averages offshore 88% over the year, with westerly winds the dominant breeze. Winds under 12mph also come in at 82% of the time. The swell stats are even better, with it being too flat to surf just 6% of the time, and dropping to 1% in winter.

Indonesia

Most of Indonesia is blessed with dry and wet seasons that produce constant offshores depending on the way the coast is facing. Sure, the warm water, the perfect reef bathymetry, and constant swell are important, but you don’t go to Indo to surf onshore waves. Unless you are an aerial specialist or a psychopath. Grajagan is a pretty good poster child for the whole archipelago when it comes to wind, as it reaps the rewards of the dominant dry season southeast trade winds. The Surf-Forecast stats show that G-Land clocks offshore at 73% across the entire year. In the dry season over the three winter months, the proportion rises to an almost perfectly smooth 97%. Even in November, known very much as deep into the offseason, it registers 75%.