Playgrounds

The forgiving one. Closest to shore, easiest paddle, an A-frame that throws a short hollow right and a longer left you can actually work. On a small swell and a high tide, it’s the wave you put a less-confident friend on. It earns the name.

Lacerations

The sharp one. A fast, critical hollow right that draws off the reef and barrels for a few seconds over coral that is shallow and not interested in your feelings. Named, accurately, for what it does to people who fall in the wrong spot. Intermediate and up. Booties on.

Shipwrecks

The famous one, and the crowded one. Northernmost break, named for the wreck on the beach behind it. It’s a fast, steep, powerful long right that peels down the reef and, now and then, opens up. It’s five hundred meters out across the lagoon from the beach and most people take a boat and save their arms for the wave. Best mid to high tide.

Dry season, roughly April to September. South swells line up, the southeast trades blow offshore, and the channel goes clean. July is the pick. It breaks outside those months too, just less reliably. It’s reef, not sand. Mid-to-high tide, booties on, and give the coral room; it’s alive, and it’s sharp. The line-up at Shipwrecks gets tight, so go early. If you’re still learning, Playgrounds on the right day with a local instructor will take you further than ego at Lacerations ever will. And when you’re done, Dawn is open from first light for the coffee, and there’s an cold plunge cut into the cliff for whatever the reef took out of you.