Nicaragua

Where to surf in Nicaragua

The increasingly popular, always offshore set-ups in Southern Nicaragua may not be quite world-class, but provide the perfect balance between challenge and fun, making it an intermediate’s paradise.

Central Nicaragua continues the theme with a little less of the offshores and a lot less of the surf tourist hordes that hit Rivas Province in the south.

Northern Nicaragua is lightly surfed due to difficult access (cliffs, rivers, swampy estuaries, no roads), shelving bathymetry and most notably, onshore winds in the afternoon. Jiquillilo is easy to get to, with expansive grey sand beachbreak plus some reef/point action down at El Manzano. Aserradores can have some booming beachbreak barrels in front of the isolated hotel and empty inaccessible beachies lead down to stabilised Playa Paso Caballos and the main port of Corinto. There are a couple of protected big swell spots, but without a good boat, access is minimal. Around Leon there are the resort beaches of Poneloya and Las Penitas, which have a bit more shape to their beachbreaks and don't pick up as much swell as down south, but when it does, it quickly gets heavy rips and closes-out.

The same NE breeze that grooms southwest Nicaragua all day is far from a blessing for the Caribbean coast, which is pretty much blown-out all day. Unlike Costa Rica and Panama, this coastline has a shallow continental shelf, knocking wave heights down and making it unlikely that any sheltered breaks in the lee of a headland will be big enough. Huge river estuaries and mangrove swamps silt up the famed Mosquito coast and the only real option for decent waves will be the coral reefs off the Corn Islands where a kiteboard would make more sense.