About

Radical.

Best left to the experienced and pro's. Not a beach for beginners or intermediates at any decent surf able size.

Atmosphere:
Watch out for local pricks from places like Hayle. Be respectful and don't drop in as it can suffer localism. Great scenery and beats the shit out of the north coast.

Experienced surfers only as when firing it can be one of the heaviest waves in Cornwall breaking boards and worse....

BEWARE: Very Heavy shore break at High Tide that can make entering / exiting the water difficult and hazardous for the less experienced.

Avoid surfing right to the beach around High Tide as you can find yourself on a 5 foot lip breaking into an inch of water!!!

Also, there's a backwash to beware from the rocks that can cause spectacular explosions of water. You wouldn't want to be in them!

Additional Info:
Park in the national trust car park.This beach and those next to it Green Bay and Pedne Vedna are sporadic in the quality of the wave, it's very fickle, but occassionally it goes off holding hollow waves up to four or five feet, locals have seen and surfed bigger in the winter. It's an incredibly beautiful beach listed before in Elle magazine as being in the top 10 most beautiful in the worlld! I've seen and surfed it in decent conditions in the spring and autumn back in the mid 80's at 4' - 6'. It does suffer from breaking mid tide quite close to the cliff between Green Bay and Pedne Vedna and the waves bounce off the cliff and back out to sea with a phenomenal affect.

Location

Access

Access is a nightmare, albeit roads are surfaced. Once you turn off the main A30, the road to St Buryan, is a typical Cornish lane, mostly 1 car wide with high hedges, some bad bends and with a high probability of meeting other vehicles / tourist coaches head on due to it being the only access to the nearby Minack Theatre. Literally your wing mirrors will be touching the grass on both sides of the road in places.

If you value your car or don't like the idea of meeting traffic head on with no room to pass for hundreds of metres, then this isn't spot for you.

Most drivers fold their wing mirrors before leaving the A30...

A30 road from Penzance, head west, turn off to St. Buryan and then follow signs for the 'Minack Theatre' and 'Porthcurno'. There's a national trust car park near Porthcurno beach. The best waves are to be had if you paddle nearer to the point to the left as you look out from the beach at low tide. It's called 'Logan Rock'. It's about one third of a mile from Porthcurno beach and sometimes there's some sick waves to be had there, hollow, fast and great fun, hardly a soul about normally, and before all you locals start moaning, it's a well known beach and sign posted, this is not a secret spot.

Wave Characteristics

Ideal Conditions

Crowd

Dangers

Rips / undertow, Rocks, Localism

Videos

None