Perranporth: Three Miles Of Beach And Room To Get It Wrong

Perranporth is the beach people choose when they've had enough of fighting for a peak. It's a long, wide stretch of north Cornwall sand, around three miles of it, backed by dunes and open to everything the Atlantic sends. Most of Cornwall's famous breaks are small and busy. This one is big and, on a normal day, has room.

The wave

Beach break, and a lot of it. Sand-bottomed peaks shift along the length of the beach with the banks, so there's rarely one spot everybody has to queue at. Walk a few hundred metres from the car park and the crowd thins out. Droskyn Point at the southern end gives a bit of shape and shelter when the swell is big.

That makes it a good place for improvers and for anyone who wants to practise without an audience. It's also the Atlantic, with nothing in front of it. When the swell gets up, the beach breaks get heavy, the rips get strong and the paddle out stops being a formality. Watch a few sets before you commit.

When to go

• Swell: West to north-west is the window, and the beach picks up almost all of it. Autumn and winter are the season, summer is hit and miss.
• Wind: It faces west, so anything with east in it is offshore and tidies the faces up. A westerly or south-westerly blows it out, and there's no shelter from it.
• Tide: It works through most of the tide, usually best from low to mid. Close to high on a big swell, expect more shorebreak and less beach. Give it twenty minutes before you write it off.
• Daylight: A little under eight hours in mid-December. Plan the session around the light, not the other way round.

What it'll cost you

Still mid-teens in October, falling to roughly 9–10°C by February and March. A 5/4 hooded suit with boots and gloves is the answer from about December, and a 4/3 does until then. The full month-by-month picture is in UK Sea Temperatures By Month.

The bit that really costs you is the car park afterwards. It's open, it's exposed, and there's nowhere to hide from the wind. A Fisherman Beanie goes on first, a Core Hood goes on over wet hair, and a changing mat keeps your feet off the tarmac while you wrestle the wetsuit off.

The honest bit

It's a popular seaside village with a big car park, so a good swell on a weekend means a full car park by mid-morning. The beach absorbs the crowd better than most, but you'll still queue to park. Be early. On a small day it's lovely. On a big, windy day the whole beach goes to mush and the lifeguards, where there are any, will tell you the same. Lifeguard cover is seasonal, so check what's running before you rely on it.

If it's blown out, Holywell Bay to the north and Porthtowan to the south face a slightly different way and are a short drive each side. For the busier Newquay option, here's what Fistral is really like.

Changing happens in the car park, in whatever the wind is doing. We're building something for exactly that bit.

More UK breaks in the Guide to Spots. For another exposed Atlantic beach break, see Freshwater West.

Kit built for exactly these conditions, not the brochure version. svrf.uk

Header photo: Penhale Sands, Perranporth, by inspiredimages via Pixabay.