Punta Roca Swell Window
La Libertad, El Salvador · part of the Punta Roca spot guide
- Swell window (from)
- 165°–250° (SSE–WSW)
- Best direction
- ~210° (SSW)
- Period sweet spot
- 13–17 s
- Open-ocean height (Hs)
- 3–10 ft
- Resulting faces
- 3–12 ft
Open-ocean vs. the face: the heights on buoys and forecast models are significant wave height (Hs) in deep water. What you ride is the breaking face, which depends on period, direction and this break's bathymetry — that's why the two rows above differ. PierMonkey's spot ratings already do this conversion for you.
The physical window is enormous — anything from west round through south to south-south-east reaches the coast, with only a narrow shadow cast by the Galápagos around 180 to 190° — but the point itself is built for south-southwest to southwest, roughly 190 to 230°. That is the angle the sub-sea ridge and the curve of the headland wrap around the tip and onto the south-east-facing flank. Straight south and south-south-east energy gets in through the shadow gap and from local ITCZ swell but arrives with less shape.
Period is the real gate. At 13 to 17 seconds the lines refract along the whole point and the breaking face runs about equal to, or up to 40 percent bigger than, the open-ocean height; short-period swell under ten seconds breaks as peaks over pebbles and shows less than the model number. It needs about 3 feet of face to break off the rocks, holds to 12 feet, and stops improving around 8 to 10 — above that the sets push wide of the prime bathymetry.