Week long tropical surf holiday options with non-surfing wife

Maldives is great but not much to do for your non-surfing wife. Would be much quicker and probably cheaper to go to Hawaii. Plenty of waves, both big and small and lots to do for non-surfers.

Sri Lanka would be perfect for this.
1) heaps of resorts and guesthouses on the beach with fun beachies and reefs.
2) food is incredible and cheap. Snorkelling with turtles, forts on the beach, ancient ruins, trains through the tea plantations, sprawling forests, there is a shitload to do out of the water.
3) Less crowds and friendlier. On par $ wise too.

I've done both Lohis (once) & Hawaii (multiple times), both are good options depending on what the missus is into. If she's happy lounging around on the beach/in the bar/in the pool for a week, or if she's into fishing or diving, go Lohis. My missus actually discovered that she's into fishing when we went there - paying the extra for a sunset fishing trip was well worth it.

If she's more into doing the kind of stuff a city can offer, go Hawaii for sure. Far more options for non-surfing activities, plus options to learn to surf & all the "watersports" options you'd get at Lohis.

Also worth asking yourself what kind of waves you want to surf, and what time of year you want to go.

I'd go back to either in a heartbeat (with the non-surfing missus) if I had the funds.

what time of year Mackdog?

And yeah, what kind of stuff does your wife like to do.....thats the crucial question.

Good on you Mackdog, you wont regret it.
I'd recommend shooting Richard Kotch (the main Lohis surf guide) a line a week or so before you head off to get a read on the conditions. From my experience, the surf forecasts tended to under-call a little (1.5ft @ 8s turned into comfortably head-high surf), but comparing the forecast to Richards observations helped me bring the right boards.

Oh & make sure you book a surfer's pass before you go, or they wont let you in the water!

Hey Mackdog, Rich is an occasional contributor to Swellnet. Here's his contact: [email protected]

EDIT: Also, 'Donweather' is pretty handy with surf size there too.

"Oh & make sure you book a surfer's pass before you go, or they wont let you in the water!"

Really? How would they stop you?
Do they have a security guard checking bracelets or something?

I had a mate went to Nihiwatu and was told he’d have to buy a surf pass for the day. He’d only just arrived and It was nearly dark so he pleaded with the staff that he just wanted a quick wash and could they flag the charge ?

The answer was a firm “no “.

So he paid up , caught a couple of shit waves and came in cause the sun went down virtually straight away.

No dramas , next day he’s out there early only to have the staff pull him up cause he hadn’t paid his day rate. My mate assumed it was a 24 hour pass - buy it at 5:00 PM and you’ve got till 5PM the next day .

Not the case.

No other surfers staying at the time.

Nah, no security. Generally a coupla guides in the water either surfing or taking photos, nothing more than that (and they did ask to see my bracelet once when it was tucked under my rashie).
I'd imagine the way they'd police it would probably be to charge you for a pass if you got caught?

yeah, fuck that noise.

I go surfing to get away from that shit.

edit: would probably strangle and drown a security guard to surf a head high left right now.

I know there's a dozen arguments for/against privatising surf breaks, but fuck me, security guards in the water telling you you can't surf. FUCK that.

Yes agreed, however on the plus side when your surfing Sultans and its completely packed with 14 surf charter yachts moored outside the line up and surfer guests hassling for waves , knowing that you can go back to a restricted break (Pasta Point in my case) with a handful of guys for a session later is pretty cool.

Never cool.

Ever.

May be fun , but you’ve got to think of the precedent. More surfers globally every day , less ocean waves. Competition for known waves will increase . Prices will be driven higher and higher till one day you can’t afford to ever surf a decent quality wave ever again.

Hyperbolic, yeah , probably. But I’ve surfed public waves and had arrempts at denying me the best sets by Balinese guides cause I wasn’t paying . You really don’t want to be put in a position where someone has precedence in the ocean cause of what they are willing to pay. Fucking terrible.

Global "user pays" mentality for nature's gift - beautiful waves - feel for the younger ones coming through. But then they won't know what they've missed other than through legend and classic footage of a different time, mindset and population ratio.