Jeffreys Bay

Jeffreys Bay is not a town that happens to have good surf. It is a town that was built around a single wave — Supertubes — and everything here follows from that fact. The shops sell boards and wax and wetsuits. The restaurants fill at sunrise when the tide is right and empty when it isn't. The WSL Championship Tour has stopped here for decades because there is no other wave in the world quite like it: a right-hand point that runs for three hundred metres through Boneyards, Supertubes, and The Point, each section faster and hollower than the last, each one capable of the kind of ride that ends careers at other breaks and starts reputations here.

The town sits on the Indian Ocean rather than the Atlantic, which means the water is warmer and the sharks are present — both facts worth knowing before you paddle out. The best swell arrives between May and September, when Southern Ocean groundswells stack up from the southwest and the offshore wind holds clean from the northwest. Outside peak winter the breaks are emptier and the water warmer, which suits most surfers better than they'd admit. Kitchen Windows is where the surf schools go. The Point is where the intermediates find their feet. Supertubes is where nobody gives way to anyone. The hotels in this collection are all on or within walking distance of the point — which is the only place to stay if you're here for the reason anyone comes.