Surf forecasting - Tulin south end of Hermosa

About 15 minutes from the hotels in Jaco, at the very south end of the road that runs along Hermosa beach, lies a magical place called Tulin. This beach break area is named for the Tulin river mouth, 600 meters south. Dont go in the water much south of the end of the road there unless you are prepared for large crocodiles.

The road ends at the ranger station for the Tulin Wildlife Refuge. From November to January you will find them protecting wire baskets of buried turtle eggs arranged in careful grids. When its time to hatch, latex-gloved volunteers sheperd the tiny (2 inch) turtles to the sea. This morning I saw a bunch in a bucket of sand getting ready to go out and crawling blindly all over each other and I saw one tiny little tortugita swimming around in the shore break.

But I digress. The point of this post is to let those seeking waves know - Tulin can produce waves when nothing else but Bejuco is working. In brief - if it is a small south swell and its dead elsewhere, head to Tulin for small peaky waves that even a bold beginner could enjoy breaking in shoulder deep water.

With wavewatch swell heights of 1.5-.2.5 feet out of the south and surfline forecasts of 1 to 3 feet wave heights, most of Hermosa and all of Jaco will be breaking very small and close to the shore. Maybe on a lower tide you could find something.

Tulin this morning had the largest waves in the area, but they were tiny for Tulin, which usually produces larger wave heights than other areas of Hermosa. Local Hermosa surfers would say the waves were waist high maybe. An northeastern surfer I was with said maybe one foot overhead. Depends on how you look at it. Anyway, fun waves for sure. If we had hit dead low they might have been throwing a couple crouching barrells. As it was, one hour after low tide, they were still fairly steep and you could see a little torso sized opening where the lip was pitching over. By an hour before the high tide they were getting mushy anywhere off the peak.

The beach in Tulin is long and flat rather than steep like north Hermosa beach. Waves from the larger days rearrange the sand in the shallow mid tide water into shifting peaks at the optimum low tide small wave breaking range, so on small days the waves here can be extremely peaky, so much so that you have to stall to stay in the wave or just pull out early and go back for another.

for more information on surfing and the various breaks in Hermosa beach -
check out this surf information from the finest of Jaco Hotels:
http://www.docelunas.com/surfing.html