surf Archives

May 17, 2022 By WildMex

Which Surfboard Fin Setup to Choose? Thruster vs Quad Fin

Did you know that your surfboard’s fins play a BIG role in your board’s performance?

Our intermediate surf campers do because that’s just one of the elements we teach within the theory at our surf camp in Punta Mita! Learn more here.

Believe it or not, almost 40% of your board’s performance comes down to your choice of fins, so, we think it’s pretty crucial you know these kinda’ deets that other surf camps don’t take the time to teach you!

This means switching out your fins, or your fin configuration when surfing in Punta Mita and beyond will play a key role in how your board is going to want to be surfed and therefore, how you will perform in the water on any given day. But which surfboard fin setup to choose?

Whether you’re a big wave rider looking to maximize the chances of you making a giant section, or a local surf-enthusiast simply looking for faster ways to go down-the-line, today we are offering you the inside scoop into our surf camp in Punta Mita theory! So, keep reading here to discover more as we explore the difference between these two famous fin setups and learn What and When to ride.

The History of Surfboard fin Setup

The popular quad and thruster share a parallel origin story. Both were developed in the early 80s within Australia and both were a response to the fiasco that almost everyone was having transitioning from single to twin fins! Eeeeep.

What’s the Main Difference of Surfboard Fin Setup?

So, what’s the difference between the Quad (4-fin set-up) and the Thruster (3-fin set-up)?

In short, Quads go faster and Thrusters turn better, but it goes way deeper than that, keep reading here for the details of each for you to consider what’s gonna work best for you…

Everyone wants that quick but loose feeling while maintaining control when surfing, right? Well, that’s exactly what you get with the quad setup.

Quad surfboard fin setup

This setup brings out the fastest top speeds possible and can be put to play either in big and heavy waves, or small and mushy waves, it all comes down to the fin placement!

Why not try setting up your quad with the rear fins closer to the rail and slightly further up on smaller days for fast maneuvers and flexibility on the tail. And, on bigger days try out the quad with the fins placed back a little and also close to the rail for extra speed and hold on the face of the wave.

The quad will allow you that extra horsepower out the gate compared to the 3fin set-up and once you’re on your feet, don’t be surprised when you experience that instant oomph of down the line speed instead of having to pump your board!

WildMex likes to surf the quad at Burros & Paredon during south swells for better chances of making the faster sections!

When will you thrive with the thruster?

On those super rippable days.

Whilst the quad works in both giant or mushy days, the thruster thrives on those high-quality, epic surf days. Think shoulder to slightly overhead, top to bottom, and plenty of room to move around, not too small, not too big, not too fast, and not weak either, just good quality waves that are simply just rippable.

When you have time to perform instead of having to glide and avoid certain sections, the thruster offers optimum performance value, with the fin placement in the back, you’re offered controlled drag that comes in useful when wanting to surf at a higher level on good quality waves.

Thrusters do still work in small waves, and big waves too but that will all come down to your fin of choice, buuuut, that’s for another blog! 😉

WildMex likes to surf the thruster at Burros on North Swells and La Lancha all the time to perform quick, tight turns and pivots!!

At our surf camp in Punta Mita, we teach our students about the different surfboard fin setups – their advantages and disadvantages and how finding the right fin setup for your choice of wave and surfing style is crucial to perform better and accelerate your surfing abilities whilst here surfing in Punta Mita and beyond.

The Quad Setup

Quick
Fast
Loose
Responsive
Fast-reacting
Works in a variety of wave types
Many variations of fin placements to provide whatever type of ride the surfboard was designed for

The Thruster Setup

Stable
Predictable
Radical manoeuvrability
Controlled drag
Increased lateral drive
Performs quick, tight turns and pivots
Speedy redirection
Performs at a higher level on good quality waves
More options available in the marketplace
More styles and designs on offer too!

With the bulk of surfboards coming in the 5-fin convertible option, the question we often get asked at our surf camp in Punta Mita is:

Which is better, the thruster or the quad?

We have no simple answer to this question, other than – both are superb. It all just depends on what you want and need out of yours! Hence the reason why so many boards come with a 5-fin option, allowing you to experience the variety of both.

In the quest to push the boundaries of the imaginable in waves both big and small, your understanding of the real difference between the thruster and the quad setup is vital, so that you can choose for yourself which is best for YOU.

So, one thing you’ll want to consider when choosing between the fin setup of quad fins vs thruster is which type of waves you’ll be surfing most often; and how exactly you wish your surfing style to be.

We know that thrusters offer more predictability and control while quads are fast-reacting and quick. So, what are you looking for and which is right for you?

Now it’s time to be your own board engineer!

Try both and figure out what works best for you. Changing fins in a board can make the board feel like a completely different board! So, why not give it a go?

March 31, 2022 By WildMex

How To: Get Ready For Your 2022 Surf Camp in Punta Mita & Sayulita

Just signed up for learning to Surf in Mexico with Wild Mex? Yeeew! Well, you best get ready because you are in for an adventure of a lifetime!

From experiencing your first wave to gliding across the ocean as you own it, the feeling you will live through on our epic surf camp in Punta Mita or Sayulita will be unmatchable.

So, what can you do beforehand, to get fit, prepped, and your body in tip-top shape so you can be the best surfer you can be once you arrive at camp? Keep reading to discover more…

Whether you’ve got 4 weeks or 4 months before your surfing vay-cay it’s important to get yourself prepared for the unreal adventure and experience it’s going to be… but don’t doubt it, surfing is a full-on physical workout!

Surfing is not snowboarding, nor is it skateboarding. You don’t lie down on your snowboard then pop up just as you are gathering speed. Nor does snowboarding or skateboarding require you to paddle your way back up the hill after a big run!

You’ll not only use your leg muscles to control your speed and balance on the mighty waves when surfing in La Lancha, no no no… You’ll also need to paddle your way back out to the sets after you start catching all your waves to the shore!

So, undoubtedly one of the hardest things about surfing is paddling into waves, which requires a lot of upper body strength.

Therefore, our Wild Mex team has prepared a little guide to help you get fit and ready to get into your learning to surf in Mexico experience!

You can warm up and tone your muscles with these workout regimes anywhere from 1 week to 6 months prior to your camp, as often or as little as you like so that you can build the upper body strength that you need to master those majestic waves, like a pro! The more you practice, the more you’ll seamlessly glide into your surf camp experience!

Good luck!

Surfing for Beginners in Sayulita and Punta Mita can be pretty tough in the first few days when you’re getting used to the paddling technique. So, when preparing yourself for the first few days, swimming is a great way to get your arms and upper body ready to tackle those waves!

Swimming works out many of the muscles that will be used whilst paddling on a surfboard including your upper arms and your shoulder blades. Working your muscles in the water will also get them trained for resistance which you’ll be experiencing a lot of when you’re paddling in the pacific ocean waves.

And most importantly, swimming will also get you used to spending time in the water, coordinating your breathing, and holding your breath while working out there.

Let us prepare you… it is a given that you will experience some wipeouts during your first week of surf lessons In La Lancha and Sayulita as a beginner. So, swimming in the water beforehand (even if it’s a swimming pool) will ensure that you build your confidence and stamina just by being in the water.

In short, spending 1 or 2 hours a week swimming in a pool prior to your surf camp will definitely make your surfing experience much more comfortable!

Guide to Building Strength, Endurance, and Balance

Hitting the water or waves every day might be the best way to get wave-ready, but if you’ve signed up for the camp from a place that’s flat or dry, no need to fret…we’ve got you covered!

Yoga might seem a little underwhelming if you are looking forward to an epic adventure like surfing in La Lancha and our nearby areas buuuuuut don’t be so quick to judge… It’s a fact that all types of Yoga will benefit your surfing!

Yoga helps you work on your balance which is a must-have for surfers. It helps you develop core strength and agility which is necessary when you’re doing quick pop-ups and turns whilst surfing – which is of course a given!

Indulging in yoga also keeps your muscles from potentially tearing during fast-paced and strenuous movements like pop-ups or paddling, because it will develop your muscle flexibility from all the stretching.

So, those stretches and breathing techniques may seem calm and passive, but trust us, it’ll be a lifesaver for learning to surf in Mexico and mastering the wondrous waves when you’re experiencing your first week out there.

Apart from yoga and swimming, the gym can help you build the upper body capacity you need to ace your surf camp in Punta Mita or Sayulita ! From bodyweight exercises to working with dumbbells, building up the stamina and strength you need to surf CAN be done in the gym beforehand!

Best Exercises

✔️1) Hold your dumbbells at thigh-level with palms against your legs. With elbows resting against your waist, move the weights up towards the shoulder and lower them down.

✔️2) Holding your dumbbells at shoulder height with arms out like a cross. Lift the weights overhead, then in front of your head keeping your arms straight.

✔️3) Holding dumbbells in each hand, bend forward while your back is almost parallel to the ground. Lift the weights toward your chest and slowly lower them down.

Try 4 x 10 sets of these exercises with a weight that feels comfortable for you! We recommend at least 1 x per week.

For endurance, these swimming exercises can help you:

✔️1) With a floating buoy strapped to the feet, swim 50-meters four times with your head above the water surface. Do this twice a week at least.

✔️2) Do 50-meter sprints eight times and rest for 30-seconds in between. Do this at least once a week.

✔️3) For lung capacity, increase the number of strokes you take before each breath. Start each lap at two strokes and increase the number as you build capacity.

Waves can be relentless and uncertain! So, an Indo Board can do the trick to experience your first surfboard - on dry land!

On the Indo board, try to stand still for 90 seconds. You should try an activity like bouncing a tennis ball on the floor for 90 seconds without letting the board touch the ground. A harder position may be standing still whilst positioned in a squat and rocking back and forth.

At the final level, you should be able to do slow squats on the board without letting it touch the ground!

Summing it Up

With the exercises mentioned, you’ll be more than ready to start your surf camp in Punta Mita or Sayulita ! Plus, all the waiting prior to your surf camp will be put to best use! 😉

The great thing about surfing is, as you get better, so does the feeling! So, why not start early?

Up for the challenge?

We can’t wait to welcome you!

Peace & love

Wild Mex

Nature & Wildlife Newsletter Surfing

February 28, 2022 By WildMex

Surfing Etiquette 101 – Becoming the Good Kind of Surfer

Our WildMex Surf Camp In Sayulita and Punta Mita teaches true surf etiquette so you can think like a pro even before your first lesson.

Registered for the WildMex Surf Camp in Punta Mita or Sayulita? Yeeew! Here’s an early welcome from the Wild Mex team to an adventure you have probably never experienced before! For now, the feelings you experience might be mixed. You might be excited and eager, and maybe even at the same time, a bit nervous... Let’s face it, starting a new thing is always scary. A small voice in your head might say, “What if you can’t pull this off?” But say adios to this little voice because we are here to teach you how to be the best beginner for your next surf adventure here in Mexico. This crash course will help you learn all there is to surfing terminologies and etiquettes so you don’t feel clueless and nervous within your first week of camp and surf lessons In Punta Mita!

You’ll learn how to read tides, waves and learn the best time to surf Punta Mita & Sayulita waves in our Wild Mex surf camp.

The Basics of Surfing: All the Theory with a Twist!

Experienced surfers will accumulate a lot of time in the water, this means that they have learned to gauge which waves will break and which waves are the best to catch. They also know when is the best time to surf Punta Mita waves because they know the tides, swells and how to avoid the competitive crowds.

However, surfing for beginners in Punta Mita or Sayulita can seem overwhelming when you can’t keep up with all the surfer terms. So, here are some of the basics and theories that you need to know before your first class at your Surf Camp in Punta Mita and Sayulita with WildMex!

1) Learning the Wave Directions

To have good surf, the first thing you'll need to learn is to understand how swells work and which waves are the best ones to get familiar with. Once you start your surf lessons in Punta Mita or Sayulita, you will begin to hear your coach and other surfers use the terms listed below, take a read and get familiar with them, knowing the lingo may be the difference between you catching 0 waves or 10!

The Direction of the Wind

Offshore wind - what surfers' dreams are made of. Offshore wind is the kind that blows from the land to the ocean, this is the best kind for surfing. It produces waves that are clean and groomed and indicate the best time to surf Punta Mita, Sayulita, or any other waves for that matter. Also, a swell coming in from the north will break differently than a swell arriving from the south. It’s important to point out that it is also possible to surf when the wind is Onshore, the kind that blows from ocean to land, however, this is the worst wind for surfing. The wind blows in from the ocean and ensures that all the waves crumble and have no shape, making the waves prettttty hard to surf!

Tide

Gauging the tide is important to catch the best waves. Some beaches work best on low tide and others on high tide. Different tides can either make waves "mushy"; breaking slowly with a lip that just sort of crumbles over when the wave breaks, or "hollow"; fast-breaking, barreling waves with lips that pitch out forcefully into the wave's trough. You’ll learn the local tides from your coach once you arrive here!

The Best Kinds

The types of waves that you experience while surfing in Punta Mita and Sayulita are beach breaks, pointbreaks, and reef breaks. These waves all have their own characteristics:

Waves	Pros	Cons
Beach Breaks	Beach Breaks tend to be common, with consistent waves and nice sand bottoms.	Beach Breaks can be unforgiving, with difficult paddle-outs
Pointbreaks	Pointbreaks can offer perfectly shaped waves and the longest rides of any kind of wave.	Pointbreaks can get a little too crowded sometimes and are generally not that consistent
Reef Breaks	Reef Breaks Reef Breaks are where advanced surfers go in search of the best barrels. Reef Breaks usually have uneven and/or sharp bottoms composed of rock or coral.	Reef Breaks usually have uneven and/or sharp bottoms composed of rock or coral.

But drawbacks aside, all these types of waves can offer excellent surf, and as any dedicated surfer will tell you, the rewards of surfing are worth more than material wealth.

Lefts and Rights

Understanding where the wave will break is impossible if you haven’t had any or little experience with surfing.

Waves “peel” to either the left or the right. As a beginner learning to Surf in Punta Mita and Sayulita there is a simple way to tell the difference between the two “peels”.

When you're lying down on your surfboard, paddling into a wave, you're going to drop into the wave and angle either towards your right with the wave crashing to your left (then it’s a right-hander) or you're left with the wave crashing to your right (which tells us it’s a left-hander).

If you’re watching from the shore, a surfer surfing in Punta Mita going left means they’re riding a right peeling wave. Don’t worry if you don’t get it yet, you will find it obvious the minute you see it for yourself!

Rip Tides

Another terminology that you might hear a lot when you’re learning to Surf in Punta Mita and Sayulita is rip currents or rip tides. While this term might sound dangerous, and it is, but only for those unfamiliar with how they work, yet for those who follow a few basic rules, rips are nothing to fear!

A rip is a path of water being pushed onto the shore by the waves takes to run back into the ocean, they can often appear as deeper and darker colored water in a relatively calm or rippled channel between breaking waves. However, these channels actually indicate fast currents moving back out to sea. One sign to spot one may be noticing anything floating out to sea via that route.

Rip currents can be dangerous because people can become exhausted trying to swim against the current back to shore, however, many surfers use this channel to enter the ocean from the shore or get back out the back after catching a wave. The way to escape the channel once you get out the back is by swimming parallel to the shore to escape the rip current. Never swim against the current back to shore.

You’ll learn how to read waves, do Eskimo rolls and how to avoid wipeouts in our surf camp in Sayulita and Punta Mita.

2) Sets

Set waves are those waves that come in larger than the overall significant wave height. In this case, it is quite probable that you’ll have a wipeout one time or another.

To try and avoid a wipeout, once you see a set coming (a good indication of this is seeing all other surfers paddling out fast), you should follow them and paddle out too in the opposite direction of wherever the wave is peeling from.

If you run out of time and you see the wave is about to crash on you, always opt for a turtle roll, also known as the Eskimo roll, a surfing technique that allows you to get past the breaking waves without having to discard your surfboard or duck dive in challenging conditions. You’ll learn how to do this at your surf camp in Sayulita and Punta Mita.

3) Wipe Outs

Let’s talk realistically, wipeouts are what you’re fearing the most. But stop! Wipeouts are common, even for expert surfers, and if you learn how to tackle them you will be safe!

If you do get hit by a wave and held underwater, never panic and scratch hard for the surface! It doesn't matter if you only managed to get just half a lungful of air, you'll be alright if you just simply relax. In the words of a surfer:

“Relaxing may not seem easy when you’ve encountered your first wipeout. Every second underwater might feel like ten, but even on a powerful wave, you'll be underwater for no more than five to ten seconds. So, when the wave is starting to recede, you can come back up and BREATHE…”

Pro Tip: Your Surfboard is your Best Friend!

Don't forget that your surfboard isn't just for riding waves, it is also an excellent lifesaving device and your primary means of getting out of trouble should a bad situation arise. So, don’t ditch it unless it is extremely necessary.

4) Crowding and Surfing Etiquette

Another concept you would want to learn before you get started with the waves is surfer etiquette.

If you take off on a wave in front of someone, you're basically stealing the wave, as the surfer who was already up and riding has to give up the wave or risk having a collision with you.

And not just collisions, one wave ridden by two persons is trouble! If you’re at the back and the surfer in front of you rides away while you’re at the end-side of the wave, you’ll experience a pretty blatant drop-in.

And the easiest way to avoid drop-ins is simple - stay away from crowds! Crowds tend to get competitive, and there are always those in the water who don't care so much about having fun as they do about showing off and catching all the waves they can.

Always give way to the surfer closest to the highest point of the wave (the peak). They have the right of way on the wave.

Surfing for Beginners in Punta Mita doesn’t have to be so tricky! Here’s the 101 for surfing in the area…

Summing it Up

To sum up our crash course, don’t forget to have fun!

The best thing you can do for both yourself and others in the water is simple - just respect others and enjoy yourself! It's hard not to have a good time in the surf, but everyone has a bad day every once in a while.

But hey, don’t worry, be happy! Remember to always stay in a relaxed frame of mind, and encourage others to do the same. Share waves, smile, and give a kind word to both friends and strangers alike. Hoot for others when you see them get a good wave, and soon you'll hear other surfers hooting for you on your good ones too!

We can’t wait to welcome you to the waves!

Peace & love,

Wild Mex

Newsletter Surfing

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What’s the Main Difference of Surfboard Fin Setup?