Motu Mahara 79.5
#1268 of 5756 surf spots in the world · 🇵🇫 French Polynesia · Leeward Islands · near Papeete
Works almost every day, wind is the enemy here, no off season.
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Best time to surf Motu Mahara
The best time to surf Motu Mahara is February, March, April. It rarely works. In March the water sits around 29°C, so pack boardshorts, and the typical wave is 1.5 m. The nearest airport is PPT (172 km) and the nearest town is Papeete (175 km).
| Month | Surfable | Clean | Size | Water | Suit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 100% | 15% | 1.6 m | 28°C | boardies |
| Feb | 100% | 23% | 1.6 m | 29°C | boardies |
| Mar | 100% | 34% | 1.5 m | 29°C | boardies |
| Apr | 100% | 24% | 1.5 m | 29°C | boardies |
| May | 100% | 17% | 1.7 m | 29°C | boardies |
| Jun | 100% | 15% | 1.7 m | 28°C | boardies |
| Jul | 100% | 4% | 1.8 m | 27°C | boardies |
| Aug | 100% | 5% | 1.6 m | 27°C | boardies |
| Sep | 100% | 7% | 1.7 m | 27°C | boardies |
| Oct | 100% | 18% | 1.6 m | 27°C | boardies |
| Nov | 100% | 21% | 1.4 m | 28°C | boardies |
| Dec | 100% | 12% | 1.5 m | 28°C | boardies |
What is under Motu Mahara
Eight kilometres out along its swell window the sea floor is already 238 m deep, deep right up to the door, so swell arrives with its energy intact.
Measured, not estimated: NOAA ETOPO 2022 global relief at 15 arc-seconds, about 460 m per cell, sampled along this spot’s own swell window. At that scale the survey sees passes and channels; it cannot see a reef ledge, so nothing here is said about how the wave breaks.
Why 79.5
Seven parts, each normalised 0 to 1 and multiplied by its weight; the sum is scaled so the best spot in the world scores 100. Wave quality and what the spot does on its best days carry more than half of it, which is what separates this from a ranking of where the water is warm.
The detail
Faces 90° with 58% open water around it. Friendly morning wind 22% of days. Mean peak period 12.2 s. Days over 3 m: 0%. On its best tenth of days it reaches 2.1 m, with a peak period of 15 s. Mellow days (0.4 to 1.2 m): 7%. Months that work: 12 of 12. Coordinates -16.721, -150.976 (OpenStreetMap).
What it costs to be here
Remote spot, so the local estimate is 15% below the country average. Estimate: World Bank PPP price level for French Polynesia (2025, United States = 1.00) (no separate series, so we scale FR) applied to a fixed surfer basket, then adjusted for how remote the spot is. Your own number moves with the season and how you live.
Sumba has eight spots in this ranking, the best of them inside the world top 50. A cabin is €11,500. The land it sits on is separate, from €6,500 (€9,950 oceanfront), on an 80-year lease that extends at the end. Water, septic and electricity are another €6,500, and furniture is on top, so a finished cabin lands around €28,000 plus the land, payable in instalments.
Eco Beach City is run by the same people as SurfRanking, so treat this as our own advert, not a recommendation. It is an off-plan property in Indonesia: take your own legal and financial advice before paying anything.
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