Sandy Bay 49.5
#4107 of 5756 surf spots in the world · 🇳🇿 New Zealand · Northland · near Whangarei
Very consistent, wind is the enemy here, no off season.
Best time to surf Sandy Bay
The best time to surf Sandy Bay is January, April, May. It rarely works. In April the water sits around 20°C, so pack a 2 mm shorty, and the typical wave is 0.9 m. The nearest airport is AKL (164 km) and the nearest town is Whangarei (23 km).
| Month | Surfable | Clean | Size | Water | Suit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 83% | 6% | 0.9 m | 21°C | 2mm |
| Feb | 92% | 4% | 1.2 m | 21°C | 2mm |
| Mar | 97% | 5% | 1.1 m | 21°C | 2mm |
| Apr | 86% | 11% | 0.9 m | 20°C | 2mm |
| May | 83% | 10% | 1.1 m | 19°C | 3/2 |
| Jun | 83% | 2% | 1.1 m | 18°C | 3/2 |
| Jul | 79% | 5% | 1.2 m | 16°C | 3/2 |
| Aug | 83% | 5% | 1.2 m | 15°C | 4/3 |
| Sep | 83% | 6% | 1.0 m | 15°C | 4/3 |
| Oct | 74% | 2% | 0.9 m | 16°C | 3/2 |
| Nov | 81% | 2% | 0.9 m | 19°C | 3/2 |
| Dec | 82% | 6% | 0.9 m | 20°C | 2mm |
What is under Sandy Bay
Eight kilometres out along its swell window the sea floor drops to 152 m, shoaling steadily over the last kilometres. Alongside the bank the survey finds a channel, 663 m against 152 m, deep enough to bend swell onto one peak instead of spreading it along the beach.
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 49.5
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 35° with 33% open water around it. Friendly morning wind 55% of days. Mean peak period 8.8 s. Days over 3 m: 1%. On its best tenth of days it reaches 1.9 m, with a peak period of 11 s. Mellow days (0.4 to 1.2 m): 60%. Months that work: 12 of 12. Coordinates -35.557, 174.477 (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 New Zealand (2025, United States = 1.00) 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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