Can Puerto Escondido Be Saved?

“It’s been about an hour to an hour-and-a-half long wait.” 

You can hear Nathan Florence practically sigh in the midst of his latest Puerto Escondido escapade. “No waves ridden. There’s been sets, but it’s so stretched out. And huge rip currents.” 

It could be a case of early season funk, wrong swell direction, or just a shocker (yes, even Nathan has them), but more likely the culprit is a longstanding issue that has become synonymous with Puerto’s notorious board-eater, Playa Zicatela. 

Sand: the very thing that makes the wave so impactful, can also degrade it. Local Puerto surfers have seen this phenomenon firsthand. In a sad twist of fate, a breakwater built two decades ago north of the beach to protect fishing boats stopped the sand from flowing out to sea. As the beach grew, the once-defined sandbars were smothered.

In Now Now Media’s stellar mini-documentary on Puerto, Shane Dorian summed it up well. “No one’s going to want to hear this, but it’s mostly a closeout,” he said. “Every now and then you get one that’s makeable and you get these mind-expanding barrels.”

But hope is not lost. Last year, Hurricane Erick brought 140-mph winds and razed most of the jetty in June 2025. Surf100 standout Sebastian Williams was among the local crew cleaning debris with their own hands and power tools, setting the sand free for the first time in 20 years. 

Today, there’s a formal body in place to keep an eye on the sand and make sure things are running smoothly. Last weekend, the international nonprofit Save the Waves Coalition named Puerto Escondido the 14th World Surfing Reserve. The designation doesn’t guarantee environmental protections the same way a National Park does in the US, but it legitimizes a united group ready and willing to keep its waves intact.

Save the Waves has three main conservation goals for Puerto: 1. Improve water quality and stop pollution; 2. Protect critical ecosystems; and 3. Restore Zicatela to its former “Mexican Pipeline” glory.

The local community is trying to address that third goal as we speak, in the form of scientific studies on Zicatela’s bathymetry, currents and sand flow. Organizers are still asking for help to pay for the work (chip in here), which will cost more than $300,000 MXN ($16,000 USD).

The plan is to have concrete data to inform surfers, lawmakers and engineers about the inner workings of the oversized beachbreak and what factors (see: unchecked development) could mess it up. 

“Right now, we are fundraising for bathymetric studies of Zicatela, to understand marine dynamics and ensure that future construction does not damage the wave,” Almendra Gomez Leyva, president of Puerto’s new Local Stewardship Council, said in a statement. “With the designation of the World Surfing Reserve, we are more united than ever.”

Along with Zicatela, Puerto’s new reserve spans six miles and seven named waves, including Playa Carrizalillo, Playa Marinero, La Punta de Zicatela, and Punta Colorada.

“Playa Zicatela is much more than a famous wave,” Edwin Morales, Puerto’s most revered surf photographer. “It is a community united by respect for the ocean, by shared early mornings, and by the passion of those of us who feel that the sea is part of our lives. For many of us, Zicatela is not just a place where we surf — it is a place where we belong.”