Can Surfers Win The Zicatela Sand War? 

Donate to the Zicatela restoration project here.

When a concrete wall went up at the mouth of Puerto Escondido in 2000, locals thought they were protecting their boats. Twenty-five years later, it’s clear they were helping bury one of the best sand-bottom barrels on Earth, and ironically, making it harder for boats to access the beach.

“The jetty was built to give the boats more protection from storms,” explains local Surf100 finalist Sebastian Williams. “But it ended up doing the opposite. Sand built up all around the jetty, making boat access more tricky. Then beyond that, all the sand ended up pushing down the coast to Zicatela. It was just a legendary fuck up, pretty much.”

Since then, the iconic Mexican beachbreak, known for its Pipeline mimicry and 10-second tubes, has been slowly suffocating under its own sand. “Zicatela used to break really far out,” Sebastian says. “It’d close out, then the foam would roll toward the beach and reform again closer to shore. Now, it just ends right on the beach. It’s like 20 yards of wave, max. Before it used to be fifty.”

The reason? The jetty cut off the natural sand flow from the south, trapping current and leaving the wave without its natural breath. “When the south swells come in, the energy moves up the coast from south to north,” he explains. “But that jetty sticks out so far that it just traps everything. There’s no movement, no circulation, just buildup. And, as a result of the increased size of the beach, backwash and closeouts are more of a thing too.” 

25 years of blue balls, essentially.

Local surfers have been fighting for years to reverse it. Petitions were filed, meetings held, promises made. But progress was slow, until nature intervened.

“The Hurricane [Erick] that hit in June, the one that devastated Chacahua and surrounds, sent waves with like 84,000 kilojoules of energy (Seb may well be the only A+ surfer who understands what those metrics mean – see here for Why The Fuck Are We Measuring Waves In Kilojoules?). They smashed directly into the jetty and destroyed part of it,” Sebastian recalls. “Mother Nature basically started the job for us.”

That destruction lit a fire under the community. “Everybody came together. We had people breaking rocks by hand, carrying them out, lending trucks and machinery. It was all totally voluntary. A proper community service project,” he says. “Now we just have to finish what nature started.”

Enter Rafa Vasquez, the local fisherman-surfer who’s become the unlikely face of the fight. “He’s the guy who put his name on all the paperwork,” Sebastian says. “His family are fishermen, his dad passed his boat down to him. The bay and Zicatela are his whole life, so he said, ‘Fuck it, I’ll take the risk. I’ll sign. Somehow, we’ll find a way to get this done.’”

Several community leaders such as Edwin Morales, Coco Nogales and Seb have been chimed in too.

The Mexican maritime authority, La Marina, has lent a crane and tractor for the effort, but the rest falls on the locals. “We have to cover gasoline, maintenance, and pay for some of the labor,” Sebastian explains. “Some people can volunteer, but others need to feed their families. That’s where the donations come in.”

Surfers and fishermen, who are often at odds in coastal towns, for once, have united. “It’s kind of lucky it didn’t really help the boats,” he laughs. “Otherwise, it could’ve been a full feud. But it actually made their work harder too, so everyone’s on the same side now.”

The goal is to remove half the jetty in the next two months, enough to “let Zicatela breathe again.” Early studies show even a partial removal would restore the natural current and potentially revive the wave to its former glory.

You can donate here.