Piedras Altas (Fogarín / Punta de la Mona west cliff)

Piedras Altas sits on the south-southwest cliff of the Punta de la Mona cape, which juts south from the Granada coast, so the headland and mainland to the north and northeast shelter it from N-NE weather while the site opens to the open Alboran Sea to the south and southwest. There is no true ocean swell here - waves are wind-sea built over Mediterranean fetch - and the exposed window is the S-SSW-SW sector, where a Poniente (westerly) or southwest blow raises surface chop and the current that defines the dive. Levante (easterly) weather is partly blunted by the cape tip just to the east-northeast, and the western headlands toward La Herradura and Cerro Gordo shade the WNW-NW sector; a sustained southerly or southwesterly wind is what most often builds surface conditions and reinforces the current, forcing dives to be shifted or called off.