This letter clarifies the key parameters governing the wake recovery of a floating wind turbine undergoing surge motion. A dedicated wind-tunnel campaign covering reduced frequencies (<em>St<sub>p</sub></em>) well beyond current literature is presented. This enabled a full characterisation of the wake recovery and the discovery of a previously unreported wake mixing phenomenon. We highlight three main findings: (i) enhanced wake recovery of the surging turbine is highly sensitive to thrust; (ii) wake recovery is characterised by the ratio of motion velocity amplitude to wind speed and <em>St<sub>p</sub></em>; and (iii) a previously unreported flow phenomenon improves wake recovery when the motion frequency is slightly lower than the blade passing frequency.