First Day of School

Today was the first day of school, which also means the first day of work for teachers such as me.  Bummer.

I just want to be back on the black sand beach of Ostional!

KOOK - Part II

Some guy ran into me the other day while I was surfing DogPatch and I'm kind of pissed about it. It's not that accidents never happen in the surf- it was more of the way the guy handled the whole thing. Before I go into that, let me give those of you who aren't surfers a little background about the unspoken rules of surfing.

Right of way on a wave: When you're surfing a wave, you can either go right or left. If you're the surfer who's closest to where the wave begins to break and, say the wave is a right, then you have the right of way. Other surfers will generally give you the wave- unless they are kooks and they cut you off as you're surfing along the wave.

Kook: A person who's so clueless in the water that they do stupid things, like drop in on you while you are already on the wave. To be called a kook means that you can't surf well, have a terrible style, talk trash, or even snake your fellow surfers.

My boyfriend was onshore taking continuous photos of me surfing fun little waves and was able to catch the following series:

Here I am already in the wave.  There seems to be no kooks in sight.

This is the kook dropping in on me!  I'm going right and he doesn't know what he is doing.

It would make sense for him to go right as well so that we don't collide.

Unfortunately, his dumb ass (excuse my language) decides to bail.

Notice how he actually turns around to jump off behind his board.
If you surf, or have any common sense, you'd know that by
doing this the board will fly up into the air.

I knew his board was coming straight at me so I had my arm up
to cover my head but it still got me underwater and
his fins scraped across my shoulder.

The worst part is that the guy didn't show any concern
for me, even after I got out of the water to ice the
huge knot on my head.  I later found that his fins
actually cut and bruised my shoulder. 

I was mostly pissed because that kook was out there enjoying the fun waves while I was on the beach icing my head. But you better believe I still went back out to surf after I iced my head. The guy never approached me to make sure I was okay. The problem is that it seems that the worst kooks of them all don't realize the extent of their own kookdom.

KOOK

I'll explain later- right now, I've got an ice pack on my head. Ouch. 

Arribada

I love to surf but this Costa Rica trip was actually all about turtles. My friends have a home in the small town of Ostional which is world famous for the arribada. The arribada is like a turtle egg laying convention. It only happens at certain times of the year and the days that it happens on are hard to predict but when it's on, there are literally thousands of turtles crawling up the beach that they hatched from to lay their own batch of eggs.

The universe smiled on our visit, we just happened to arrive a day before the arribada was going to happen. How did we find out that it was going to be happening that night? We had an informant. The little boy lived on the beach and when we came down to look at the beautiful, black sand beach he told me the arribada was going to happen the next night. 

We went out to the beach in the evening and watched this turtle go through the whole process of laying her eggs.

The process begins with the turtle digging a hole that's between 40 - 50 cm deep. We watched her lay 113 eggs, bury them and then camouflage the area. When she's all done,  she heads back out to the ocean.  

The local people of Ostional are allowed to harvest 1% of the turtle eggs.  They are also the caretakers of the eggs that are not harvested and the protectors of the baby turtles that crawl out onto the sand. The people of Ostional  ensure that as many of the baby turtles make it to the water as possible. 

The eggs are ping pong shaped.  

They are also very pliable, not hard-shelled like chicken eggs.  So the locals are able to carry them by the hundreds in big sacks. The bags are tossed around and almost none of the eggs are broken.

Paying Dues in Costa Rica

I took my first surfing lesson today here in Costa Rica.  It was fun surfing the white-water and I want to become a competent surfer and even plan on going back to sharpen my skills- but at this point, I'm still a stand up surfer girl.  I can't help it, it was my first surfing love. 

Today, I heard there was a secluded right point break just a couple miles up the road.  Fortunately, a local, Steve from Coconut Harry's, is an avid stand up paddler and he was fired up to drive us out there.  It was basically a dream set up; there wasn't anyone there.  A major reason for the lack of a crowd was the paddle, there aren't too many surfers willing to paddle out a quarter of a mile for waves when there are super fun beach break waves just out the front door. The wave was a long, right point- I was blown away, this is basically a perfect stand up surfer's wave. 

Three of us paddled out to the point.  The waves were crankin'.  This whole trip I've been amping to go paddle-surfing so I just charged it.  I warmed up on a few good, head high waves and was feeling confident and loose. Then it happened, I was in the perfect spot and I turned to see a cobalt blue wall coming right for me. This was a set wave, probably two and a half times overhead and I knew it was now or never. I paddled in and honestly, I got tunnel vision. I couldn't even see how high the wave was above my head- but I did see the wall stretching two hundred yards off to my right and the thing was turning inside out. This was not the time to hotdog- this was a survival situation. I made the drop, came off the bottom, set my rail and took a speed line for the shoulder hoping I could make it to clear water. The last thing I remember was the sound of the lip detonating on my heels. I was in trouble.

I learned a lot from that wave. Basically, if you're going to challenge a wave, you take it to the end.  Otherwise, there's a price to pay.  When that wave closed out on the back of my board, I decided to jump off. Don't ask me why, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  Unfortunately, I chose the wrong moment to do that because the wave broke right on top of the side of my head.  The pressure from the wave was so strong and heavy that it pushed me down deep.  On top of that, my board was still caught in the wave and it dragged me.  I've had both of these happen to me before but this time I was scared for my life.  I was pushed so deep that I was already out of breath when the whitewater released me. Here's the scary thing: I opened my eyes and it was still pitch black. 

Funny thing is, I was able to stop myself from panicking by thinking of Gerry Lopez. I had read in his book, Surf is Where You Find It, that if you're stuck in a life or death situation you need to stay calm and relax. It's crazy but that's the first thought that came to my mind and, believe it or not, it helped me.  I did relax, I threw my arms to my side and let myself float.  Eventually, I saw the light of the surface, popped up and took a big breath. I was relieved but I was scared. After that wave I was done, I'd ridden some of the biggest waves of my life and learned a few lessons- I figured I might as well quit while I was ahead. 

Living in Paradise

I'm so fortunate to have friends that live in paradise... no joke.  They have an amazing spacious home just footsteps away from black-sand beaches, an infinity pool complete with an amazing panoramic lookout and surrounded by beautiful, lush tropical trees inhabited with colorful birds and howling monkeys.  This is what I get to call home for the next week:

Early morning surf check-- really?!

We ran into this guy (howler monkey) on our walk to the beach yesterday.
I grabbed a mango he dropped, or did he throw it at me?  

We're so lucky to have an arribada occur during our short visit.
This morning we found all these turtle tracks on the beach!

By now you should have figured out where I am... Costa Rica!