Surfing Costa Rica Style

This is Kerry. I guess it is my turn to write the blog today. We woke up really early. It is hard to sleep past about 5:30. It is bright by then and for some reason you wake up refreshed pretty early. Our Condo is a few blocks from the beach. Actually I went running this morning and it took me just over 6 minutes. I ran 4 to 4.5 miles along the beach. Corey ran about 10. The humidity is so high that my shirt was completely drenched. I am not sure why Kim or Chelsea didn't want to hug us. The beaches here are completely empty. I saw one person during my whole run. I think Corey saw 3.

All of us walked to the beach after our cereal breakfast that we bought the night before at the local grocery store Sandra (the lady over the development) said she would arrange for us to get surfing lessons for Chelsea and Corey. There are a lot of houses and lots for sale. Right now would be a good time to buy. We saw a 1800 square foot house about 200 yeards from the beach in a gated community for $200,000. We played in the ocean for an hour or so. The signs say there are dangerous rip tides but the locals tell us we are ok and like most of this trip we are just going for it. We taught the kids how to get out of a rip tide and they didn't go to far out.

Once we got back to the Condo. Sandra said she arranged Phil to teach the kids and she thought it would be about $25 an hour. We were supposed to meet him at the beach at 3:00 Pm. We decided to travel in to Jaco (it is pronounced Hawko), Jaco is a little surf town. It is not the prettiest town we have seen in Costa Rica but it is very lively. There are tons of little shops, surfers etc. We bought some cool wooden pools, Chelsea bought a purse, Corey bought a bracelet (for a girl) and we bought some gifts. Driving in Jaco is a little crazy. We say a motorcylce get hit. On the way we saw a car pulled part way off the highway. The hatchback was open and they were having a picnic.

It was hotter in Jaco than in Esterillos Este (probably because there is more pavement). We stopped and got a bunch of drinks to take back to the condo. We ate lunch at a little place in front of the Condo. It was really good and cheaper than most. I had Mai Mai wrapped in bacon. There was a pinnapple salsa that was really good that they put to eat with the rice. I think Corey had a Mai Mai noodle dish. Chelsea had tuna fish in a typical costa rican style dish. They put black beans, salad, salsa and rice with the main dish. Kim had Arroz con pollo but it had a good creamy mushroom sauce.

At 3:00 we went down to the beach to meet our instructor. Typical of Costa Rica he didn't get there until 3:15. I thought we had the wrong place and was getting ready to go back and check with Sandra when he drove up. There was one other car on the beach with surfers in it but Chelsea went to see if it was Phil and they were having a good time drinking and not really worried about the surf. Phil came with a native Costa Rican surfer. Phil had hair down to the middle of his back and looked like what you can imagine. Kim said she was sure that the money we gave him would be put to good use partying that night. We will upload video but he gave Chelsea and Corey a few pointers, had them practice in the sand and they were off to the ocean.
The waves are pretty big here for non surfers (bigger than I remember them in California).

Usually the goal of an instructor is to get the student at least up once. Chelsea and Corey both got up and were riding waves within a few tries. They both caught lots of waves and Phil said they were natural surfers. I think their wakeboarding probably helped. Corey always says that he doesn't have balance but he didn't have any problem. Phil was helping Chelsea; Corey's trainer didn't speak English and Corey can say Si, No, Izquierda, derecho and about 5 other words but somehow they communicated. Chelsea told Phil that she spoke a little Spanish and Corey did not but for some reason Phil wanted to train the young American girl instead of the teenage boy. Corey said that if he had wanted to train him instead of Chelsea he would then have really rather not have him help him. Corey's trainer had him do all the paddling, while Phil was more than willing to ride on Chelseas board and help her get out to the big waves. He kept hitting on Chelsea and told Chelsea that the next lesson she would be intemediate and that she would have to go topless or wear a bikini. Needless to say, Chelsea is going to stay a begginer for awhile. He did give Chelsea a kiss on the check as they left. He told Chelsea that I looked scary which I was ok with.

We got to keep the boards for 24 hours so Kim and I tried to get up with Corey and Chelsea helping us. Kim only tired it a few times but managed to get up for a short ride (she has better balance than I do). The waves started getting bigger and I could get to my knees and kind of knee surf but I was pretty bad. If we have time, we all want to try it again. It is nice because no one is on the beach so you don't feel self conscious.

We discovered that surfing is hard. It hurts your stomach/chest area where it rubs on the board. Corey and I would wear a shirt next time. We were all pretty tired so we came home, showered and crashed.