To my friends in Nosara - thanks for the kindness and the joy you brought to my adventure. I already miss paddling out to a lineup of friendly and familiar faces.
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| The end of the line |
Friday, March 30, 2012
All good things
After a long day of travel, I'm finally back in Seattle and looking forward to lunching on some delicious Indian food and a big slice of the beautiful raspberry pie Holly made me as a welcome home present. Later on, I may flush an entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet, just because, dammit, I can.
To my friends in Nosara - thanks for the kindness and the joy you brought to my adventure. I already miss paddling out to a lineup of friendly and familiar faces.
To my friends in Nosara - thanks for the kindness and the joy you brought to my adventure. I already miss paddling out to a lineup of friendly and familiar faces.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Nice ride
A scorching left-hander from yesterday, presented in two parts:
Surprisingly, I managed to ride this one all the way in, even after that wall of whitewater you see above landed between my shoulder blades. Check out that offshore wind!
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| Steep |
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| Steeper |
Surprisingly, I managed to ride this one all the way in, even after that wall of whitewater you see above landed between my shoulder blades. Check out that offshore wind!
The wrong way
Today, I picked up a copy of all the photos that Surfing Nosara has taken of me over these past 11 weeks. I thought I'd share some shots of a few of my less successful rides.
Aaaah - I do enjoy a good wipeout picture.
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| January 18 |
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| February 9 |
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| February 9 |
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| Februrary 10 |
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| March 24 |
Monday, March 26, 2012
A funny joke
The property manager's assistant just stopped by. The complex just got a real internet hookup. They are putting a wireless router in my apartment tomorrow. After 10 weeks of super-glitchy skype calls, I am going to have high-speed internet. For one day.
The final countdown
Only three days left.
It seems like I left Seattle a lifetime ago, but somehow I feel like I've only just arrived in Nosara. It's hard to remember the job that I quit two days before I got on the plane that brought me here. It's hard to imagine why I didn't quit sooner.
It will be good to be home. I miss Holly, my friends, real grocery stores, good restaurants, taking walks in sub-90-degree temperatures. But I'm going to miss the handful of friends I've only barely begun to get to know here. I'm going to miss the sun and the beach. I'm going to miss surfing most of all.
The experience of this trip wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was more like what I was expecting than I expected it to be, if that makes any sense.
I'm pleased with how far my surfing has come. It was hard work, pleasant as the work environment may have been, and I'm quite proud of what I've achieved. I still have an almost infinite list of surfing skills to acquire and master -- but I've made that first, quantum leap from beginner ("I'm learning to surf") to intermediate ("I'm a surfer who's learning X"). That feels pretty good.
It seems like I left Seattle a lifetime ago, but somehow I feel like I've only just arrived in Nosara. It's hard to remember the job that I quit two days before I got on the plane that brought me here. It's hard to imagine why I didn't quit sooner.
It will be good to be home. I miss Holly, my friends, real grocery stores, good restaurants, taking walks in sub-90-degree temperatures. But I'm going to miss the handful of friends I've only barely begun to get to know here. I'm going to miss the sun and the beach. I'm going to miss surfing most of all.
The experience of this trip wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was more like what I was expecting than I expected it to be, if that makes any sense.
I'm pleased with how far my surfing has come. It was hard work, pleasant as the work environment may have been, and I'm quite proud of what I've achieved. I still have an almost infinite list of surfing skills to acquire and master -- but I've made that first, quantum leap from beginner ("I'm learning to surf") to intermediate ("I'm a surfer who's learning X"). That feels pretty good.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
My first cutback
This morning's session featured my first successful cutback!
It was slow, it was sloppy, but it was undeniable.
It was slow, it was sloppy, but it was undeniable.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
More news from the water dept.
Updated: 8:29 PM
Joke's on them. It's pouring rain outside!
Original post
Received just now:
Joke's on them. It's pouring rain outside!
Original post
Received just now:
Date: 3/21/2012 9:41:40 AMOh, Nosara, I'm not going to miss your quaint civil infrastructure at all.
Subject: section K
everyone.....someone ran over a meter last night and no one knew about it so we lost a whole tank of water.......possible outage in K section today until it recoups.....thanks chiqui
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The whole ball of wax
The waves were too big and too mean for me (or almost anybody else) yesterday. So instead of going out in the afternoon, I cleaned all the grungy old wax off my freshly-repaired surfboard. Over time, the wax loses its stickiness and turns into a dense, dull, grunge.
The fresh, clean, new wax coat I put on this morning was a pleasure to surf on.
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| A plastic spatula worked great as a scraper |
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| Compressed scrapings |
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Seven-six
Last Friday, when I came in from my morning surf session, I discovered that something had knocked a pretty big dent in the bottom of my surfboard. Bummer - but the odds were good that sooner or later it was going to happen, so I'm not going to get too worked up about it.
The upside - it finally forced me to ride another board. I've been meaning to try a shorter board for a while now, so I rented myself a 7'6" funboard - four inches shorter than what I'm used to.
For those who don't surf, here's the lowdown on surfboard length. Longer boards are more stable, more buoyant, easier to paddle, and are capable of catching smaller waves. So why would anybody want to surf a shortboard? For the same reason commercial jumbo-jets aren't used as fighter planes - agility. A classic longboard pretty much wants to do one thing - travel in a straight line along the face of a peeling wave. With a shorter board, you trade away stability and ease for the ability to do quicker, sharper maneuvers.
I've been riding the new board for a few days now with pretty good success. It really does take a lot more work to paddle, but my stamina and fitness are good enough now that I can do it without much difficulty - which is not to say without soreness and tiredness the next day. It is surprisingly more maneuverable. Overall, it's a fun change and I'm happy to have achieved one of my technical goals for this trip, which was, in fact, to be competent on a 7'6".
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| Whatever |
For those who don't surf, here's the lowdown on surfboard length. Longer boards are more stable, more buoyant, easier to paddle, and are capable of catching smaller waves. So why would anybody want to surf a shortboard? For the same reason commercial jumbo-jets aren't used as fighter planes - agility. A classic longboard pretty much wants to do one thing - travel in a straight line along the face of a peeling wave. With a shorter board, you trade away stability and ease for the ability to do quicker, sharper maneuvers.
I've been riding the new board for a few days now with pretty good success. It really does take a lot more work to paddle, but my stamina and fitness are good enough now that I can do it without much difficulty - which is not to say without soreness and tiredness the next day. It is surprisingly more maneuverable. Overall, it's a fun change and I'm happy to have achieved one of my technical goals for this trip, which was, in fact, to be competent on a 7'6".
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Wheels
Last week, Kris, Hugo, and I rented a golf cart, the cheapest form of motorized transportation available to tourists here.
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| That's right |
Since we have to return it tomorrow, we decided to check out Nosara Centro today while we had the chance. At top golf-cart speed (aka barely moving) it takes about 15 minutes to drive there. Here are some of the highlights:
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| Turning onto main street of Nosara Centro |
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| Some kind of awesome (presumably) half-finished building |
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| The local airport |
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| A post office (function unknown) |
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| A surprisingly large display of Tang at the supermarket |
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Monkeys! Right off the porch!!
A movie Kris Shaw made on his iPad. You better enjoy it, because it took approximately 1 million minutes to upload.
Wave-assisted macro-dermabrasion
The technology needs some refining.
It's just cosmetic. There's no bruising, no pain (after the initial bit), and no blood ever got out. Just a bit of a rough scrape is all.
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| Constellation #1 by Mar Pacifico, 2012, surfboard fin on human skin through Lycra |
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Hangin' out
There was some debate between Holly and me over the proposition "sometimes monkeys hang by just their tails." I took the the pro side, she the anti. This evening when a troupe of howlers was queuing up to cross the street in front of my apartment via the power line, one rudely held up the line by dangling by her tail for about three minutes when she got to the front of the line.
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| Monkey, hanging by its tail |
Some moves
I was flipping quickly through some of the pictures of Kris and me couldn't resist posting this:
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| Dance! Dance! Dance! |
Monday, March 5, 2012
Twice bitten
For the benefit of the faint hearted, let me preface this story by saying that it ends well.
I was a dozen paces from the apartment on my way to the beach this morning, surfboard tucked under my arm, when something stung me on the front of my left knee. I didn't see what it was - I assumed, and still assume that it was a wasp or a bee - but it was immediate and painful, and with much muttered swearing I hopscotched back to the casita, quickly stripped off my board shorts to make sure there wasn't still a stinging creature lurking in them, popped a Benadryl, and with more muttered swearing and a painful red welt on my knee, put my board shorts back on and headed out for a second time.
Ten minutes later, I arrived at the beach, and headed over to the big log under which I habitually hide my flip flops. As I bent over to put down my surfboard... I felt something sting me in the left side of my ribs. I frantically clutched at my rash guard and yanked it away from my ribs, and that's when the scorpion fell out. Not a little tiny baby scorpion like in the photo I posted before. A big one - probably in the neighborhood of two inches long. You see, my rash guard fell off the hanger it was drying on last night, and I forgot to shake it out when I put it on this morning. I probably spent 30 minutes with that scorpion just hanging out against my skin before he finally decided to get feisty.
Luckily, the sting was probably not a sting at all, for it didn't turn red, swell up, or even really hurt after the initial nip. I suspect it may just have been a pincher grab. In any event, I was thankful that the coincidental beesting had led me to take that Benadryl.
And, as they say, you should have seen the other guy. My standard protocol when I encounter a scorpion is to smash it, and in this instance I followed protocol with a large stick and somewhat more than the usual frisson.
I was a dozen paces from the apartment on my way to the beach this morning, surfboard tucked under my arm, when something stung me on the front of my left knee. I didn't see what it was - I assumed, and still assume that it was a wasp or a bee - but it was immediate and painful, and with much muttered swearing I hopscotched back to the casita, quickly stripped off my board shorts to make sure there wasn't still a stinging creature lurking in them, popped a Benadryl, and with more muttered swearing and a painful red welt on my knee, put my board shorts back on and headed out for a second time.
Ten minutes later, I arrived at the beach, and headed over to the big log under which I habitually hide my flip flops. As I bent over to put down my surfboard... I felt something sting me in the left side of my ribs. I frantically clutched at my rash guard and yanked it away from my ribs, and that's when the scorpion fell out. Not a little tiny baby scorpion like in the photo I posted before. A big one - probably in the neighborhood of two inches long. You see, my rash guard fell off the hanger it was drying on last night, and I forgot to shake it out when I put it on this morning. I probably spent 30 minutes with that scorpion just hanging out against my skin before he finally decided to get feisty.
Luckily, the sting was probably not a sting at all, for it didn't turn red, swell up, or even really hurt after the initial nip. I suspect it may just have been a pincher grab. In any event, I was thankful that the coincidental beesting had led me to take that Benadryl.
And, as they say, you should have seen the other guy. My standard protocol when I encounter a scorpion is to smash it, and in this instance I followed protocol with a large stick and somewhat more than the usual frisson.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Tangled up in blue
Today Kris, Hugo, and I independently chose to wear the outfits documented below.
The best part is that the brightness level of each shirt corresponds to the brightness of the wearer's skin.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Guests!
I'm happy that my friends Kris and Hugo have arrived safely and are settled in. Contemplative solitude has its virtues, but pizza and beer with friends can't be beat.
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