the search

OK, so where did I leave off? I was driving to Panama with my 4 year old son to check out a sailboat that I found on craigslist. I was freaking out. I guess I still am. Running Witch's Rock Surf Camp gives me a lot of joy, but at the same time I go through periods where I need to drop off of the map entirely. Being responsible for so much can be difficult. A little sailboat surfing a remote island off of the Panamanian coast sounded like a viable option for when I feel the need to get away. Plus, the idea of taking a solo trip with Otis was something I really wanted to do. So Witch's Rock Surf Camp bought the sailboat, and it is staying in Bocas del Toro for the next year and doing some trips to surf some ledgy caribbean juice (an example of joy). I've decided that backside barrels are something I better get really good at if I ever plan to spend serious time in Indo, and fortunately Bocas del Toro has lots of them. Plus, there's another wave called Silverbacks that looks pretty intense, its a big bowl right hander. I see bigger waves in my future.

While in Bocas del Toro, Otis and I stayed on an island that didn't have any roads. There was a simple concrete walking path that followed the water's edge around the island. Everyone has boat houses, and boat taxis are the only way to get around from island to island.

I had the most amazing time traveling with my son. We took our time stopping at the Barra Honda caves, getting stuck at the CR/Panama border and having to spend the night in a tiny nameless village, pulling up giant sea stars from crystal clear water while swimming together in the Panamanian Caribbean, and getting lost on the Poas Volcano in northern Costa Rica after a land slide forced us to take a detour on our way back to Tamarindo. Each day from the moment we woke up until the moment we both fell asleep, Otis and I cruised together everywhere and did everything together. The conversations we had, the feelings I now have after taking a trip like that... lets just say I am super stoked about having those experiences :-)

A sweet little Caribbean beach shack where we stayed.

perfect rocking chairs

Otis making friends with another little boy on the island.

Back at home in Tamarindo, Holly and I are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We haven't had much time to spend together lately, me working lots of hours for the camp and her getting the new market open daily (which finally has happened by the way). Our home above the restaurant is still "under construction", which can take it's toll after 3 months of wanting to be done with everything. Still living out of boxes, its getting a little old but we almost have closets and curtains and paint... and 2 little boys that are so awesome. Everything else will work itself out and everything will be Ok when you have 2 little boys like Otis and Happy.

Otis and Happy, already doing the pirate thing

child on back, chasing other child, over and over and over again

mis hijos

a shot of Holly and I, watching a set break over the reef at Playa Negra.

These past few weeks, um, lets just say the last two months, have been more difficult than most. I have been frustrated with work, which happens when you manage a business that really is a bunch of smaller businesses all working together. I am currently complaining only because I am fixing things, and because it feels so fucking good to be getting through a list that, not that long ago, seemed so insurmountable I simply did not know how to go about starting on it, so I didn't do anything.

Thankfully I have a wonderful family to return to when I make it back to San Diego, where I'm at currently. My mom has been cooking some great home-cooked meals these last couple of days. My dad and uncle are doing well, and so is the hot tub in the backyard. My 07 Tundra is running smoothly, I've surfed Blacks, Scripps and Trestles. The back of the truck is full of surfboards, numerous wet wetsuits, a couple of skateboards, and the last three years of mail (which I've started I've started going through in an attempt to organize life). The waves have been decent, always something to ride until this past weekend. We were getting freezing 25 knot winds onshore, but as of this morning the waves were cleaning up and I got a few turns in down at Scripps, just like always. I've brought Nick Holt as my assistant on this trip, he's keeping me focused on work and out of trouble. He's dealing with some of my emails and calls, actually allowing me to have a productive work week while catching up with lots of friends and my family, which has been needed. I was getting burnt out in Tamarindo, which happens from time to time, and when it happens you catch a plane and change it up.

The following article appeared on the home page of the San Diego Chargers website last week-

As life-long Chargers fans, my father and I were really stoked to have the surf camp profiled as a loyal Chargers establishment, which it is. I am hooking up with a few of the guys on the team that surf this weekend at a BBQ in Bay Park. If they come down to WRSC I might need to take down my "Nachos as big as your ASS" sign for the week.

SCION XB FOR SALE

I figure I'll take this chance to reach out to anyone thinking about buying a new car, or wanting a new car for a used car price, or just looking for a good deal.

Click here to see my family's 2008 Scion XB for sale on Autotrader for $17,000. It only has 5,912 miles, has loaded extras, gets 35-40 mpg, and fits in the tiniest parking space its not even funny. The car is sitting in San Diego 92124, help me sell it and I'll give you a free surfboard (a new one, not a shitty used one!)

NEW WITCH'S ROCK EYE CANDY

I am always tweaking things. Here we go with some classic logo meets pirate design...

new Witch's Rock logo? we could be on to something.

the new general theme for the new website.

the new sunglass display for the surf shop, located on the wall opposite the daily calendar boards.

There is a lot of artwork floating around right now, I need to post more of it so people can see what we're working on. Yana has been great as a designer, he has expressed interest in moving his family from Tamarindo to LA to help launch the Witch's Rock brand from soCal. That could be the best plan considering the cut and sew factories and access to quality fabric and screening. We want to have more control over the shirts and rashguards we design and sell, and it has been very tough finding reliable partners for this in CR.

I have been lurking in San Diego in my truck looking for waves and working on my phone for the last 6 days. Life is good when work is surf.

sitting on the bluffs overlooking Blacks, after getting great waves all morning and catching up with old Blacks surf friends Pat Zabrocki and Paul Cleary.

I hooked up with my friend Sean Mattison, founder of Von Sol Surfboards and Coach of the US Surf Team. Click here for his surfboard blog. Sean and I share some common friends from San Diego and other parts of the world. I have been riding Sean's Black Knight quad for the last year. It has been a great board, though it has limitations in bigger, steeper waves that are common to fish boards. I needed something that could hold in bigger waves, in steep low-tide rivermouth pits... something that could fire off the bottom and hit the lip really hard... something with characteristics of a thruster. Sean Mattison's Von Sol Shadow delivered 100% and is my new go-to surfboard. It is SICK.

5'9 Von Sol Shadow, 4 + 1 fin setup

I have already started hooking up some friends with boards in the San Diego area. If you currently ride a fish and are looking for a next level surfboard to combine fish carves with tight snaps and vertical top-to-bottom surfing attacks, check out Von Sol. After my first magic session at Trestles last Friday I am a believer, thank you Sean. Contact me for bro rates on custom boards.

Sean Mattison hack attack

ZEPHYR ECO UPDATE

I have very little battery life remaining and the winds are starting to lie down. What follows is the very quick update. We're getting a Zephyr facebook page going this week.

The Zephyr Eco Market is now open DAILY, call Holly at 506 8829 0257 for market inquiries. Get organic produce direct by supporting local organic farmers. The market is located at the north entrance of Witch's Rock Surf Camp.

The Zephyr Eco farm project has made great advancements. Below are some preliminary master plan images. I am going through a list of current lot owners and giving a more detailed overview. These maps will be available in the market starting June 1st.

topographic map of the mountain terrain.

Master plan showing roads, lots, the institute, the resort property, walking paths, common areas, etc.

The Zephyr Land Institute will provide accommodations for 48 people. University groups, scientists, volunteers, students, studying/working/learning in this space.

All property owners will build on a small percentage of their land. The remaining property will utilize permaculture to bring spring/rain water to crops planted throughout the farm. The local community of Alemania, Guanacaste will gain employment providing harvesting services. Property owners have personal rights to everything grown on their land.

the Zephyr Lodge, as talked about many times in this blog over the last 4 years.

laptop battery = just about dead. Wind is also dying. time to go surf. I will update you soon as I have tentative plans to meet with the CEO of O'neill and I received a party invite to some Los Angeles radio station party at some rented mansion in Malibu and I'm wondering if they emailed me the invitation by mistake. I have one week left in California, John Alexander drove down from Arroyo Grande, waves are only getting cleaner, I've got a new board that is insane, my dad has the Volcano and a hot tub, mom is cooking up great food, water is much warmer than norCal, maybe I might just stay here and continue working on my long list of responsibility.

while Otis sleeps

While Otis sleeps, I have bigger kid problems. How quickly life can go from one range of feelings and emotions to another. Its almost like if you spend too much time talking about how good things are, inevitably sooner or later something is gonna go to shit. And it did. Not entirely shit, because even in total shit still mode I still have a great family and we're still living in a beautiful place. Lets just say I've had a lot of work to deal with (and in case you were mistaken, I prefer to work "just enough"). I just want to surf.

After 6 months of trying to meld my Costa Rican accountant along with the financial workings and processes of Witch's Rock Surf Camp, I realized it just wasn't going to work and had to let him go. Never have I had to fire someone for being too nice, but the good lesson I learned is that a good accountant should be an asshole. You want someone who is going to call out employees for double marking their time cards or demand that the fruit truck delivers to the receiving person at 7am, not to the night guards at 430am. What I see as common sense must be the result of 9 years of just doing it, because my accountant sure couldn't seem to figure it out, and as a result I was returned a company in much worse financial state than when I left it. Another lesson I have relearned, this time for good (I believe I first heard it from Kenny Rogers), is that you really must sit at the table and count your money and not let other people do it for you. Use accountants for lame financial studies and delivering reports, but always keep an eye on the top line numbers. Otherwise you're assuming everyone else is as good at doing what you do, and that just isn't always going to be the case.

On the surfing side, things haven't been much better. I've had a few days here and there, but most of April has been taking over the accounting job (which took me 3 weeks to fix by the way). The first 10 days of April were epic, completely firing in the Tamarindo Rivermouth. I sat at the desk and processed restaurant / bar/ shop banks, usually paddled out around 10am. The winds always seemed to switch at 10:05am to onshore, bitch slapping me back to the desk. Then I pulled a muscle in my shoulder/neck doing pull-ups in my kitchen, making it worse. I did get a few good surfs in this last week though, and as work has been easier and easier each week I've tried to relax and take more time off.

It took me a while to get out of the matrix though. I took whatever negative energy I was building up, and my lack of timing with surfing, and started doing suspension training workouts with Nick Holt using TRX bands. Add to this some running on flat ground, some running up and down some really really high stairs, and everything starts feeling OK. I actually started doing this more instead of just drinking more (which is often the case when one has tons of work), and I think its actually helping. Where once sat a keg now starts looking more and more like a six pack, quite shocking actually. I am sleeping better at night and I feel more grounded with work.

My family has been good. Otis and Happy are awesome, as always. Holly has been really busy getting the new market up and running full speed ahead. She is ready to open it daily, which only means more work, but it is quite exciting to see it finally opening up. She and I haven't had too much time to hang out lately though, and its been bothering me. I find myself reading Surfers Journal stories about guys like me who sail away to Micronesia and I start thinking more and more about things like this. I have successfully gotten Holly onto the Zori for 1 day trip for about 5 hours. We had a great time with the boys, cruising, fishing, swimming, hanging on a quiet beach. But the ocean scares her. Holly is a talented surfer who could be very good if she went surfing more frequently, but she just doesn't feel comfortable with the ocean. And thats OK with me, really, its totally fine. But I only feel comfortable when I am in or very near to the ocean. And as I try to get out of the matrix and not think about work, and spend more time connected to the ocean and the outside world beyond Tamarindo, Holly has been totally drawn to the market and therefore sucked into the matrix. I find it hard to talk about anything but work, and thats not how its supposed to be. I want to be talking about 5 or 10 or however many years down the road, how Holly and I and the boys could sail way to Kiribati and New Zealand.

Then I started thinking that maybe its just me, being my emotionally fragile self. My wife in fact joined me on the school bus and moved to Costa Rica without ever having been here before or speaking any Spanish whatsoever. My boys are all fired up to go wherever I want to go. At times I just need to know I have an escape plan. Since Saturday was the first official day of low season, I packed my bags, I packed Otis' bags, and we left on a road trip together. It was rather quite spontaneous. My feelings were probably just ones of working too much and not having enough time to chill with my family. I had never taken a trip with just Otis, so thats just what we did. We left Tamarindo on Saturday and headed to Samara. We played on the beach, we ate hamburgers, I taught him to throw some darts. Yesterday we drove to Barra Honda National Park, hiked and explored a giant underground cave. Otis was a stud even though it was a little scary. We ate at the Monteverde restaurant and played with the giant dinosaur. We are currently in Denny's in San Jose, me eating Moons Over My Hammy and Otis eating some chocolate chip pancakes, because he can eat whatever he wants while we're on vacation. In about 10 minutes we'll get in the truck and head east to the Caribbean, to Limon, then south, crossing the Panama border and taking a water taxi to Bocas del Toro, Panama. I found this awesome little sailboat for sale online, the owner is selling it pretty cheap and its ready to cross some oceans. Otis and I are going to check it out. Plus, from what I hear Bocas del Toro is quite amazing.

PS this isn't a freakout blog where I'm going to disappear on a sailboat.

very very content

This blog. Its pretty much all about surfing. Its my own blog, its for me and anyone else who bothers to read it. I've kept this blog for so long that I feel bad when I don't write a blog that often. I intend to print it up some day and keep it for when my kids get older. Much older. The blog follows many different topics, but mostly its about surfing and life in the surf world and living in Tamarindo raising my family and what the fuck to make of it all. Life feels either really complicated or really easy depending on how you want to view things.

Let me clear up a rumor from the start: I was not attacked by a crocodile. Yes, we were at Ollie's Point last Tuesday and yes I was in the water very close to a crocodile (30-40 feet or so), and yes the crocodile was swimming towards me with his mouth open and all of his shiny sharp teeth staring at me, but no I did not at all get attacked. Thank you Chilo and Charlie for picking me up in the panga right away. It was entertaining watching the entire lineup at Ollie's Point clear out after that moment, not that it happens that often but when it does its pretty interesting if you happen to be in the water.

I hit the nail on the head with these Zori trips. This is something I have wanted to do for a very long time, from the very beginning of Witch's Rock Surf Camp. I am really happy that the boat is working out and that all of our guests have had such a good time. I knew we would get it dialed, but still the initial not-knowing along with the big cash investment and then the learning curve involved in owning a big boat, the setting up of a new business and so on, it can be daunting. But fortunately I'm not the only one who wants to surf remote surf breaks on a yacht and we've started getting a serious number of booked trips. I'm going to stay really busy this summer, which makes me very very content.

The Zori now has a great aft canopy, 4 staterooms, a wind generator 12-volt system that powers the lights, music, the charger for the ipod or vhf radios. We run all Zori tours with a surf panga as our dingy. It helps having a dingy with a 115hp Yamaha to make quick runs to check waves. I can honestly that this yacht is more dialed in for surfers going on extended surf trips than any other boat in the area. It is pretty dope. Since my last blog I've taken a group on a 7 day surf tour in Nicaragua and guided 3 different multi-day surf trips to Witch's Rock and Ollie's Point. I guess you could say I've been on the boat a lot lately instead of keeping up with facebook and email. I have experienced some great surf that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't on the boat, and thats the whole point.

10 days out of the last 20 have been like this.

9 years ago was March 2001. We had just opened WRSC, which meant we had rented a run-down house on the beach in Playa Coco, bought a small boat, and opened the most crude bar you've ever seen. All I wanted to do was surf really good waves, and taking people to Witch's and Ollie's by boat seemed to be a great way to do it. Mind you I didn't have any clue about boats and grew up always getting sea sick. All we could afford was this shitty little fishing boat, which we bought and which I captained. When I finally had my first guests wanting to pay me to take them to Witch's Rock, I realized I'd never actually taken the boat that far and I had no idea how to get there. There was no Google Earth, I didn't own a gps or any charts, so I ended up watching Endless Summer II at 4am looking for landmarks from when Robert August goes there in the film. All worked out well, I found Witch's Rock, we surfed, I found our way back home, and then over time I repeated this process many many times. This lead to an affinity for being a surf explorer on the open water. Along the way I dreamed of owning a bigger boat that could do multi-day trips, allowing me to get even further off of the map.

the view from WRSC Playas del Coco

It wasn't long before I was running trips to Witch's and Ollie's every day. Sometimes I'd send out two boats. It became obvious that sending more people to the surf breaks wasn't a sustainable business model. I was also getting so many requests for surf lessons that I ended up constantly driving guests to Tamarindo to teach them how to surf. Tamarindo and surf lessons seemed like the great way to grow the business so we opened our second surf camp in Tamarindo in October of 2001. This camp grew quickly, people loved it, it was a lot of fun but it was also a lot more work. Priorities needed to be reevaluated.

Holly Rice and Maxi Molina digging holes, July 2002

After a couple of years of managing both surf camps, we decided to close the Coco camp and put our eggs in the Tamarindo basket. This was a solid move. Running two surf camps was so much more work, and our guest experience suffered. We wanted to make things easier on us. I wanted to be able to surf more. Tamarindo blossomed, the surf camp grew big time, and the rest is history.

We have slowly evolved over the years into an 18 room hotel, nice surf shop, very comfortable restaurant and bar on the beach. Over the years, I have been approached at different times by investors of one type or another. I usually don't bring up these encounters in my blog, and I'm not really sure why. Maybe its because I don't want people to think I have huge plans that will change the way things are now. Changing the vibe of this place is the last thing I want to do! As the founder of the company, I need to listen to all propositions and make intelligent decisions.

A couple of years ago I was approached by what I thought to be a solid opportunity. An ex-Vice President of Intercontinental Hotels and a headhunter with extensive history with Nike and Motorola wanted (and still want) to bring investors to WRSC with the plans to open up 3-5 more similar surf camps in other beach towns. I hadn't seriously considered what that would mean, but after many months they came to me with a drawn out investment plan as a pdf that was distributed quite far. People like Jake Burton and John Hendricks read the proposal, I started having phone calls with people from Quiksilver and Nike. The opportunities seemed worth being involved in talking about what could be. And so I did.

2 and a half years later, I'm one month away from being free from a contract I thought I was supposed to sign, a contract that has limited me from being able to talk to any other companies about a possible investment deal. Its a long story, let me try to state it as simply as possible: after much thought, I have no interest in signing up for big deals with big corporations that call for opening more Witch's Rock Surf Camps. Our property in Tamarindo is special, it wouldn't work the way it works here pretty much anywhere else. WRSC started with driving a school bus from California to Costa Rica, not five school buses. Not with a huge budget. Not all corporate. It might work for Intercontinental Hotels, but I'd rather work on making high quality surf shirts developed from sustainable caña brava or surf wax derived from glycerin, which was derived from making biodiesel, not opening up central offices in San Jose. And my GM Yana, well, Yana is the shit and the man I've entrusted the power to help make this happen. We will move along steadily as we have for so long, growing a company organically and feeling so connected to it that it feels like its an extension of what you are.

I guess you could say it has been the Zori that has allowed me to come full circle with my initial goals for moving to Costa Rica in the first place. All I really wanted to do, and all I still really want to do is surf. All of this talk of corporate acquisitions and power suits can be blown out of my ass. I just figured you should know, because I felt kindof weird not telling you about all of this these last couple of years. Lets just call this a breakthrough in our relationship, shall we?

Again thinking about surfing, did I mention that right outside of my house the waves have been very very good? I love it when that happens!

the Tamarindo Rivermouth showing the classic deep barrel section

My good friend Andrew Illig came down with his wife Georgia last week. We hung out all week and scored tons of great waves. I'm sure its nice to be able to check out of New York City for 8 days and get enough good waves to last 3 months. I made sure to dial him into the best that we could get. Heres a few pics from one of many solid sessions, this time right out in front of WRSC in the rivermouth:

Andrew Illig, shwa-PACK!

Andrew Illig tube ride #7

Andrew Illig tube ride #34

Joe Walsh setting up for the pit...

at 6ft 3inches I squeeze myself into the barrel by doing the patented two-arms-forward classic-tube-ride approach (don't even think about stealing it because its mine!)

another gem stands up on the sand bar...

I love my 5'9" Hynson Black Knight Quad, it has served me well this last year. It is my favorite board, but it has its limitations like any other board. My friend Sean Mattison has just released a sick new board called the Von Sol. Its a hybrid between a fish and a thruster, with characteristics that bring out the best of both designs. It stays tighter in the pocket and allows for more vertical top-to-bottom attacks, a couple of features the standard fish design lacks. Check out Sean simply RULING in Nicaragua recently, to music from my friends Chad, Jon and Tim from the band Switchfoot, then check out the new Von Sols in the Witch's Rock Surf Shop in the very near future.

Another successful surf contest, another successful beach party. Two weeks ago WRSC hosted the CNS Torneo Witch's Rock surf contest here in Tamarindo. It was the best turnout we have had, the beach was packed. The conditions were not epic by any means, but early mornings had clean waves with chest high sets, there were some barrels coming in...

lots of airs by tiny rippers (like 120 pound Luis Castro)

the beach was packed with spectators

the guys weren't the only ones who were killing it out there

Matias Braun from Montezuma won, though there was a lot of talent in the water and it could have gone many ways

everyone packed into the surf camp for the awards ceremony Sunday afternoon

Tamarindo Surfrider Pub Crawl: If you were in Tamarindo for St Patrick's Day, chances are you saw or were on the WRSC school bus doing the Tamarindo Surfrider Pub Crawl. I drank too many beers to count BY FAR, thank you to Mike, Yana, Holly, Reggie and everyone else who bought me a beer (I finally recovered a couple of days ago)

Holly, getting ready to take a shot as we celebrate the babysitter

Flash and I raising some havoc

I'm realizing that I didn't announce that I moved my family out of the condo and back into our house above the surf camp restaurant. Yes I did, it was the last day of February. So I guess that means we've been here about 4 weeks now. The space was the original rooms in the original house that we originally rented when we started WRSC Tamarindo, now its remodeled and our new home. Its not quite done yet, but its close to being done, and at least we get to live back on the beach.

a view from the kitchen out towards the beach (still need to finish the deck)

new tiled bathrooms are far better than the skybox bathroom squalor

I will post more photos when we get the house more in order (when we're not living out of suitcases). We need to build our closets and kitchen furniture, paint, install a couple of doors, mirrors, an AC, put up a new handrail on our deck, and so on, but at least we're back on the beach. Yes, the live music can get a little old from time to time, but most of the time its like living above a bar (oh wait, we are living above a bar). The boys sleep through it. I have a nice view of the surf from pretty much every room, so when the waves are crackalackin' like they were this morning I can run out there and score (priceless).

And now I'm g0ing to throw in a bunch of photos of my kids. Anyone who has kids and doesn't show everyone they know too many photos of their kids, there is something wrong with you. Kids are rad.

My boys remind me how awesome life is and what my priorities are. Happy turned 2 on February 1st, Otis turns 4 tomorrow!! holy shit this is happening way too fast!!!

Otis and Happy, growing up really fast

Otis and his self portrait

Happy, always wanting to steal my Powerade

checking out bugs at the Arenal Volcano last Thursday

the Liberia Mall jump-jump

The boys are spending more and more time in the water. It is awesome! We gave Otis an early birthday present today, a new boogie board out of the surf shop. Its small enough that he can handle it on his own, much easier than an 8 ft soft top surfboard. Otis spent 2 hours paddling the board into waves and riding them up onto the sand by himself. To watch him while I was sitting in a beach chair, that felt crazy. Happy is right there behind him and I'm pretty sure it will be Happy that will be the big wave surfer in the family.

Thats about everything thats been going on around here. My family is doing great, the surf camp is doing well, life is good. We have been very lucky to have a lot of friends and family pass through, right now my parents are down here for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow we'll have a birthday party for Otis. I'm trying to make sure to put love into everything. When I get time I've been going through and emailing old friends which has been nice.