sunburned and surf stoked - and selling tons of boards

OK  so I didn't find out until Thursday night that what we were experiencing was actually a named storm, Tropical Storm Alma.  That explains why the palm trees in front of the restaurant were sideways and the rain was pelting the roof and windows like rocks.  I awoke at 3am Thursday morning and I swear I've not seen the weather that bad.  Thursday was looking rough, the ocean was all mixed up.  The news spoke of trees fallen everywhere and overflowing rivers, just another heavy rain in Central America I guess.  With the size of the swell hitting on Thursday, a group of tour guests went with Carlos up to Playa Flamingo in one of the new vans, just to get out of town and see something new.  They didn't bring boards, figuring it was going to suck, but instead it was reeling, perfect barrels at one of our secret points.  The rain broke on Friday and it has been awesome since.  I have surfed about 8 hours over three days, taking in way too much sun.   I have to wear sunglasses in my office because my eyes are red from surfing, and I don't want my employees to think I'm just hammering away on my laptop stoned. TOTALLY SUNBURNED.  It even hurts to smile.  But the waves have been really good all over.  My longboard is about to break, and even though we have a lot of boards at the camp for rent or for sale there is something to be said about having a board shaped for you, one that you ride all of the time, and then when its time to say goodbye it just sucks.  That just happened to me on Thursday with my laptop as well (the reason for no blog until now).  During Tropical Alma's throwdown the electricity surged and my laptop went dead.  I was destroyed.  I've spent the last three years of my life with that computer, it was like having a girlfriend break up with me.  Maybe worse.  But then I thought "you know Joe, you've been talking about that Mac Air for a few months now...".  I checked the WRSC schedule and sure enough 6x returning champ Mike Oldani from Grapevine Texas was flying down Saturday (yesterday).  A couple of phone calls later, a lot of patience for 48 hours, Mike shows up with a new mac air laptop and I'm now up to speed, taking over where I left off with a new computer.  I told myself about a year ago to start to use Google docs so that when something like this happened I wouldn't lose all of my data.  I was amidst working on a google doc when it happened, and it was safe in internetlandia where I found it again a few minutes later on another computer.  OK,  enough about my laptop.  I now have a new laptop love, one that is much smaller and lighter and hopefully nicer to my back while traveling in my backpack.  You can tell that its now the low season in Tamarindo.  Part of me is like "oh shit, need to make money to pay bills" and part of me is like "this is so awesome to go surf and not have hardly anyone out in the water!".  There are monkeys that have been chilling in the trees in front of the restaurant on the beach all day, as if to come out and enjoy some sun rays now that most of the tourists have gone for the time being.

Getting to the topic of SURFBOARDS.  Who wants to buy one?  I've had three emails and people have also called WRSC asking about the boards I have for sale in San Diego.  Here are some pics along with their prices:

9'1 WRSC longboard LIKE NEW.  This board has been ridden about ten times.  I had it shaped for that cross-country driving trip to Nova Scotia that ended a little bit short of destination in Bangor Maine.  The board has some width to it and is great for small to mid-size waves.  The wax needs to be cleaned, otherwise its like new.

$475

6'8 Witch's Rock surfboard.  BRAND NEW.  Never ridden.  I brought this board up for the ASR trade show.  It is more of a big-guy board or gun for a normal shortboarder.  This board would be ideal at Blacks.  This board retails for $525 + tax at the surf camp.

$450

6'5 Witch's Rock shortboard.  BRAND NEW.  

A great board for someone who surfs regularly.

$450  (Retails for $500 at WRSC)

9'5 Witch's Rock longboard  BRAND NEW.  This board retails for $800 at WRSC.  It has a "slight" ding on the tail from the airplane ride from CR to SD.  This was for the surf expo, its a beautiful board.  It has a wide tail and is wide/thick, perfect for Tourmaline or La Jolla Shores surfers.

$625

6'8 KG shortboard.  This board is in very good shape.  I bought it for $475 from South Coast in PB, went on a surf trip to Peru, surfed epic waves with it, and still have it packed from that trip.  This board is perfect for waist-high through well overhead waves.  I have ridden it in close to double overhead conditions at a fast point break and it was unreal.  (ps  the best way to pack a board for a trip is pipe insulation taped around the rails)

$425

Remember that even though all of these boards are in San Diego, I can throw them in the mail and have them to you in a couple of days.  It is much easier to send boards within the US than to ship them from Costa Rica!  Since we are moving out of our house, we have plenty of things that we're selling besides boards, so let me know if you're interested.  I have two iMac desktop computers, they are refurbished from Apple, one is literally still in the box from when it was shipped to us.  They have huge monitors, they're $750 each.  We have a 97 Jetta for sale for $3500 and then there is our Uncle Rico van.

You can own the famous van that crossed the United States two years ago, followed by surf photographer Jamie Bott living in it for three months two winters ago while traveling California.  The van has a sink, stove, fridge, two captain chairs and a couch.  I installed 3 deep cell batteries so it can provide electricity for a couple of days at a campsite without plugging in.  It has a furnace for those cold trips.  The engine is very strong, as you know these rvs never get driven much so its in great shape.  You can fit multiple surfboards and snowboards inside of it.  I'd rather not sell it, if someone has another idea let me know, otherwise its for sale for $4000.  

We have a lot of other stuff that we're selling as well, too much to name, so if you're in SD and need furniture or kid's stuff, let me know.  I'm packing my family up and moving them back to Costa Rica now that baby Happy is four months old today.  Taking time off and living in San Diego has been nice, but honestly it is hard to beat the life one lives somewhere like Costa Rica.  I am just wanting to simplify life as much as humanly possible and I don't need these things, so help me out :-)

pura vida-  Joe   619 618 0403