getting back into the groove

I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I moved my family back to San Diego last August. I mean, at the time it made perfect sense. We had been living in Costa Rica since the beginning of 2001. I was 23 when I moved here. I'll be 31 in a couple of months. This place has become a part of me, so much so that I didn't realize it. We were about to have baby Happy in late January or early February, which I knew meant that we were going to have to either go to San Jose Costa Rica for at least a month, or probably more. This meant at least two hours to the ocean. This meant no surfing. I already went through that once with baby Otis, Holly and I lived in a hotel room with a kitchen at the Best Western in San Jose. I wasn't really feeling it, it had been a while since I had had the time to chill with my family and friends from high school and college, so we rented a house in SD and put the camp on autopilot. Well, that was great and all, but I have to say that I'll probably never do it again. It seems like a good idea, but the reality is that the surf camp is very much a part of me, and when I'm not here I'm thinking about it more than I should. It takes me 8 hours to accomplish in San Diego what I can do at the camp in 2 hours. I was having to fly back and forth so much I've earned enough air miles to travel to Mars. All of these flights costing money, things costing so much more in the US, the economy entering what GW Bush calls slow economic growth but I call a damn big recession, all the while I'm thinking to myself "hey, it could be a hell of a lot easier". Living down here is a lot easier. I flew down on Sunday, Holly has been busting her ass and did a second garage sale after our Saturday one, then cleaned the entire house with the help of our neighbor Sam and Moises and my pops. My folks and mother and law helped with the boys, Larry is selling my boards as I only sold a couple, Justing is selling the Uncle Rico Van, we're trying to figure out what to do with our vehicles. I'm thinking about wrapping my truck in WRSC graphics and parking it in front of our cottages in OB. I really have no idea what to do, but we're on the right path. I was going to fly back to SD to get Holly and the boys, but since I'd have to buy another ticket to come back down, and since James is on vacation so I'm covering for him at the camp, I'm flying my ma in law Suzanne to help with things and for a short CR visit. So, perhaps Sunday or Monday I'll see the family. Its going to be nice, as its been tough being gone more than I'm at home. Down here I get to chill with my boys all of the time, its going to be perfect.

Here is some good news. We finally have the cash for the new outboard motor. We are buying a Yamaha 115hp 4-stroke. I've had two, the one on the boat in Coco we've had for five years and its still running really strong.

Don't you love how we do things in Costa Rica? Just back that boat up on the beach to the garden so we can mount the outboard. Once its mounted we roll the boat on empty oil drums down to the beach and wait for the high tide. Then we walk it over to the rivermouth and take it out to sea through the channel. Pretty sweet.

I had this boat built last year, but just now got to the point where I'm putting it in the water. I'm going to break a bottle of Imperial on it for good luck. I hired a fiberglass guy named Felipe back in the day, seven years ago when I was living in Playa Coco, he and I built the first two boats. This boat I had made at the Coco boat yard by Rusty Bragg, I'm naming it the Otis Zephyr. I guess now that I've got Happy I better make another boat so I can name it Happy Zephyr :-)

A reporter from Nylon Magazine has been staying at the surf camp for the last two weeks. His name is Christopher Garland and he's writing an in-depth story on the surf camp and what we do here. I hadn't heard of Nylon but I understand its like a new hip Vogue-type mag. Like a good host I took Christopher out a couple of nights ago to Matt K's Bar 1, finally checking the place out. Not that I was bitter that I taught him how to run a restaurant/bar in Tamarindo and had him bail to start his own bar. Being the pirate that I am I found myself a large, very large bottle of Flor de Cana Nicaraguan rum and proceeded to get really drunk, pirate drunk, with Chris, Sonya (who used to work at WRSC five years ago) and her friend Summer, a guy named Jamie who is a friend of Fast Eddie Foster from London who I haven't seen in years, and a few other people I don't remember what their name was though. We had quite a party, although I wonder how I'm going to come across in Nylon Magazine. What can I say? I can say pirate.

Some great news- a past WRSC guest just donated $1000 towards Luis' knee operation! I heard the news and I was super stoked. There have been so many f#$king cool people that have stayed at the surf camp, I am so happy for Luis knowing that someone cares that much about him and his surfing future. I don't have the name of the guy who made the donation on my computer but I'm going to get it and make a press release on the website. Thats the least I could do.

Well, I guess thats about it right now. The weather has been 90% sun and 10% rain, tonight there was a rain shower and some lightning so we brought the tables inside in the restaurant and the house is packed. Lyle is playing guitar but on break since its open night, there is a chick singing and she sounds pretty damn good. For some reason I'm in my office on my computer instead of in the bar, probably because of all of that rum in Matt's bar, and probably because I want to get my work done so I can surf tomorrow without guilt and so when my kids show up I can chill out with them and not look at a computer for a while. See you in CR, you know where to find me.