hi world, I just thought you should know that Jane Bocker, my friend and graphic artist, is the bomb. If you need anything in this area, Jane is your girl. Check out the sign she just made for me today- Its so much cleaner and nicer to look at than something I'd make. I'm putting this A-frame sign in front of the surf camp so people can see that they can stay in a tiki room for the next two months for only $49/night. We're also moving the surf shop from it's current location the other side of the entrance, where the offices are. This side is bigger, and it will be easier to expand as we carry more and more products. Jane is going to the ASR show in San Diego and helping me hook up with some vendors since I'm here in Tamarindo working at the surf camp. I'm also wanting Jane to come up with a large mural graphic for the front of the new shop. If you need any graphics work done, ask me and I'll hook you up with her email. She telecommutes, so its perfect. Jane you rock!
Jim H, I read your comment from a few days ago, I'm really happy to think about you reflecting over Panama. I've been through Puerto Almuelles, briefly on my way to the tip of the Burrica Peninsula where you can only pass with 4x4 on low tide. It is truly a destination for a select few, most people will never get to experience anything like it.
I'm starting to get a routine down. Otis wakes me up around 6:30am and wants to sing Old MacDonald. Then I instruct him to go play with his toys as Daddy is still sleeping. Happy is probably awake and playing on the rug with his toys while Holly fell back asleep again on the couch. I wake up fully soon thereafter and emerge to Discovery Kids on TV. Please God give me coffee and patience. Both kids are awesome, even though from time to time they are both screaming at the same time and Daddy's eyes seem to want to pop out. The surf looks good no matter how bad it looks. Then come the phone calls or someone knocking on the door. I need to pay my bills, deal with an employee issue, take a phone call or determine what we're going to do about somethingoranother. Ah OK. After a surf at Casitas and time to fully wake up, I'm at the bar at 10am with a cup of coffee and my laptop and I'm knocking out some emails and trying to figure out how I'm going to view an Adobe Illustrator file without Adobe Illustrator or something to do with my google adwords campaign. Hey, I'm finally on facebook so find me there. Also we have a Witch's Rock Surf Camp group that I'm now posting things to, and it would be sweet if you would too. Any photos or video (for example that rocking band that played here Saturday night) would be awesome. Its a lot easier than making me responsible to keep it. I have James Webster, my long time right-hand-man turned 100% computer programmer, leaving at the end of this month and I've got the biggest pile of computer crap and have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it. Oh, its my server for the POS huh? What happens when...? I guess thats why I'll need to keep James around for as long as I can, unless I want to get way more involved with computers than I already am. It doesn't sound as interesting as doing "a little bit of everything". Back to the rest of the day, it gets less and less organized. Somewhere around 8pm the kids finally go to sleep and Holly and I get some time to live calmly. Note to self- watching The Shield does not turn my wife on. That show is pretty awesome, even though its really really dark. Finally this weekend I painted our extra room upstairs and now we have our own bedroom. Its been nice sharing a room with our kids for the last, uh, two and a half years, but its time to have some space. Two tvs means that I can watch Commando while Otis is dancing to Hi Five or Barny. We both win. I just got news from some great family friends, the Muzzys. There are three Muzzy boys, Mike, Pete and Chris. I graduated with Chris and am friends with them all. Supposedly in the extended Muzzy family there have been 20 straight boys born and no girls. Mike has two boys and he and Claudine are preggo with a third (not sure if its a boy or girl yet). Pete and Michelle just found out that they're having triplets, pretty sure they're all boys. Holy crap!! They adopted our first dog Luna earlier this year because we had Happy and wanted more time to focus on the babies. Pete and Michelle, you may want to give us the dog back because once you have three babies its, uh, well holy crap I can't believe you're going to have triplets! It will be great and incredibly insane all at the same time, I can't imagine... Yo Chris, you coming down here for my birthday or what? World- if you're reading this, I'm having some friends at the surf camp Wednesday night (not this Wednesday, next Wednesday), September 3rd, for my birthday. Please don't bring me anything except good vibes. The NFL is giving me football the following day as the season opener, and soon enough will be the Charger's opener. Today is a preseason game but since I won't get it on satellite I'm not going to worry about it. All I can think about is how much I liked going south on this last surf trip and about how running the surf camp has become such a big business. At some point down the road, when the time is right we will be opening a roots surf camp in Panama, much like the surf camp we originally started in Coco. What do you think? Would you visit me if I opened a camp that was big enough for 8 guests, located on a beautiful beach in the middle of nowhere in Panama, with uncrowded world class waves? It would be very different than the Tamarindo experience in a good way. There is room for both types of experiences, and I'm happy having the ability to experience them both. My family and I are living in the original surf camp structure above the restaurant. Living here is great, probably better than its ever been now that we're getting the surf camp running on its own so well. Total roots. We have our house in Avellanas that we're renting out, living in when we want, no pressure at all. Everyone seems so interested in wanting to know where we sleep and find it hilarious that we don't have hot water in our own shower. Whatever. Roots is where its at, it feels the best. The only thing thats missing is that challenging right pointbreak that we surfed on this trip, with a rock slab that throws a huge right barrel as the tide drops. John Alexander and I were both paddling for this one, but didn't realize how low the tide had dropped. It sucked out on itself and looked incredible. The heaviest wave I'd seen in person in a while... In my head I'm getting tubed on that wave right now. Holly says I talk about surfing all of the time.
Being back at the camp has been a total trip. I'm sitting upstairs in the skybox on the new Ikea rug Holly brought back with her. I'm tripping out that Happy can sit up on his own now. When he left he couldn't do that, and Otis couldn't say his ABCs or count to ten in english or spanish. Whoa. Time is flying by quicker and quicker. It has been nice to hang out with my wife and get to know her again. It seems like we're always missing each other, and now we have absolutely no plans to be gone for such long periods of time. I went surfing today and got dropped in on by some tico kid I'd never seen before. I made a point to ask him if he had heard me say that I had the wave one of the four times I said it. He was just a punk kid, kindof pissed me off and I wanted to pound him, but then what would that solve? My primate background got the best of me for a few minutes but I calmed myself down with a couple sin panzas and reminded myself that there are assholes everywhere in the world, not just here. Maybe I was just mad because I've been used to surfing with nobody else in the water, and then here I am waiting for a half hour for a wave and this dude snakes it. whatever. I got over it. Life could be much worse. I think I'm just missing Panama right now... I got some more pics from Tommy (thanks bro). What a good trip that was (I keep saying that). Here is the insanely high number of surfboards we brought with us. Joe Cummings brought this heavy board case and basically the racks broke when we were driving back to San Jose. It didn't help that he only surfed one of the three boards during the entire trip, but at least he had them there in case he did. I have learned to limit the number of boards I allow on surf tours, as in the end we all ended up sharing surfboards anyways. Here's a pic of John Alexander, who held the record for 16 bounces on the pogo stick. When you are the only four surfers in the entire town, there is no tv, plenty of Atlas beers, and one pogo stick, things can get a little out of hand. Here I am, rocking the one hand one leg pogo move. Pretty dope In the middle of nowhere, cruising down the road, and here's a waterfall firing off in the distance. I saw so many waterfalls on this trip I'm kindof over seeing them, which is a horrible attitude. If you're driving down the road in the southern zone of Costa Rica, and you see someone on the side of the road selling these red hairy fruity things (they're called momones), you should buy them. They cost 1000 colones for a hug sack of them and they're great for road trips, like giant grapes with pits. Super tasty. Another sunset photo of epic waves. Super long rippable waves that I used to sketch on my high school book covers.
Yes, I've been very much missing in action. I'm still trying to figure out what just happened. I mean, I know what happened because I was there, but still it seems all a blur now. All I know is that I'm really exhausted but in a really good way. I went surfing a couple of hours ago here in front of the surf camp and my arms feel dead. I have a huge grin on my face and all I can think about is surfing, even after ten days of hitting it hard. I'm going to the Liberia airport tonight to pick up my family, which is going to be awesome as its been three weeks since I've seen them. The surf camp is still here, so thats good. Here's a photo of the hills overlooking Zancudo, a town north of Pavones about 45 minutes. We had some incredible surf in Pavones. I'm waiting for more photos from Tommy Hodges, John Alexander and Joe Cummings, the three guys I took on the tour. Tommy and John took a lot of photos and video but of course while we were on the trip getting on the computer and uploading photos was far from my mind.
The video is really small because it was low tide, also because it was shot on a cell phone, but you get the idea. We scored the day before, it was simply off the hook. Staying in Pavones was really chill. The sessions were arm burners, literally catching waves into the kiddie pool. I got to spend some time learning about the dark cloud that literally hangs over the cantina there. There seems to be a lot of people who have had some serious trouble there. I had met a guy named Clay there 8 years ago and we surfed together and hung at his house. Supposedly he had just gotten out of the hospital two weeks ago as he was knifed in the Pavones cantina and almost killed, with his jugular hanging out or some rumor bullshit like that. I know I say it all of the time, but its the wild west down here. Especially when you're in a town with ten dudes to every chick and nothing to do but surf and get drunk. I'm the dude chilling in my rocking chair, going to bed early so I can be surfing early the next morning. I'll still be drinking some Imperials of course. We made our way into Panama after surfing Playa Hermosa, Domincal and then Pavones. Crossing the border is always a trip, there are always sketchy folks that want to either help you with your documents or simply want to rip you off however they can. They make it tough for the good folks. After enough border crossings I actually know a couple of the border guards and its a breeze, but I can imagine if its the first time for someone it would be very daunting. For anyone who cares, finding weed in Panama is harder than anywhere else I've been in the country. I guess its important to say that I'm not going to the typical tourist destinations or to Panama City. In the true Panamanian jungle nobody smokes weed. They do however eat the mushrooms that grow on cow shit. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, or something like that, and before you knew it we didn't care that we didn't have any smokes. We hung out on this empty beach, watching the sun go down and sipping on some Atlas beers in the middle of nowhere. Another insane trip (did I already say that?)
We took off from this bay in the only boat in the village that had a motor. It was an old fishing panga that was slow as shit (I'll post pics later when they get sent to me). I am not lying when I say that once you get off of the coast there are shark traps everywhere. The Panamanians unfortunately practice illegal shark finning, and the whole idea of it made me wonder how many sharks were cruising underneath our boat at that moment. Further up the coast, like something out of the Mosquito Coast, we found empty beach after empty beach. Waterfalls falling directly into the ocean, dense primary jungle meeting the sand. After we left completely flat surf, an hour later we landed the boat in a small rocky cove on low tide and found hollow barrels nearby. It was shoulder to head high, glassy, just us. It was like the kind of dream you wish you could have again and again. Here's a photo of my rig, a 2001 Toyota Hilux, taken in front of the church in Las Tablas de Panama. I've taken this truck throughout Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama for the last four years. It is the absolute best surf tour vehicle, even if I now need to replace the power steering, the breaks, the rear left window, and the surf racks. I'm glad I put on the halogen lights as in the middle of nowhere they don't have street lamps. I'm also really glad I spent as much time loading music onto my iphone. Some of the bands that got a lot of play were Outkast, Joy Division, Iron & Wine, STP, Johnny Cash, the Vines, DMX, Spoon and tons of Sufjan Stevens including this one: All%20the%20Trees%20of%20the%20Field%20Will%20Clap%20Their%20Hands.mp3
I will post more soon. For now I'm still in the "back to planet tamarindo" fog. What I do know is that I'm 90% sure that I'm leading another trip to Panama next month, mid September. I'm going to send out a WRSC newsletter blast this week to fill the spots if/when I do, unless I'm contacted and book the trip before I get that far.
OK I will get some photos onto the blog soon enough, but let me sum up what has been going on: today is Monday, we set off on last Friday, we've surfed Playa Hermosa and Dominical before getting to Pavones on Saturday. The swell filled in yesterday and Pavones was a SOLID 2-4 foot overhead on the sets. It was firing, probably the best waves I've ever seen there. I had some great waves, it was really lined up and firing. We are now in David Panama at a TGI Fridays where I just received the smallest Philly Steak Sandwhich I've ever seen. It was good though. We're looking to have another 3 hours of driving tonight and then 3 hours in the morning before we get to our final destination on the Azuero Peninsula. I can't wait.... I'm really surfed out, been surfing hard for weeks, but I'm excited to hit it hard all week long and then rest after the tour is over. I'm seeing Monday Night Football on TV, and even though its preseason its exciting to know that football season is around the corner. I've decided not to go anywhere this low season and to chill out in CR. I'm hoping for a lot of free time to chill with my family, to surf, to get some work done, to watch tons of movies, to start shaping boards in the WRSC shaping room (currently full of beer but Chris Garland and I have a plan to drink it all beforehand). All is good here. John Tommy and Joe are having a great time on the tour. I'm about to send out a WRSC newsletter and open up the Peru trip in November, so for those who missed out on this, you can surf Peru. I warn you though, its like surfing on the moon. Peru on the coast is what I imagine Iraq to be like. The waves are perfect though. OK time to hit the road, more to come. pura vida- joe
I'm leaving for Panama in 7 hours. The boards are packed, now I need to throw some clothes and other random items in the truck and be done with it. I'm leaving the surf camp to my trusted staff, assuming they will do the best that they can. If I return and find it to be anything like Colonel Kurtz living in the jungle of whereverthehell he was, I'm going to be pissed. No chopping off heads, please. I do plan to post tons of pics of this adventure, so stay tuned. It should be good. Senor Stephen Monticone, you will be missed on this tour of Panama. Over and out from the skybox.
Today is Groundhog Day. The surf is good right now, what else can I say? I am so surfed out, I might even take the day off tomorrow because I'm starting right back up on Friday. Can you tell that my eyebrows have turned bright white? The Fox 6 news friend of mine, Dusty, and his camera man Dan, the three of us surfed Casitas. It was firing. I had a lot of good waves. It was pretty much every local surfer I know from Tamarindo, and hardly any tourists, so they were having a hard time getting waves. There were some local boys ripping like Luis, Josymar and Isac Vega. Lots of airs, I even pulled one out into the flats but ate it. I had a weird dream last night about the KSDT radio station at UCSD. Shawn Greg (yes he had two first names) used to have a radio show there in high school and I found myself hanging out there quite often all through college. Anyways, I used to always see this Melvins poster but I never listened to them until recently. They grow on you like Nirvana's Bleach album did back before they exploded. MelvinsGoingBlind.mp3 I got some great pics from my mom today. Today is the 9th day that my wife and boys went back to the US. They planned the family reunion after I said I was going to Panama, I swear. Anyways, Holly and the boys went with my parents to Sea World. My son Happy has grown up so much this last week. He just turned six months. For some reason I'm seeing these pics and I'm saying "that kids gonna be crawling any day now". Its about to happen, I can tell from Costa Rica! Just look at him! He's holding himself up all by himself! The kid is so freaking cute, right?? Man I'm so incredibly lucky to have two great little boys. What luck man, serious. Check out my pops hanging with Happy, obviously not as happy as could be :-) Hey mom and dad, I love you both tons. Dad I've read all your emails, I'm sorry I don't write or call more. It looks like you're getting some serious Papi time with the groms, the best huh? Its been busy here but all is good in the hood. I can't wait to see the Caddy when its all finished and finally back in SD (in time for the Charger opener?). Hey family. It looks like everyone is hanging at Sea World. I wish I could be there. It is definitely the best feeling, seeing my family with everyone smiling. I'm smiling too. All is good... going back to roots is the absolute best. Although I'm going to enjoy this trip down south I can't wait for it to be over to see all of you.
ZEP officially welcomes Hickman (he drank the Koolaid)
after 7 months of negotiations and revisions of our business plan, I have finally signed my partnership contract with Chris Hickman. Chris is now 25% owner of Zephyr Eco Resort & Canopy Tour S.A. We both expect great things. We are now completing the purchases of heavy equipment, we have the backhoe and are now getting the dump truck and another tractor for moving earth, definitely toys for big kids. We will be focusing on sustainable methods of road construction/maintenance, erosion prevention, seeding, and eventually moving towards the plan for building an eco resort 100% sustainably using earth bags and reforested teak among other things. What did I do to celebrate? Nothing yet, just a lot of smiling :-)
surfed for four hours, it is absolutely firing right now. My arms feel like they ran out of blood and are stumps I have to swing around.... not quite sure how to lift a sin panza but will figure it out... I should start packing for this trip on Friday its going to be here before I know it.
I feel like I've been at my computer for hours, days even. Oh wait, I have been. I'm going through one of those range of emotions related to having too many things to accomplish before a deadline. I'm doing the crossing-out-the-less-important-ones now. They all seem important, thats the problem. The day after tomorrow I have a small crew from Fox news in San Diego coming to the surf camp. I met the guy Dusty through Chrissy Russo, the weather(woman? chick? girl I know?)person for Fox 6 in SD. She was my next door neighbor for a short period of time when I was renting a couch in Lacey's condo. 6ft sofa in OB = $100/month, no mas couch crashing. Ahhh... my couch in the Skybox, I wish I could chill on my couch right now. I can't though. My main man James told me that he decided that he wanted to stop working for the camp and was going to become a full time computer programmer. I mean, as a friend of his I fully support his and anyone else's desire to work for themselves. Its seriously the best way to go in my book. But then as the owner of the company and the fact that everyone is out of town and I'm leaving, its all a bit much to take at once. Things will work out well though, I just spoke with Shawna and she is going to be helping me with some telecommuting from Canada where she's at right now. Alonso is out having a baby with his girlfriend, Marcela is in San Jose at yoga camp. Still things are running normal. Its just me thats a little mixed up in the head. I can't wait to buy a bottle of Abuelo Rum and sit on the point at my little right point break in Panama that I'll be surfing in less than a week.... cannot wait at all, I'm going to dream about it tonight with my headphones on
I got a couple little corners at dead low tide in front of the surf camp, the rights would wedge up with the lefts and you could get little off-the-tops. I just got off of the phone with Chuck Menzel from wetsand.com They have a really good surf forecasting tool that I like. We got to talking about a focused surf report for the northwest coast of Costa Rica, which is cool because I think he has a solid website and I'd love to be a part of it. I get to go surf and call it work, which is all I really care about anyways.
its true... holly went back to the US and stole my brush and it had been like two weeks since I brushed my hair. I was definitely getting some salt water nappiness. I asked Maria for a comb when out of nowhere Tico Hendrix shows up behind me like a superhero and offers me his comb. I took it upstairs and tried my best to disinfect it before combing my nappy dreads.
This animation was made by Tony Dusko, a friend of Holly and Ryan Keown, WRSC guests that have been coming to WRSC for five years now and supposedly have a video of me guiding an estuary tour back in the day. After Holly told me that A: she reads my blog religiously during her off-periods (she's a teacher) and B: I remind her of Chicken Joe from Surfs Up! it is all a compliment, whether its Spicoli or Chicken Joe. Ryan and her are friends with Tony, who is a 5th grade teacher and a great artist I must say. I called Tony today and told him that I wanted to use his animations to make a learn to surf dvd. He surfs, was actually going to join Ryan and Holly on this trip but couldn't make it... looks like something is going to happen. I'm very stoked, I know when I like something and Tony's animations are kick-ass. You can check out his youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/notebookbabies
My good friend Justin McCabe is probably one of the smartest guys I know, so Justin, this question is aimed at you or anyone you know from UCSD from when you were getting your phD in chemistry. I am very interested in processing my used cooking oil to biofuel. I want the WRSC Schoolbus to become Nacho Powered. I can see (and smell) it now. So, ALL SMART PEOPLE OUT THERE who can help me make this happen, please do so by commenting on this blog and telling me what to do. I've got the space to do it (next to the hotel), the used cooking oil from my restaurant as well as my neighbors' restaurants. Who can help me?
I went to Coco last night and hung out with my friend Jimbo. He owns the Bar Vida Loca there, I've known him for as long as I've lived here. We had more than enough beers and fed catfish and feeder cichlids to his Alligator Gar. Wikipedia says they are friendly freshwater fish. Um, yeah, until they're hungry. Jimbo bought this fish from a Nica who caught it in a river up along the Nicaraguan border. Its about 2 feet long, although they get up to 12 feet long and 300 pounds. There is this one feeder fish that was put in the gar's aquarium that is really really smart and has lasted 3 months, it just cruises along behind the gar and is constantly on alert. What a crappy life, I thought, but then I guess this is exactly what happens in mother nature. One of my first jobs ever was working at a little pet store in Tierrasanta where I grew up. I kid you not it was called Casa de Pets. Only in Southern California.
Besides wanting to power my vans with nacho power and feeding fish to other fish, I've surfed a couple of times over across the river here in town and am now starting to feel the stress that comes when I think about how I'm about to leave on a trip and I have a million and one things to do. I went to Santa Cruz today to check on my truck, which is getting a lot of work done as I get ready to drive it to Panama. I just got invited to accompany a surf trip to Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands, which I hear is pretty sweet from my old college friend Frank Lemes who spent two years in Micronesia in the Peace Corps. I'm going to wait and do Micronesia in the future with the family. I want to work really hard for a few years, until my boys are old enough to walk without me carrying them and old enough to appreciate and enjoy an around-the-world tour. I've already started saving for this trip now, even though I probably won't go for five years. Its going to be one of those trips that takes a reeeeaaly long time. So, back to thinking about work and everything I need to do, I assume I'll be writing a few more blogs over the next few days.
