Snake vs. Cat

It started a few days ago when I heard this "meow" outside of my window. I went downstairs into the restaurant and found this cat up on the hot tin roof. I helped him down and he was off on his merry way. Then a couple of nights ago I'm in my bar having a couple of beers with Josymar and Carton and two of my very sweet middle aged female surf camp guests bring this cat up to me and proceed to tell me that it is pregnant and where should they put it? hmmm.... Where are you going? I ask. Across the street, to Frutas Tropicales, they say. Take it over there then, I say. They are shocked. Wait- I'm not the insensitive asshole you may think I am. I grew up with cats. My job growing up was the honorable cat box changer. We had three cats and three cat boxes, something I never truly understood. Now my parents have 3 cats and 6 cat boxes, so thankfully Cory has the job of cat box changer instead of me. My first real job was working in Tierrasanta at Casa de Pets, so its not that I was being insensitive. It was simply that I have a large snake living at the surf camp and think that a mother cat having kittens is pretty much a death sentence for the kittens and maybe also the cat. So I tell this to these women and they of course are now shocked that I have a boa living in the floorboards of my own house. When do you stop and realize its just different living in Costa Rica? Probably before you start talking about snake vs. cat.

The movie A Scanner Darkly was on tv again last night, that movie is a little eerie and I like it and I'm not sure why, but its evident that Cinemax wants me to watch it.

Cinemax shows this movie late at night with the idea that everyone who is watching it will more than likely watch the whole thing. If you fall asleep during it, like I did last night, your dreams go berserk.

Crazy CRAZY weather this last week. First we had the heaviest offshore winds I think I've ever seen in Costa Rica. The swell hit last Wednesday and there have been waves ever since, but Thursday and Friday were near impossible to surf. Not to mention that the internet was out for 2 days. It can be hard to run a business when the phones, electricity and internet go out. There were sand clouds firing up and flying along the beach, reminded me of Tatooine from Star Wars, with those crazy sand creatures. I sat inside wishing I could go surfing. I did get some waves Wednesday morning. I've been lucky that there have been photographers on the beach lately.

A nice little frontside cutback laying into the wave. I make the stupidest faces when I surf, its pretty funny.

I was surfing one of my favorite little reefs that I frequent this time of year. The swell is amplified by the reef and the trees hold up the offshore winds when its howling. On south swells there is a left that ledges up over a slab, I got a couple good ones including this nice little backside barrel. On northwest swells the right peels in and lets you have a lot of fun doing cutbacks. This day there were both lefts and rights. I only surfed for about 2 hours but I got enough waves. I would have surfed longer if I would have known that a wind storm was about to make surfing impossible until Saturday. Oh yeah, now that the water is freezing there are jellyfish everywhere. I surfed twice today and now I'm done. Done. I'm stung up so bad, my chest, my arms, my face... I can't remember the last time there have ever been jellyfish here, its like the apocalypse with these winds and then the jellyfish and ? It will pass. Things will normalize. At least the waves were good today.

I just bought ten new boards this week from Carton. Here I'm with Josymar (just won 4th at the CNS Nosara contest this weekend) and Carton in front of the camp.

I have 7 thrusters between 5'10 and 6'6, all brand new and all only available for rent for our surf tour guests. Don't sweat the incredible airline fees and worrying about not having a good board to ride when you're here. Besides thrusters and the sick WRSC fish boards (we have tons for rent), WRSC is going to be carrying some Walden epoxy 8ft and 9ft boards. Walden makes a good epoxy shape, light and rippable. I just surfed one the other day and I was pleasantly surprised. Its important to have good boards available, I understand that.

Regarding the WRSC web cam: OK, this has been an ongoing thing for some time. Lots of people, tons actually, use the web cam every day to check the surf, the wind, the sunset, the people on the beach, or anything else here in Playa Tamarindo. I've always hosted the web cam for free. I'm going to continue to do so, but there are some new additions. Check the web cam page on the website for more info and email me via the blog if you want a username / password to control the web cam. Let me know why you want it.