I got the good news that I was being upgraded to first class for my entire flight tomorrow. I have NO IDEA how this keeps happening and I am not complaining. Maybe I'm on some list where Continental knows I'm selling flights to Costa Rica like mad and they want to make me happy. I don't care, I'm just happy. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Continental Airlines, much appreciated.
Did you notice the new website? I'm pretty stoked on it. Jon Arvizu is the artist behind the rocket/robot madness. Have you ever wanted to know what the internet looks like? It looks something like this (at least to me it does).
Bill Homer from EastCoastSurfProducts.com and I are talking about a partnership. I think its great, as I've already developed an online surf shop for WRSC but I don't have the wharehousing/shipping/time to work with manufacturers in the US to provide all of this for all of you. Bill solves this. If I can have bill hook me up with everything for the online shop its going to be great. Expect a newly improved WRSC website shortly with the e-commerce side included, as well as some integrated twitter feeds for the surf report and the new and very exciting Witch's Rock TV.
Between now and tomorrow morning I've got to buy myself some new internet programming books (nerdy fun), get a haircut because I look homeless, pack my bags, drink the rest of these Sierra Nevadas, skim through 3 weeks of missed emails/facebook messages/lists of things I meant to do but didn't, and catch up on US television programming because I'm not going to see it again for a few months.
I'm looking forward to returning to Tamarindo to my family, the surf camp, to saying goodbye to our Canadian interns, to saying hello to our good friend John Cheshire, Andrew and Georgia Illig, another south swell hopefully, and some down time to take it all in. This last week has been nonstop.
By the way, going into an Apple Store here in a US mall makes me feel like there is no recession going on whatsoever. Its like a mini stock market trading floor in there. Orange shirts, blue shirts, classes, repairs, tons of overpriced shit that looks really nice and that I wouldn't mind having if someone gave it to me. I'm about to compare this to the dirt-roadside pulperia where I buy my Bamboo road soda on the way to surf the Negra reefs. Its like night and day.
heres my neighbor Jerry, I see him in the water all of the time. I told him the next time I had a good photo of him I'd put it on my blog. Dude Jerry you're bombing this wave, thats sick!
A couple of the waves at Trestles were this big yesterday. The swell had traveled up from Costa Rica to California. Pretty cool how it does that
Hello world. I really hope your life has been more tranquilo than mine has been this past week. I have been running nonstop. Seriously, I'm just now having a relaxing moment. Flew from Liberia to San Diego on Tuesday. Spent all day Wednesday packing boxes and my truck for the container ride to Costa Rica. Thursday at 6am I'm having coffee and driving to Huntington. Didn't surf, should have surfed. BRA surf seminar was good, met some interesting people including the owners of ZJ Boarding House in Santa Monica Mikke and Todd. Met a guy named John from Reef that lives down the street from where I grew up and we know a lot of the same people. small world. Learned some insight as to what the major brands are doing. The seminar theme was about how much the recession is hurting the action sports market and what we can do about it. It appears that the green movement is dying, or at least its too expensive when the world is in a recession unfortunately. I hope this isn't the case. This makes me want to continue talks with Patagonia and Sector 9. Makes me happy I live in Costa Rica where the sun is always shining and the water is warm. I leave BRA and drive to San Clemente, have dinner with Jeff Kearl from Skullcandy and Mark Woolsey, my new brand manager who really supports my vision for WRSC. Mark has pulled off some great stuff for Quiksilver, DC Shoes, and ESPN. Remember when Danny Way jumped the Great Wall of China? that was Mark Woolsey. We eat jerk chicken and pale ale, and its good. I then crash at Jeff's house, where my guest room has dual plasma screens and enough cable channels to confuse me, totally tired so I just slept. I leave Jeff's house the next morning with a truck full of headphones to hand out to the WRSC crew. Gary Ward, founder of Ocean Minded, offers me a coffee while I change into my wetsuit in his front lawn. The guy lives in the private development overlooking Trestles and is a friend of Jeff's.
Jeff and I walk out to overhead bombers coming in at Cotton's. It took me 3 waves to remember how to surf this board, with this wetsuit, at this crowded Trestles wave. Then it was on, and I had a couple quite excellent lefts that I'm still replaying en mi cabeza. Me gusta Trestles. Me gusta California. Then I drove to the last day of the BRA seminars (this was yesterday btw), I was late because I was surfing. They were handing out skateboards, kindof similar to the rip stick but with two wheels on each section instead of just one. I was the only guy skating during the lunch break, not really sure why because it was fun. I met a cool guy named Javier from Surf Aid - definitely cool what they are doing over there. He talked about them coming to Central America next, I told him to look me up. I left the seminar early and cruised back to north county San Diego and surfed again with Kent at Tamarack Ave. The waves had size and were punchy, there were a few fun ones. Kent's wife Kerry made us dinner, I ate more than I was probably supposed to but I was hungry (sorry Kerry). I had brought some Sierra Nevadas and Blue Moon 22s, we drank them and watched Kent's 500 thousand inch projection screen, where I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch at 830pm. Today I looked at my email, which scared the shit out of me. Can I please declare email bankruptcy again? If you emailed me and I didn't respond you might want to send that out again :-) Sorry. Oh Mr Internet how I love you and hate you at the same time.
AWESOME DAD TRICK #217: The bed of your pickup truck is the perfect playpen for a young child.
I'm on continental.com buying a plane ticket to San Diego for tomorrow. The audio in my Mac Air just stopped working, which is going to make my surf reports a little bit harder to record. I'll have to record a few on Holly's computer before I leave, so I can choose the ones that correspond to whats actually happening with the waves. Losing the audio on my computer means no music, no skype, no video thats worth watching. It is like losing an arm.
I'm going to the Board Retailers Summit this coming weekend in Huntington. I guess if it wasn't an industry like surfing or skating it would feel like work, but I'm pretty excited to check it out because its only going to help me do what I'm already doing even better. I have to go back to San Diego anyways as I'm FINALLY sending my Toyota Tundra to Costa Rica along with our first shipment of Boardworks surfboards. The Hynson BK Quad is the bomb, I'm getting some of them in various sizes for our guests. I'm also getting some Stewart and Ben Aipa longboards. Also some other stuff but its a surprise so you'll have to wait until the end of May.
This is the Toyota Tundra for WRSC International Surf Tours. My plan is to use this truck for the June Costa Rica - Panama surf tour led by Joe Walsh (aka me). The dates are June 10-20, and I have two spots remaining. You must fly in to San Jose, CR no later than 12pm on June 10th, and you can have a departure on the 20th of any time that you like. The cost is $2000 and includes all transportation, breakfast/lunch/dinner, Boardworks surfboard rentals, hotel accommodation for ten nights + all taxes. We'll be surfing some world class left point breaks as well as other reefs and beaches. The trip is INSANE just ask me for referrals from past tour guests if you have any doubts you'll have a good time. Call Larry or Shawna at 1-888-318-SURF to sign up.
I'm committing the biggest surf sin by flying to San Diego while a big swell is about to hit Costa Rica this Wednesday. What a bummer that is going to be, especially when my buddy Dusty tells me its flat back in SD right now. But wait, nevermind. Now that I've wasted even more time on the internet I take that back, the swell report actually looks pretty good for Southern California as by Thursday or so the same swell will hit up there- http://swellwatch.wetsand.com/#place=33.03629817885956_-118.4161376953125_8_2073_height_none_Sat_-1
I'm meeting with some of the guys from Skullcandy this week. As we expand the surf shop the plan is to have an entire Skullcandy display with tons of gear. The headphones they gave me are great, I'm rocking them right now :-)
A lot of you probably don't know that I went to art school and ended up getting a couple of degrees, one in film and one in music. I really like art and love when I get to work on creative things here at the surf camp. Right now we just launched our new menus, also we are designing some new things for the website, for shirts, stickers, and other random art projects. I found Hassan from Headhunters Studio, he has some serious skills. I like elements from these selections from his porfolio, check 'em out and then check out Hassan's website if you want to purchase a print or original painting.
Oh, remember the guy that emailed me complaining about how I was a bad role model and how the surf camp was a ripoff? He ended up emailing the surf camp last week and requesting a booking for his two kids to come to the surf camp. It felt like the Twilight Zone hearing that news!
Here's some more pics from the Arenal trip. Its really relaxing up there, and if I kite boarded or had any other reason to be on a lake instead of an ocean it would be perfect, but since there is no surf Arenal is a very temporary place for me.
They had a skate park at the hotel. It was surreal to be there, overlooking Lake Arenal, jungle graffiti and all.
Who wants to make beer (besides Larry and I)? I found the guy with all of the brewing equipment and brewery location. Witch's Rock Surf Camp is ready to brew an IPA, something that doesn't yet exist in Costa Rica. Help us make it a reality. I think pretty much every other surf bar in the region would want it too. This business opportunity allows you to become part owner of the Costa Rican corporation ca"Tamarindo Brewing Company S.A." and partner up with folks like Larry and I. If this is what we must do to get a decent pale ale then this is what we must do.
Yesterday I spent the entire day chilling with my family and it was just great. I'm going to miss them when I go to California this week, but the idea is to work hard for the next week, then come back to Costa Rica and hang out with my friends Andrew and Georgia Illing and the infamous John Cheshire. John and I have been friends for about 8 years, I haven't hung out with him for about 2 years, we're going to surf a ton. Life is good. pura vida.
Here's the new WRSC commercial we just put online today:
For those of you that don't know, Sunday was not only Easter but also the first official day of the green season. Then last night we received our first rain shower (only about 15 minutes or so). What does this all mean?
April - October is the south swell season. It is winter in the southern hemisphere and big storms send us big waves. Costa Rica doesn't get HUGE, but we get consistent head-high to double-overhead + surf at standout surf spots (outside of Tamarindo). This is also the low season in Costa Rica, which means less crowds.
Though WRSC stays pretty busy year-round, our surf tours are limited to 8 guests/day year-round. In the summer months we definitely score. WRSC always has some good deals to save you cash such as 10% off for return guests, 20% off if you book before you leave WRSC, and up to 25% off for group trips if you visit during certain weeks. Otherwise, if you're a WRSC newbie, you can still come down with a friend and get a 7-day Surf Tour package for as little as $880 tax included. This is airport pickup and dropoff, 7 days in our hotel, breakfast daily, surfboard rental all week, and surf tours every day. We also take photos and video of you surfing. Its pretty cheap if you look around at what surf camps cost these days, so if you've never been to Witch's Rock Surf Camp and you want to score some great waves, check us out. pura vida - joe
It really sucks when you feel sick. There have been waves all week long but I haven't surfed, which gives me an uneasy feeling even if I wasn't sick. I've been meaning to take a break and write down some inner thoughts on the old blogditty but to be honest I haven't been able to get any alone time, probably adding to the fact that I haven't been feeling good. Today I can tell I'm getting closer to feeling better, perhaps I'll drink a shot of pirate juice to kill off any of the germs that are holding on for dear life. I'm going to win this, I can tell.
All is good at WRSC. My parents just left after being here for a two week visit. Its always nice to have my parents come down. Holly's mom Suzanne is here too. We all celebrated Otis' third birthday last Sunday with a pretty dope pirate party. We took the old WRSC panga off of the beach and painted it like a pirate ship. There was a treasure hunt with buried treasure. The adults had as much fun as the kids. Tomorrow is Holly's birthday and I'm taking her, the boys and Suzanne up to Arenal to stay at a couple of off-grid hotels for two nights. It will be good to escape the surf camp for a little bit, sometimes it gets really old when everyone knows that you live right upstairs. It will also be inspiring I hope, as I am in the design phase of building an eco lodge on my own (zephyrecoproject.com)
We are completely full this week. There have been tons of waves. Only the onshore winds have been coming up early, which have made the mid-days pretty sloppy for surf. There have been some pretty good waves in the early mornings before the winds though. The surf was like this all week, so I guess you could say it was pretty good.
WRSC website updates: The surf report page has been broken down into two separate pages, a Surf Report + Forecast page and a Daily Surf Photo page. We set it up this way so we could allow for guest reporters in the area to report the surf at their local breaks. Let me know if you want to help out with this.
Holly has been running the Pura Vida Health organic market every weekend for over a month now with her friend Andrea, the town of Tamarindo seems to be really stoked on it. Every week has been busier than the week before. Holly has talked about doing a market for a really long time. I am really happy for her to finally see it through. Isn't she so cute, showing off her tomatoes and lettuce heads :-)
The surf camp is purchasing produce from Holly's market for our restaurant, paying the same price or less than we were paying from our previous suppliers and having it be all organic, so that is awesome! Any local restaurants wanting to organic product can contact me through the blog and I will pass the word along.
For me, the focus on organic produce dates back to the start of the Zephyr project. Holly put me in contact with her produce supplier Alvin, a local farmer in charge of a co-op of organic farmers in the local Guancaste region. We brought Alvin to the Zephyr farm earlier this past week to show him where we have space for our organic farm and nursery. I have already learned a ton about soil such as how to properly machete the existing growth, how to retain the cuttings as organic matter for the seeds we are planting, tilling the earth to recoup the organic matter quickly, and following the contours of the land when planting so as to prevent erosion. Alvin is the guy on the left. He is working for Zephyr as a consultant, overseeing the start of our organic farm and nursery on the farm. Berny is on the right. He is my right-hand man on-site at Zephyr. He was born and raised at the base of the Zephyr mountain (where he still lives). Berny can operate our backhoe and dump truck, and he knows the property better than anyone else.
We have a great spring on the property that is still flowing considerably right now, even though it is the end of the dry season and most water reserves are all but gone in Guanacaste. This spring is located about mid-way up the Zephyr mountain. We are building a simple retaining wall to allow for the water to pool up. A simple plastic section of pvc piping is placed within the wall to allow water to flow through while the wall is being built. Then a long section (1500 meters) of soft water hose is connected to the end of the pvc pipe, along with a valve that allows the water to be shut off if needed. Then, far across the Zephyr finca where it is lower in elevation, the water hose is placed, allowing for the water to be gravity fed to a giant plastic tank above where the hotel and the residential lots are located. Water piping is connected from the tank to the individual lots and all of a sudden we've got water. Its pretty cool to construct a system that relies on gravity and not electricity. Driving to Zephyr is like driving back in time, back to an earlier version of Costa Rica. Another random cow shot. Notice the lack of steroids? thats what a normal cow looks like.
A few days back we fired the old WRSC school bus up and took it on a pub crawl. Here is what happened (you should wear headphones so you can hear all of the dialogue):
Well, there was more, but the video camera was misplaced as the beers really started to flow. Its pretty funny when you cruise through the Tamarindo circle in the WRSC school bus with no headlights (because they don't work). We pulled the Austin Powers 17-point turn in front of Nibanna when we decided to hit Pasatiempo for a second time. Everyone was rowdy as hell. The cops just looked up and saw the bus and didn't give it a second thought. There are plenty of good reasons to live in a small town, this is one of them.
Let me take this opportunity to tell you that I am not a role model at all. I live in Tamarindo and run a surf camp instead of filing TPS Reports in my cubicle. I want to have a good time with my friends, get some good waves. I just want to enjoy my family, enjoy my job, and overall just enjoy my life. I smoke weed and I drink beer, I use bad words and I don't always take the time to correc tmy spelling when I type. Sorry if I let you down. Please don't send me an email complaining because you don't have to read my blog or visit WRSC or sign up for the newsletters. I got the lamest email from a guy last week complaining about me being a bad role model and how the surf camp was such a ripoff (maybe he didn't know we have 60 employees here), then he corrected my grammar while talking shit about how the owner of the surf camp should know how to use spell-check and shouldn't use the fuck-word. The kicker was that then after all of that he asked me to mail him some WRSC stickers if you can believe it. I already emailed him back and told him he wouldn't like it at the surf camp so don't bother coming. I think if I went to business school they would have taught me that the customer is always right but that just isn't true. Some people are poison and as soon as you can tell you should show them their way to the Diria or some all-inclusive pig roast full of fat Euros in speedos. Sue me for not being perfect, I never said I was. Don't complain because I chose the path less traveled.
I am so happy that after this week its going to be considered green season or low season or whatever. The surf camp is full the entire month of April, but the rest of town is going to be pretty slow, which means that the vibe will have slowed down even more. This recession has hit Costa Rica as hard as everywhere else, we are so lucky for so many return guests here at the surf camp, people telling their friends, just the whole buzz that everyone has created. We feel really lucky for this and we will continue to try our hardest to make this place the best we can. I really feel for the newer businesses that will be going out of business due to the recession, its much harder for them because they aren't as established. Not that anyone gave us a break when we opened WRSC 8 years ago because nobody did. Holly and I are making sure not to carry on the lame ex-pat tradition of "OK I'm here now, shut the door!" mind frame. Instead, a good community seems like a great idea and we are all about it. Everyone can pitch in a little. We plan on living here for a long time, and why not? Tamarindo is awesome. Now that the real estate boom has died all of the prospectors have skipped town and only those that want to live here are still here. You can see it at the Saturday organic markets. I'm meeting tons of people who have taken the opportunity to move to Tamarindo, because of a lay-off in the US or simply because its cheaper to live down here and you get to surf every day. We are stoked to have you. The only thing that sucks is when you take the time to really get to know someone, when you open yourself up to someone in ways you can only do to a few people at any given time, and then that person leaves six months later after having their Costa Rica experience. Its hard to make long-term friends down here, but hopefully thats seeming to be changing now that the town has grown in recent years.
Getting back to that pirate birthday party for Otis, please note that the pirate theme was 100% his idea I swear, seriously. First there was the treasure map leading to buried treasure. Yeah, it was a little confusing for a three year old birthday party but the kids still had a ton of fun. So did all of us. We're going to look back on this photo years in the future and pick out all of the local tico/gringo rippers from out in the surf. Jen and Marcel's fleet of kids, as well as Terri and Herbie's girls (all from Avellanas), little Kalani with the pirate hat, Shawna's son Lucas in there as well, and then Otis weighing in at 6 foot 8. Its so cool to have normal life events like little kid's birthdays here in CR. It takes a village to raise a child.
My pirate wife, who must have been exhausted after spending the week with my dad and the interns turning the old panga into a pirate ship. By the way, if you live in the Tamarindo area and have kids, feel free to bring them by to play on the pirate ship. We put it there for everyone and we plan to add a swing set shortly.
I'm also really happy that Otis' birthday has come and gone. I'm kindof bummed for Happy only because he suffers from what every second child suffers from: not being the first child. I've been making it a point to get a lot of time with him, but to be honest he doesn't need it at all. He is so chill, just lets me hold him for as long as I want where as Otis wouldn't want to be held for very long at all. Happy is a total daredevil, every time he sees a surfboard he tries to stand on it. Happy has been my homie a little bit more too because Otis is going through a 3-year-old "I want mom" phase. Not always, but often enough for me to have to learn to be fine with it. I think Otis and Holly are alike in a lot of ways too, which makes it kindof natural that he might want to hang out with Holly and bake cookies. No matter what it is all very good. I am spoiled to have such a good family :-)
I am off to order Chinese food. Yes, we have Chinese food here in Tamarindo. We also have iguanas living in our ceiling, which is why after this next week Holly and I are moving the family out of the surf camp and into a condo nearby while we gut the entire place, insulate it (even though I might just miss the Tico Hendrix dreams), and remodel our 1,000 square foot house above the restaurant.
