adrift

We've been on the boat for 8 days now. Today the swell is peaking,
there are some pretty big waves passing under the boat as we cruise
towards Drake Bay (located on the north side of the Osa Peninsula). A
lot has happened in the last week, and up until now I've only sent a
few quick blurbs from my phone while I had cell coverage. Lets see
how typing on this laptop works out, and then let's see how well that
iPhone app works that tethers my cell phone with my laptop as to get
internet on my laptop. I'm pretty sure old school pirates didn't
worry about shit like this.

My friend from the UCSD days Frank Lemes left a couple of days ago to
return to Hawaii, where he is now a doctor living with his wife Mandy
and their soon-to-be-born son Cruz. Frank told me he was coming down
to Costa Rica a few months ago, and the timing was just right to have
him arrive to Liberia and jump on the boat as we left Tamarindo. We
surfed, fished, drank beers and talked story the whole week. I heard
about all of the guys we went to school with from Poole Street and the
Shores houses, and amazingly how so many of them are still so
connected to surfing. That made me happy to hear. It was pretty cool
to get a college degree while surfing Blacks every day. It made me
realize how much I have missed since moving to Costa Rica after I
graduated college, and happy that I moved to Costa Rica as who knows
what I'd be doing if I got a real job in the US instead. Probably not
something that would have me on a boat en route to Isla Burica, Panama
right now.

Larry McKinney was on the trip up until yesterday. Larry has to be
the best guy to go on surf trip with. He is always laughing and
making jokes. I saw him get a really good tube ride at some random
beach break we surfed that we forgot to name. There was nobody out
but us and the set waves were reaching a few feet overhead. I also
saw Chilo get a solid tube ride at the same beach the day before.
Chilo and Luis are now back in Tamarindo. Chilo was so excited to
return to Tamarindo, I don't think he realized what he was getting
himself into when he volunteered to take off on the surf yacht for an
undetermined amount of time. He is returning to oversee the
restoration of the panga we have sitting on the side lot next to the
hotel. In two weeks that boat will be brand new again, with a new
115hp 4-stroke Yamaha outboard, seat cushions, and a new canopy.
Chilo was a little sad to see his boat the Holly Gwee go south with me
while he returned north, but I promised him that she was going to see
some amazing places and to be happy for her. It works out perfectly
to be towing the Holly Gwee behind the Zori, as we can jump off at any
point we want and cruise closer the coastline on the panga checking
multiple surf spots with relative ease.

Boats aren't cheap, especially big ones that you buy used from owners
that didn't use them much. I knew I'd be needing to make some
upgrades, and we decided to do them while we were in Quepos, so it was
a little bit sooner than I had anticipated. Now that I'm at sea its
all better. It was almost like we had to press the pause button for a
couple of days to buy all new batteries (5 batteries that cost
$375/each), a new giant cooler, filters, 12 gallons of oil, tons of
rope, more lures, more flashlights, 2 new waterproof floating VHF
radios, a new tool kit, $300 in groceries, etc. etc.. This probably
wouldn't be too bad if I wasn't just dropping $25,000 on the new WRSC
Surf Expo / ASR booth and our brand new brochures we wanted to get
done in time for the World Games of Surfing in Playa Hermosa next
week. In my world (and probably in yours too), $25,000 is a ton of
cash. Add to that the thousands of dollars to actually have a booth
at those shows, plane flights Costa Rica - Orlando and Costa Rica -
San Diego for me plus the staff I send along, hotel stays, food, beer
(gotta have a separate budget just for beer), gas, that surfboard one
must buy for himself while checking out other booths at the surf
shows, and so on, and it gets to be a ton of cash, something near
$40,000 I'm expecting. I guess I need to keep the faith about it all
as I'll probably be the only surf camp in the world with our own booth
at these shows, and it will give everyone an opportunity to know about
our kick-ass new surf boat that does nothing but seek excellent, empty
waves. And for Larry I guess its part of his job to have had to go on
the yacht on a surf trip, so that he can properly explain exactly what
it is like for booking guests. You should give him a call if you want
to know more about it. And if you're going to be at the Surf Expo
August 20-22 in Orlando or the ASR trade show in San Diego September
10-12, stop by our booth and chill out at the bar (yeah of course we
built a bar for the trade show booth).

My family came down to Quepos Tuesday night to visit. They left
yesterday morning, a quick 36 hour trip but an amazing one
nonetheless. Otis and Happy were really stoked to get to hang out
with Daddy, we pretty much just chilled and didn't do much at all on
Wednesday. We went on a few walks, threw rocks into the estuary,
played with dominos, tried to swim in the hotel pool but couldn't
because Otis has a nasty earache. I somehow got stung by a bee on my
forehead and proceeded to have a swollen Klingon head for the rest of
the afternoon which sucked. Visiting with my boys and Holly makes
doing these longer trips easier. I know that soon enough I'll have
the entire family on the boat, once the boys are old enough to swim.
Maybe we'll take off on a trip around the world one of these days,
once I figure out what all of these dials and switches on the boat do!
I'm learning quickly though, and fortunately I have a very solid
captain named Charlie. Charlie was the captain of the Blue Dolphin
for the last 5 years and has been on the water for 26 years all in
all. He brought with him his friend Rene, also a Tico and a really
nice guy who has been surfing Costa Rica for the last 30 years. I
also brought along Greg, who just quit captaining the Marlin del Rey
catamaran in Tamarindo and is now on board with us and helping out.
Let it be known that I have nothing to do with their desire to work on
our surf boat, I never called them and asked them to quit working
where they were working. I didn't even know Charlie or Greg until
these last few weeks. It probably has something to do with their
options to either work on a boat that goes on a booze cruise every
afternoon out of Tamarindo or work on a surf boat with nothing but
surfing going on. They are all super cool and great to hang out with.
Oh, and everyone cooks really freaking well. awesome.

I just returned from being on deck watching a humpback whale breach
near the boat. We are 15 miles off of Osa, near Canoa Island. There
are tons of dolphins jumping in the air a ways off, doing flips,
playing. It is surreal. We're all along out here and its totally
beautiful, just a perfect cruising day. Radio 2 is cranking on the
radio, some of the songs suck but most are pretty good classics from
the 70s and 80s. If Larry was here he'd know the name of every artist
in less than 10 milliseconds. Traveling on the surf yacht is insane,
in a very good way. Yes, there are world famous surf spots like
Pavones and Matapalo that we'll visit while passing through, but its
the untouched surf breaks- the ones that can only be accessed by boat-
that make this trip what it is. Most every surf session has been with
nobody else out, just those of us on the yacht. Last week when there
wasn't supposed to be much swell we found waves at least head high,
often a few feet overhead. Alone. We pick up our first WRSC surf
yacht guests Hanna and Rob tomorrow afternoon in Puerto Jiminez.
After a few days we will be anchored on the Costa Rica / Panama
border, surfing the point break and untouched reefs that are hidden
there. No road access, only along the beach on horseback or in the
ocean by boat. It is wild. Maybe the only place in Costa Rica where
you can watch jaguars prowling the beach at night looking for turtles.
Macaws flying along the coastline. Getting to surf empty waves that
I saw on Google Earth, anchoring in private coves with crystal blue
water, empty reefs. The surf yacht was all I could hope for and more,
I am the luckiest guy alive. After years of looking at big boats I
finally went for it and I couldn't be happier about things.

Day 4 on the boat

Day 4 on the boat. Since we departed Tamarindo, we have surfed fun
waves in Nosara, Camaronal, somewhere in the Gulf of Nicoya (where
supposedly there are no waves they say), Playa Hermosa, some remote
beachbreak near the Boca Damas, and now here in Quepos. GPS waypoints
recorded for the trip. Lots of fishing, huge Mahi Mahis, Mackerals,
even a 100 pound Sailfish we caught on 15 pound test line. Needless
to say we've eaten fish every day. Figuring out the new boat has been
good. I am super stoked, everything seems to be mechanically sound
with Zori. Plenty of room for everyone to chill. Luis Castro is
homesick, so is Chilo, looks like I might be running the boat for a
while with Charlie while we find a permanent 1st mate. The TV broke
this morning, it fell in rough seas, a bummer since I hadn't yet
gotten around to bolting it to the wall and I forgot to take it off
the shelf this morning. We had been getting crazy playing Transworld
Surf all night. At least I have another TV back in Tamarindo and will
get it on Wednesday when the van arrived with some food and supplies.
I'm planning on getting the boat documents ready to cross into Panama
and explore the islands in the Gulfo Chiriqui. I'm going to post pics
on the WRSC Surf Yacht page of the website in a couple of days. There
is a lot of other stuff going on back in Tamarindo, so I'm kindof
really happy to be hiding out on this boat. As I float here now, I
realize I'm exactly where I need to be.

Sent from my iPhone

Larry lands the first fish on the new boat

surf trip essentials

Family time before the surf tour

This family portrait brought to you by CRsurf.com

I guess I have a dog now

Otis named him Shaka, he is the newest addition to the Walsh family. I
guess this is what happens when you tell your wife you're going
surfing on a boat trip for an unspecified amount of time.

Reboot

I am back, but only to tell you that I am leaving. I have been meaning
to blog for weeks, and as more time goes by I think that I should
write more, but then I think about how I hate long emails and blogs,
how it makes my mind wander, so let me just summarize.

I bought a boat. A yacht really. WRSC is now in the overnight surf
charter business. I'm leaving this week on the maiden voyage with
Larry, Dr Frank Lemes, Rafa, Chilo, maybe Pira, and our new captain
Charlie. Charlie has just finished 5 years captaining for the Blue
Dolphin catamaran and is ready to take our surf tours to Panama,
Nicaragua and beyond. We're going south to Matapalo / Pavones and
beyond, call the camp if you want to join us.

I got back from ten days on the road surfing exactly three weeks ago.
I didn't upload the pics yet, reason being we were working feverishly
on the new WRSC website. We launched the new website 6 days ago, so
stoked. www.witchsrocksurfcamp.com

Waves have been fun. Last week was pretty big, the rivermouth got
good. Two people drowned last Sunday, one guy while surfing in Negra.
I knew him, Alfredo I think his name was, the Channel Islands
surfboards Latin American rep. I was just surfing with him a week
earlier. I heard he had kids. I didn't want to tell Holly but I
figured she'd hear about it anyways. Man that guy surfed better than
me, it could have been anyone. Life is fucked up like that.

Holly and I went out last night, something we rarely do since having
kids. Holly's partner in the Organic Market, Andrea, and her husband
Diego babysat for us. We drank some of their "organic" mushroom tea
and went to Helena's house warming party. Shortly after getting there
I realized that I shouldn't have let myself go anywhere, Holly and I
escaped outside and, after a few hours, returned to earth. What a
funny, entertaining evening it was, totally fun, we fell asleep dying
laughing.

Today is family day. Kids, wife, beach, pool, couch, bed, tv, pac man,
cheeze-its, Imperial. Tomorrow we bring the yacht to Tamarindo. We
leave tentatively on Thursday, waiting for a better swell report to
make detailed plans. We are surf pirates. Point breaks = buried
treasure. I'm probably gone most of a month on this trip, ironing out
details, marking GPS points, definitely "working" thank god I call
this work. The surfing world games are the 1st week of August in Playa
Hermosa, def going to check that out. WRSC will have a booth at the
Surf Expo in Orlando August 20-22, come say hi to us if you're at the
show. Also going to have a booth at ASR in San Diego Sept 10-12. I
kindof wish I was going to the US Open in Huntington this month but
not as much as surfing Matapalo and Pavines, I cannot wait.

I'm ditching the laptop and keeping the phone. I will keep you posted
on this surf adventure :-)