Today was a game changer. CBS’s the Price Is Right aired on national television, the grand prize was a trip to Witch’s Rock Surf Camp. I don’t care how you slice or dice it, that is some cool shit. I know Bob Barker retired from the show, which is a real bummer, but Drew Carey ain’t that bad. He still wields the skinny microphone, and the fact that nobody won the WRSC grand prize today means that it’s going to be the grand prize again on another episode, which means more air time for the surf camp on national TV. Cool. If you came down to Witch’s Rock Surf Camp in 2001 and saw the “rustic” beginnings of all of this, you would have never guessed in a million years that CBS would be calling us up and asking to set all this up.

I thought my accountant was joking, but I guess its true: we can actually give away hotel rooms for free.

SO… having said that, you heard it here on the joewalshproject blog first. Witch’s Rock Surf Camp is going to be giving away every hotel room at the surf camp during the months of September and October 2011. Tomorrow morning at some point a newsletter will go out explaining the offer.

This is a pretty huge deal, so I’m sure the rooms are going to go very quick. I wanted to hook ya’ll up with the info first, in case you wanted to snag one of the Penthouses or Sunset Rooms.

You can call 1-888-318-SURF to book your trip.

In today’s world, most people don’t know anything about the food that we eat.  We just assume that there will always be food, and that it will always be good for us and that it would never harm us.  We seem not to care that, as the government-sponsored corporations that produce our food get bigger and bigger, they seem to have less and less respect for the animals and our environment.  And they seem to have even less respect for the consumer, because they know we don’t really have any alternatives but to buy their food.  Farming is not what it used to be.

podcast: Starting An Organic Farm (click to listen, right-click to download)

Get ready for the new Eat @ Joe’s menu, currently getting printed at Mr. Toms today. It will probably make it to the tables by tonight, or maybe tomorrow.  I’m just happy because we’ve been wanting to launch it for quite some time. Here’s an early heads up on some new additions:

#1 Huevos Rancheros
I just ate this about an hour ago, super tasty. It took us a little while to get the recipe right, but now its solid, hence it made it to the new menu. May I suggest some of Costa Rica’s awesome Chilero sauce to go with that?

#2 the Baconater
This has been available for the last few months, you would have only known about it if you saw it up on the chalkboard. Bacon or ham, egg, cheese melted on a hamburger bun with ketchup NY style. My favorite is the baconator + coffee to go, for when I’m driving out of town looking for waves.

#3 Argentine BBQ
At El Vaquero we are currently offering Argentine BBQ 3 nights/week with the idea that we’ll move to a full-time schedule. Chef Miguel is dishing things up and doing a great job at it.

#4 beef tacos
Actually the beef, chicken and fish tacos have been on the menu all of the time, but hidden in the happy hour section. They are available any time of day, simply awesome…  a couple mid-afternoon beef tacos…  2 for a snack, 4 as a meal.

#5 lots of deserts
I guess I never had a sweet tooth for deserts the way I do for rum, otherwise I would have gotten deserts on the menu years ago. Oops.  Well, at least now you can get things like chocolate chip cookies with ice cream and insane chocolate sauce, tres leches, and a banana split.

Since I live at the surf camp and eat here quite frequently, I have always made sure that we deliver quality grub for a fair price. Although I am sure I am missing a few items, at least I got you started thinking about something new you can order the next time you’re chilling at Eat @ Joe’s and want to get some eats. Hasta la pasta, buenos nachos.

I did a double-take.  Wait a minute!  I thought No-Ad literally meant “Not Advertised”?  I even wasted enough time this morning going to www.no-ad.com just to make sure.  Yep!  There it is, directly under the logo on the official No-Ad website, the No-Ad brand message could not be clearer: “NOT ADVERTISED”.  Ooops.

Whenever someone asks me if I have plans to open up more surf camps, I’m going to direct them to this billboard.  Here is a great example of a company trying to expand, and in the process they end up shooting themselves in the foot by going completely against their mission statement and hence, killing their brand.  Unwarranted growth can kill a company.  Somehow lost in translation, so simple that the brand message was assumed to be understood by the Costa Rican distributor who paid for these billboards.

I fuck up all the time, its just really nice to see others fuck up too.  Only human!  We still carry No-Ad in our surf shop of course

Alex Angulo, Luis Contreras, and Berny Chavarria (left to right)

Alex, Luis and Berny have been working with me on various projects for many, many years.  Alex and Luis work at the surf camp, Berny lives on the farm.  They have a lot of talent and I constantly challenge them with new things.  Together we have learned a lot about a lot of different stuff, which has been cool.  And it continues, as we now venture into unknown territory: the farm.  I guess I say unknown because I had no prior knowledge on being a farmer, but what does that mean in these days of the website forum and instant kindle books? You still need to work with people who know more about any one subject than you do.

Alex started working for me sometime back in 2004 as an electrician.  He has wired all of the electric throughout the entire surf camp structures.  He helped me to hire others who are skilled, intelligent and hard working, creating a true maintenance / projects team at WRSC that is amazing for anywhere in the world, let alone Costa Rica.  Like me, Alex has a passion for doing things 100%, for doing things for the fulfillment of having done it and having learned from it.  From existing maintenance to new construction to mechanics to fabrication of any kind, Alex is my right hand man.  This man has skills.

Luis is a great guy with a great attitude.  He helped build the initial 12 rooms at WRSC in 2004/2005 and pretty much worked for me ever since.  Luis can build just about anything, he is a very decent carpenter and also very good with concrete.  When I started learning to shape and glass surfboards, I recruited Luis and taught him what I knew. He now glasses and also shapes a few surfboards, always keeping a fine eye for detail. Luis processes all of the surf camp’s biodiesel.  For not having formal math or chemistry training I think he’s doing pretty damn good!  The best thing about Luis is that he is always ready to do whatever is on the agenda, which now means building a bunkhouse on the farm.

Berny lives on the farm full time.  Although only an hour from Tamarindo, Alemania is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  Berny has lived there all of his life, and as my only neighbor, he seemed like the best fit for helping us manage things up there (this was about 5 years ago). He is a true Guanacastecan cowboy and a pleasure to work with. Berny drives the backhoe and dump truck, maintains the roads, the plants and the livestock.

So thats my team on this chicken farming, composting, solar panel installing, chainsawing, rancho building, pig raising, corn growing, tree planting adventure.

I ordered 100 baby chicks last week, they arrive on Monday.  Its all part of my plan to raise some farm animals and grow some crops on the Zephyr farm.  My GMs thought I was (am) crazy when I started talking about chickens a few months ago.  People generally think I’m bullshitting them when I tell them I’m learning to farm.  Who the hell becomes a farmer these days?

Lately I’ve been reading some Joel Salatin books on alternative farming.  I have a lot of respect for this guy, much of what he says resonates with me in one way or another.  With an interest for our community and environment, sustainable development, my family’s health, and the prospect of highlighting an economically viable business model, I am throwing my hat into the organic farming ring.

We made a chick brooder this week in the workshop here at the surf camp.  Yesterday my dad and I drove around Santa Cruz, picking up feeders and waterers and a giant sack of chicken feed.  I stopped by a sawmill and filled 5 trash bags full of wood shavings to make a nice bedding for the chicks.  Today we take the brooder up to Alemania, install the roof, the heat lamp, and everything else so we’re ready.  We are in official chicken countdown mode.

I’m leaving in half an hour for the farm, will probably be up there all day…  having woken up quite early this morning and writing this blog on my porch, overlooking awesome waves in the Tamarindo Rivermouth…  My MRI results came back a couple of days ago, I tore my MCL and have a probable meniscus tear as well.  I could be out of the water for another month.  Expect more farm blogs and less surf blogs!

I love my boys, they are the absolute world to me.  Even in a small house, or a small boat, we all seem to get along.  Of course they are 3 and 5 years old, and at times can act beyond anything I could ever explain in words. At times it is very difficult, but that is all part life. I’ll take the occasional difficulty if it means I have 2 boys to follow me in my footsteps. If it wasn’t for Holly none of this would have ever happened. If it wasn’t for Holly, the boys probably wouldn’t be so sweet, either!  I wonder how they must look at me, and how they will remember these first years when they are my age. I just try to be a good father for them and hope things work out well, which seems to be working out pretty well thus far.

Tuesday was Otis’s 5th birthday.  He woke up before everyone else, took my binocs, and sat out on the deck watching the waves.  I snuck up on him and took some photos until he saw me.  A few minutes later my parents walked up our stairs to say “happy birthday” to Otis. I took this shot and looked at it later, realizing I had caught Otis in the exact moment that he was reminded that it was his birthday. He looks so stoked!

Otis surfing a wave to shore in his first ever surf contest, Playa Tamarindo.

Our trip to Bocas del Toro aboard Choptank was quite the family adventure. We would go snorkeling, then come back to the boat and look through the wildlife books to try and identify everything we saw.  Happy was a champion.  Having just turned 3 years old and only recently able to swim from one side of the WRSC swimming pool to the other, we had him with mask + snorkel, fins and life jacket, floating in the open ocean looking at tropical fish.

By the end of the trip, both boys were catching small fish, sea anemones, and various crabs from the dock. Otis learned to paddle a kayak around the inside of the marina. The boys played with the local children speaking both English and Spanish. I can’t imagine how these experiences will form these boys as they get older. I’m just happy to be a part of it all.

hello world.  I’m back.  I was gone and now I’m back.  A month passes by and a lot happens.  I really should check in more often but I don’t, and I’ve been feeling bad since life has gone by in a whirlwind once again.

I guess now I’ll have more time to write, and you have one less person to compete with for waves in the Tamarindo Rivermouth.  I blew out my left knee, a torn meniscus, hobbling like a hobit and everything. But let me tell you about how good the surf was.  It was really good.  Best rivermouth surf in months.  It happened as I crouched in and made it out of a firing right hander tube on the virgin session of a 9’6 that Chilo and Luis both shaped and glassed while I was in Panama.  I’m not sure how long I’m out with this whole knee thing.  It could be weeks?  Or months?  Not knowing the answer and leaving it to the universe to figure out in a way is quite refreshing.  Yes, of course I wish I could surf.  But I can’t.  Its been 2 weeks, probably time to go get that MRI and find out if I need surgery or not.  I guess instead I’ll be reading this stack of books I bought off Amazon.

Yesterday we celebrated Otis’ 5th birthday with a simple birthday party on the beach in front of El Vaquero.  A few friends, my parents, lots of kids slipping on the slip n slide. Last year’s party was all about Diego, this year its all about Toy Story.  Woody and Buzz Lightyear exist in many forms in the Walsh household, from the lunch box to the audio CD to the Underoos.  How fast the time does fly.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I returned from taking my family to Bocas del Toro.  We hung out on Carenero Island where there are no cars, only walking paths.  We snorkeled and saw Nemo about a million times.  I bought a small speargun and some fins, did some spearfishing and checking out of the life aquatic. Choptank continues to get fixed up, and finally on this trip I had her out of the marina with the family, sails up, engine roaring, everything feeling fine.  We stayed on the boat for most of the 2 weeks we spent in Bocas, which was small quarters but very awesome.  It was Carnival while we were there and town was roaring, so it was nice to be staying on a quiet sailboat.  I have put down some serious cash to stock up on some electrical and plumbing supplies as I continue to do some tweaks to the boat, the idea being that by this summer I’ll be taking her to the San Blas Islands between Colon and Colombia.  I can only imagine what 400 mostly uninhabited highly remote islands with more swell exposure than Bocas del Toro looks like.  I grew a beard for a couple of months, I watched the Mosquito Coast (again), I started learning the local language of the Kuna Indians that inhabit the region.  I’m very interested in surfing more of the punchy Caribbean waves that exist out here, the ones that aren’t on any surf map.  I want my own map.  It will be much more exciting and seem much more real when I can actually surf again, however.

More of this blog to come, and soon, since now I’m sitting on my ass all day long.

I guess you could say I’ve been feeling a little “out of it” this past week.  Everything has been going great lately, the surf camp is doing awesome to a point where I’ve started feeling a little nervous and I start to expect something bad to happen at any point, which is crazy yes I know. I am beyond thankful and don’t know what to do. My family is wonderful, we are truly healthy and happy.  I just spent 10 days in the Caribbean and my brain (and beard) haven’t fully recovered.  It was hard for me to return to civilization, I’m starting to dream in Kuna.

And then yesterday things got a little hectic.  After an early AM surf at Avellanas, I returned to Tamarindo with my neighbor Phil to surf the Tamarindo Rivermouth.  After surf  session #2 it was almost mid-day, after our surf we walked along the beach towards the surf camp when I noticed a large group swarmed on the beach a little ways ahead.  I got worried and rushed to see what was going on.  An older man was being given CPR by another younger man (his name ends up being Craig, a doctor from Detroit on vacation with his family) while 40 people stand around watching and doing nothing.  I have seen dead people before and this man was dead or very close to it.  He wasn’t breathing, his body was purple, it was very fucking intense and everyone was in shock.  The police were there but they weren’t doing a thing.  Nobody was moving.  So I ran to the El Vaquero bar and told Daniella to call 911, which she immediately did.  I ran towards the surfboard factory and yelled to Leo, who was standing a ways away, to find keys and get a van or my truck or anything he could find to the edge of the beach parking lot.  I ran back to the swarm of people and yelled for help to get the man on a longboard, and got it, and we all carried him to the parking lot to the bed of my Dodge which Leo had already backed down to the sand.  This man wasn’t breathing and we threw him in the bed of the truck and threw everyone we could fit in the back and in the truck and we took off as fast as possible driving towards Villa Real towards the clinic going about a 100 miles an hour, it was pretty scary.  We met the ambulance in route and on the side of the road worked to resuscitate this man in the back of my truck while cars pass by and try to figure out what is going on, while the man’s wife stands 20 feet away in total shock about the fact that her husband is dying.  My god we were so lucky to have a doctor on the beach who was performing CPR from the moment he was pulled from the ocean.  I still don’t know how it happened but we got this poor man breathing again.  He was literally dead without a pulse, and then with a pulse, and then breathing on his own without a machine.  He was rushed from Huacas to Nicoya after that.

I went to the hospital in Nicoya today to see how he was doing.  He hasn’t woken up yet, and he isn’t breathing on his own anymore.  I can only imagine what his wife is going through right now.  I wish so much that he lives but I know it is possible that he will die. This really makes me sad but we did everything we could do.

We don’t need something like this to happen to realize that Tamarindo needs lifeguards. I hope the town finds the money to make them a permanent fixture on the beach.  Still, everyone needs to look after each other.  We are a community of surfers and this could have happened to any one of us.  I feel nothing but love because I know all of you would have done the same for me