The surf has been in the chest to a bit overhead range, it is a very crossed up swell thats not working well at the reefs but is ridiculously fun at the beach breaks!  The wind is gusty offshore.
Greg took his boat down to San Juan del Sur to have it pulled out and worked on, he was very surprised at how efficient they were, in fact they were able to pull it out the same day and get it well supported. Of course the locals were all working under a 6 ton boat hanging precariously from a surplus russian crane that swayed and creaked in the wind. He chose to take pictures from afar. The local port captain did the obligatory hustle and tried to get another $125 from him for some contrived offenses, but he pulled the old international maritime law and claimed it was an emergency and that got them off his back in a hurry. He’s back now and ready to catch some of the swell now that the “chores” are over.

We’ve got over 40 surfboards to store at the camp and since we’ve been
here we’ve been plotting how to store them.  We have a space and
finally have constructed the roof and the rack and only have to finish
the door to make it a complete space to store 40 boards.  Of course
we’re working with teak lumber, scraps, bits of rope, and the
ubiquitous barbed wire.  It’s nice to have the board out though…
walk down the line like you’re picking your fruit from the fruit
stand… grab your flavor of choice, put it in a bag and throw it in a
truck and off you go to surf.

In california on any given day when you go to surf, depending on
where, you expect there to be other surfers in the water.  In the less
crowded places this could me 5 or 6 other people and in the more
crowded spots this could mean 20-100 frothing aggro tyrannical freaks
trying to eek out a spot in the food chain.  I’ve not surfed with more
than 4 other people the whole time I’ve been here and I’ve known every
one of them on a first name basis.  It’s such a relief to get enough
surf that you’d rather pass up a wave just to see your friend get a
good one rather than scratch and pull to get any wave you can….often
times getting snaked by someone anyway.  (I’ll have to do a side blog
on surf terms so you non-surfers know what lineups, snaking,
scratching, frothing and aggro are…in the mean time use your
imagination).  Today at Salinas I watched my friend Paul surf alone on
a beach with perfect peaks and nobody except him as far as the eye
could see.  He was like a kid in a candy shop scratching for every
wave he could find…he wanted to catch them all, but he could only
ride one at a time.  It gave me great satisfaction to watch so many
good waves go unridden and knowing that around the world there were
countless more waves unridden.  I paddled back out a bit later with a
pocket full of seashells I’d hunted on the beach, I caught a couple
more waves and was then happy to climb back in the boat tired,
fullfilled and knowing that perfect unridden waves were spinning there
way to an end on an empty beach with only my footprints to show that
anybody had been there.

Cheers from nicaragua!  Give a wave away and get ten in return.

So in Nicaragua when you want to repair something, barbed wire is your go to supply. Need a cotter pin, barbed wire. Need to tie something up, barbed wire. Need to plug a hole in your tire from barbed wire…rubber cement and barbed wire! In honor of the barbed wire theme and considering it was Antonette’s 41′st birthday yesterday a birthday cake was needed. Well you don’t run to Baskin Robins for 31 flavors of ice cream cake, nor do you order one from the local bakery. What I did do was find some old sweet breads, bananas, peanut butter and some condensed milk…hence Barbed Wire Bread Pudding. It was fantastic and we’ve been feeding on it like a swarm of sharks since last night. Topped with some vanilla ice cream and it might as well be a cure for cancer it’s in such demand.

So we finally surfed Puerto Sandino today…the spot that makes this home for me. It was absolutely, without a doubt, spectacular. Add in that there were only three of us out and more waves than we could catch, made it even better. A wayward shark in the lineup made it a bit more eerie, but we’re getting more comfy with the ubiquity of the sharks. As well you’re pretty far out to sea so lining up is a challenge. The wave is long…I mean really long, in fact you can catch about three or four before you’re all the way in side. Really fantastic and I can only imagine when it’s double overhead instead of head high it’s going to be a life changing experience.

We were so satisfied with our morning session we didn’t surf again today…we’re resting and getting chores done… finally built the “board room” to house the 40 plus surfboards we have on site. I hung some shelves and hangers for towels and stuff…hung the dartboard, put the ping pong table together…you know, the essentials. The camp is coming along great.

February 13 is the first day of school here and I have all the donations together to take to the school when it opens. I’m sure they will be pleased. I can’t wait to see the kids and I promise I’ll take some pictures for you all to see.

Alex is down with the pig! We’ll have to go back in a month or so when the piglets are closer to weening. I grown pig costs about $50 so we’re expecting a little cheaper for a piglet. I think we’re agreed her name will be Cena Natividad… we find it cute. We’re going to get a puppy as well so they can grow up together as we want to grow our “wolfpack” for home protection. If you question a pigs ability to protect, read my last post!

So it’s time to watch video and pic highlights from today…my love to you all…

Chest to overhead waves this morning at a quirky left point, it took us all a while to realize no two waves where the same due to 2 cross waves, once we figured that the wave could do anything it wanted it became a lot of fun with all sorts of sections,
We then hit a left reef in the evening that worked all the way to low tide and just kept getting better.

We had an interesting day trying to source local timber for the roof of our new baord shed, we ended up in the middle of the bush looking at a beautifull Guanacaste tree that had one side burnt in a bush fire, the “lumberjack” claimed he can have it cut into straight 2″x4″s in a day with just a chainsaw!
The new swell is only working at a handfull of spots, hopefully it will set up a bit better tomorrow before it fades.

Fun sesh at El Transito this morning, the point here looks to be working, everywhere should be fun this weekend with the new South swell filling in.

Took the boat to Salinas Grandes today, found fun knee to waist high peaks with the no one around as usual, strong offshore winds again today. Check the Volcom placement! If you’ve not seen Volcom’s movie “BS!” you should check it out, insane surfing with the usual weird sountrack and interviews.

Knee to waist high with occasional chest sets, very strong offshore gusts, we’ve surfed along all week!

Fun chest high peaks in the morning with light wind, very strong offshore wind in the afternoon so we sent sailing and blew the old sails out!
Photos from behind the camp in the evening.

Knee to waist high with strong offshores pushing the swell down a bit, fun sets at the point last night and this morning. The swell filled in to head high in the evening so should be great tomorrow.