Surfs Tours Nicaragua

Piggies for Sale

administrator — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:14:31 +0000

So we passed by the house that has the pacel of piglets and Cena is a week away from being “sellable”. I had my eye on a white one with black spots (looks just like mamma), but there is another “cafe con leche” colored one that has my eye as well. The lady of the house, Senora Gomez wants me to buy two, but I don’t think we need to encourage any inbreeding…we’ll find a suitor from another gene pool just fine. I thought they were another month from being weened, but once again the Nica Spanish dialect confused me. They want $700 cordoba which sounds like an amazing amount, but it’s about $30 US… not too bad. We’re supposed to be getting a puppy as well around the same time so the two babies can grow up together. The puppy is from a neighbor whose pure bred Rotwieller got knocked up by a wayward stray…so we’re the proud owners of a mutt, but hopefully a good watchdog mutt. Considering I’ve been bitten twice by dogs and both times it was a Rotweiller, I’m hoping to renew my love for the breed.

So my buddy Scott got in last evening and he’s settling in well. Three more buddies show up tomorrow night, my new surf guide shows up in the morning and Alex Leaves the day after tomorrow. There will be a big shift in the vibe around here, but I’m looking forward to it. Mostly I’m looking forward to a decent swell that is supposed to hit us later in the week. We should be able to track down some awesome waves to impress my friends/guests (as well as myself).

Right now we’re watching vintage surf videos and eating home made yellow cake with fresh papaya glaze and it’s jummy jummy to say the least. It’s 8:30 though and pretty much time to get to bed. We’ve got an early start tomorrow to get the tides right for the morning surf.

Cheers.

The Hunter and The Hunted

administrator — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:16:25 +0000

It’s not often that we put ourselves in the food chain…well for most
people it’s not often. It’s definitely a humbling experience and
while I find it benefits my humility, I’m not advising anyone enter to
food chain voluntarily. If you are so inclined, do it…if you’re not,
stay the hell out of the water!

The waves took respite here and in order to find our adrenaline rush
we went fishing this morning at the crack of dawn. Last night we did
the usual running around getting the gear together, a long list to say
the least. We brought poles, tackle boxes, gaffs, dive gear,
spearguns, beer/food/water/beer, gasoline, bait tank, camera gear and
surfboards in case waves decided to show up for the party. Our first
point of business was to check the waves…nothing. So we decided to
head out to the ship moorings off the coast with visions of Dorado
schooling in crystal blue waters, like lambs to the slaughter.
Hardly!

The moorings are huge metal cylinders about 12 feet in diameter by 20
feet long. They are attached to the bottom by huge chains and they
serve as anchors for ships to tie off to when they are here to unload
diesel through an underwater pipeline attached to one of these
moorings. There are two sets of six moorings, one in about 35 feet of
water and the other in??? I never was able to see the bottom…but I’m
guessing it was about 60-80 feet. The moorings make scary sounds as
they rise and fall in chop, the three hundred pound links clanking
against each other like a midevil dinner bell… As we only had one
set of mask and fins and one speargun and one person willing to enter
the food chain, I got in and swam up to the first mooring ball…no fish
at the surface. I hyperventilated for a minute in hopes of saturating
my blood a little and then took a dive, head down fins up kicking for
the greenish/blackish abyss. I dove into the shade of the mooring, a
dark column of water surrounded by rays of light driven into the
depths by the rising sun. It’s spooky to say the least. The
visibility at the surface is about 30 feet, but about 15 feet down
there is a 10 degree thermocline and there the water visibility
diminishes to about 10 feet. I was distracted as I dodged jelly fish…
I know how a light brush by a jelly feels… and as I safely made my way
around them I spotted fish…or at least the shadows of them. I was
about ready to surface as I can’t hold my breath very well, but I
thought a shot was in order, so I aimed and pulled the trigger. I hit
something, but I didn’t know what. It was just dead weight on the end
of the line. I swam back to the boat and handed the line to one of
the guys who pulled it up…surprise! It was about a 6 pound snook
called Robalo here. No time to waste…amidst the words of
encouragement from my buddies and the boat driver I dove again…the
same school was there, a little more visible now and i took another
shot…and got another hit. That’s two Robalos in about 5 minutes. I
dove a couple more times, but apparently I had scared them off or
deeper than I could dive. In the mean time the guys on the boat were
casting artificial baits and only pulled up one small barracuda, we
kept it for trolling later.

The next couple of moorings had a few small Pargo and I shot those
since I knew they wouldn’t go to waste here. Later back on the beach
I gifted them to the boat driver and his father. We had five fish on
the boat now but we decided to head to the next set of moorings
farther out, about two miles offshore, in hopes of clearer water and
bigger fish. At the first mooring of this set the current was
something to contend with, it almost swept me past the mooring without
getting a shot of. I turned and swam hard towards the mooring into
the current and surfacing at a slight angle…while on the ascent a
school of Amberjack swam up to me like some ghetto thugs who wanted to
know what was up…so I shot one! This was a good solid hit right
through the gills…the water filled with blood and the fish hung limp
as I’d basically stoned it (killed it with one shot…picture me
ghetto stance with a do-rag….yeah boooooooy!). We boated the
Amberjack and in my mind, I thought it was time to get out of the
water…my boat mates thought other wise and handed the gun back to me,
“get some more!” they insisted. I reloaded and went down for
another. This time I dove a bit deeper, maybe 35 feet and I could see
shadows, large shadows, lurking below. As I got nearer, I was want
for air, but I held on long enough and spied a huge grouper, probably
25+ pounds and I got a shot off. This was not a clean shot as this
fish sounded trying to take me with it. I was definitely stronger but
as I pulled, all of a sudden, the line snapped back and went limp. I
feared for a moment that I lost my spear, but it came back with a bit
of white belly flesh. Unfortunately I had belly shot the beast and it
was now going to swim away, trailing entrails, slowly dying and
bleeding…great!… luckily my boat mates let me out of the water…so they
could take me to the next mooring.

We tried 4 more of the moorings and while I saw some fish, we had a
cooler full and I was on the hunt for moby dick now and everything was
small. I didn’t see any sharks, this morning, but I’ve seen them here
and I know they’re there. I’ll go spearfishing again, especially
because it was so productive. However I think a quick strategic
mission…in and out; kill quick and exit even quicker is the best
plan. I prefer to be the hunter not the hunted.

Escape moves South.

administrator — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:48:26 +0000

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.

The Board Room and empty lineups

administrator — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:36:14 +0000

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.

Barbed wire bread pudding.

administrator — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:03:23 +0000

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…

Strange but fun!

administrator — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:34:23 +0000

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.

How to build a roof in Nicaragua.

administrator — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:08:48 +0000

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.

New South Swell

administrator — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:13:53 +0000

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.

Salinas Grandes Surf Report

administrator — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:42:20 +0000

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.

Nicaragua Surf Report – 30th to 31st January 2012

administrator — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:29:25 +0000

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