Author: Sarah Northway

Hard at hammock-work
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Our last week in Playa Samara has gone by too quickly, spent in the hammock and in the ocean, and working on our games. Colin cracked one of his ribs the day after my last post, so unfortunately (for Colin anyway, who is very upset about this) surfing has been cancelled until further notice. We’ve still been out in the water several times a day and Colin’s discovered he now has incredible skill at body surfing despite the very painful rib.

Colin has totally fallen in love with Samara and almost convinced me to stay at Casa Coba for another month instead of moving on to the house we’ve already rented in Playa Tambor. I guess it was the rib that changed his mind; that’s going to take awhile to heal and Samara’s main appeal for him is the surfing. But don’t get me wrong, I love the place too for different reasons. The beach is 5km of nice soft sand and gentle slope, fabulous just for walking or swimming. There’s a reef you can snorkel around, lots of trees and nature nearby. The town is the perfect size, small but big enough to have a pharmacy, hardware store, bank and chain grocery. It’s a tourist town, but pretty quiet except on the weekends, and this is the busiest time of year. There are a couple bars that have live music but it is a chill scene and most nights the town seems to fall asleep by 9:00 (we do, anyway). Mostly foreign tourists come to surf and attend the language school, and on weekends Ticos bring their families to camp or stay in their summer houses.

We took a long walk today and looked at those summer houses, which line the beach and for the most part look abandoned, and with luck available to rent. We’re already doing research for our next visit back. Colin really, really enjoys surfing, and from what I can guess he’d happily surf every day for the rest of his life, so this is our new travel priority. I… well… you can stop saying “you’ll never know until you try it” now.

When we return, I’m looking forward to taking one of the gruelling courses at the local Spanish school, because I haven’t been too successful learning on my own. I can read Spanish pretty reliably which seems like magic since I’ve never tried to do it before. It’s because a lot of the vocabulary resembles French so it’s easy to recognize and piece things together from context. Linguistics is fun! But speaking is a different matter – I’m so shy!

An example: We shop at a bakery with a seating area, and every time they ask us if we want our empanadas to go, which is “para llevar”. Kind of like “par lever” in French, right? Well I know that’s what they’re saying and it should sound something like “yeh-var”, but that’s not what I hear, and I can’t repeat it the way they pronounce it. So I kind of mumble and give the thumb-out-the-door gesture, which unfortunately doesn’t work because the seating area is that way too. Every time! Anyway, I think proper motivation is in order: eight hours a day in a classroom where they refuse to talk to you in anything but Spanish.

Tomorrow is our last day here and it will be a snorkelling day, albeit a lightweight one for the sake of sore ribs. Then it’s off to the great unknown of Playa Tambor, which I hope we enjoy too although I know for Colin it will be hard to compare to Samara.

Night surfing
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Today I (Sarah) hit surfing rock bottom. Or at least, I had the worst surfing day so far, and oh how I hope this is as bad as it gets. The high tide has been getting deeper and deeper and the waves have been getting bigger, faster and more powerful since we arrived. Four days ago I swapped down from a 10′ to a 7’10 board which is much easier to navigate through oncoming waves but also much harder to surf on. An interesting tradeoff in these high tides which hit me like a punch in the chest on the way out, and a tumble in a giant washing machine on the way in. I’m covered in bruises and cuts from my encounters inside said washing machine with one large plastic plank and its three sharp fins, so the smaller the plank the better.

On the same day I changed boards we started catching real waves, which for me provides an unpleasant mix of boredom and terror. These waves are not big in terms of real surfing; five or six feet at most, but I am easily frightened by this kind of stuff. Seriously. I am petrified by heights. I stopped driving because I get panic attacks behind the wheel. Riding a bike in traffic or even down a fucking hill scares the shit out of me. I am a terrified, pathetic little piece of shit who quivers at the thought of cruising along a six foot wave on a surboard. So why the fuck am I learning to surf? Beats me.

Oh right, Colin.

Colin of course is incapable of fear when it comes to such mundane things as speed or height, and he can’t imagine (or believe) that it frightens me. True, he gets annoyed and exhausted when he gets thrashed by a wave, but never scared. Today he caught a rogue wave, one of the biggest we’ve ever seen and well over his head, and he cruised right down it like it was nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, since he was too busy thinking “holy shit I’m actually riding this thing” to turn and surf along it. But it was spectacular nonetheless!

As for me, I went out with the usual butterflies in my stomach, fought my way through a nasty incoming set to get out in position, tried to catch a couple waves and missed them (too slow), then tried a third (too fast) and got tumbled. Heels over head over heels over head, surfboard behind me then above me then in front of me, bonking me on the head on the way through then pulling me underwater by my ankle. Water up my nose, down my throat, in my sinuses, then I’m plugging my nose with one hand and trying to cover my head with the other while curling into a ball. This is the usual drill, it happens several times a day to both of us because we still suck at timing waves. But for whatever reason that first tumble today just did me in. I headed back out but I couldn’t stop shaking, I couldn’t calm down and stop being scared. I paddled way out and tried to focus on just sitting on my board (I still lose balance and fall off occasionally) and watching the pelicans. But I couldn’t stop shaking and the thought of turning around and giving it another go made me cringe and moan. Since we switched to smaller boards and bigger waves I haven’t stood up on mine for more than a second, and I was starting to suspect it was fear that made me bail as soon as the going got tough on steep waves. So this was my surfing fail. I spent the next hour trying to steel myself to surf again then collapsing and crying, while Colin bravely got his ass kicked (with occasional triumphs) by wave after mean fucking wave.

Let me tell you I needed a drink after that experience, so we showered off and had dinner at El Ancla on the beach. We watched the better surfers with their shortboards surfing in the last few rays of the sun. The big afternoon waves made today particularly good surfing for locals. We’re planning to go out again tomorrow morning in the waning tide, so the waves will be getting smaller rather than larger. We’ve passed the highest tide for the month so it will gradually go back to the wimpy baby waves I feel more comfortable with. Until then, Sarah mo ganbatte ne!

Oh yeah, we’re watching anime at nights; Macross of all things.

End of the beach
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

The tides are really extreme just now. We were out surfing a couple of days ago at the zenith of the tide and the waves changed completely. They were choppy and steep and a total mess. We didn’t catch anything.

What _was_ amazing on that day though was the setting. The skies where ominously greyed over (a rare occurence here in January) which made the already tumultous ocean feel restless and stormy.

While I bobbed alone through the troughs of the sea (Sarah was practicing farther in) a flock of pelicans started diving right next to me. My San Francisco friends are totaly unimpressed with Pelicans but I still find them mesmerising. They lumbered through the air around me and splashed into the surface of the waves like they were trying hopeslessly to learn to swim. As I was craning my neck after pelicans I caught another flight out of the corner of my eye, and again, it was a small ray! It looked as if it was trying to learn to fly. It would fly out of the water with its wings beating, fly half-meter into the air and then splash down a half-meter further on. He repeated the trick three times. I have read it might be to smash off parasites, or to evade prey.

It was not a great day surfing but it was a great day to be out in the water.

Today the tide was at its lowest for the month at 11:00am so today was a day of snorkling! We set out to the rocky headland at one end of the bay with snorkle masks in-hand. Hopefully we’d see more rays!

The difference between tides is 3 1/2 meters right now and it’s a completely different place at low and high tide. Today the beach stretched out impressively. I had been using landmarks to triangulate our position in the water while surfing so this-morning we could stand, totaly dry, on the same spot we had been surfing yesterday where it was over our heads. I dug an “X” into the sand for next time we come surfing.

We got to the rocks, dropped our stuff on the crowded beach without a worry of petty theft (I like Costa Rica) and wandered into the ocean.

The Snorkling was pretty good. We were inside the bay away from the big breakers smashing on the out-shore reef but there was a wall of rock and corral stretching away to the mouth of the bay. I was delighted to find plenty of sea-weed. Other tropical seas we have been in are all coral and no sea-weed. Which, growing up in the Gorgia Strait, makes a place feel somehow dead no matter how many fish and crabs you stuff it with. The sea-weed and coral were totaly different to species I’d seen elsewhere so it was pleasent to chase mostly-familiar tropical fish in and out of the crannies (no Lion Fish yet). Sarah and I puttered around and found some neat starfish and big hermit crabs to show off to eachother but eventually we sort of split off as I ended up questing for the breakers and the mouth of the bay. I couldn’t really stop myself. If there’s a quest going, I’ll quest it.

Trying to get outside the bay was a fun game. It was kind of like hiking or rock climbing with the direction of gravity swapping every minute or so. The rock would clump up into shallow flats and deep troughs. The flats would rush in and out depending on the waves so you could wait for a wave to break and then let the water sweep you through into the deeper pools. In the pools the prevailing into-shore current took over though and I just had to slog my way through (no fins) until the next flat. Eventually I got to a kind of funnel between shallower flats where the berakers where comming into the bay. I didn’t want to be in the flats because it looked like a bad place to weather the breakers so I just swam hard against the green swells and current. I would manage to swim hard and find a handhold somewhere to hold on to which the next wave would sweep me off. I worked harder and harder to get through the current and the waves to get to open water but eventually my arms just gave out. Quite tired I turned around and leaped two meters into the air and flew along the smooth rocks. This was amazing! The same swells and current I was fighting were now working with me. I’d grab a rock until a swell came and then the ground would recede away and I’d be soaring through the water. For all the world like I had learned to leap like a flying squirrel. So getting back to Sarah was pretty fun. And worth all the work even though I didn’t make it outside the reef.

On the way back to Sarah I agitated a little eel and I followed around some puffer fish. I tried to coax a crab with sun-ray like arms out of his hole and saw just a trio of shy parrot-fish. But Sarah and a much better find than those.

Just before I arrived next to her she had been in the sandy flats. She was in water about a meter and a half deep and spotted a stick. Like a meter-and-a-half long thin spear of bamboo or something. She went to grab it with her toes to get a look at it and the big-ass ray that was attached quite firmly to the tail she was trying to pick up lifted himeslf off the ground and glided away from her curious toes.

She followed it and tried to steer it to me (which we did with some success to Spotted Eagle Rays in Honduras) but it flew off. I really wanted to see a big ray so we hunted around for another one.

I found one, It was a thin piece of bamboo floating in the water leading to a big lump of sand. But when I tried to get Sarah’s attention it flew off without my noticing. We hunted some more and I came across another. Sarah was right near-by so there was no need to spook him. He was sitting half in the sand and half out with his big tail prceeding out behind him. He was only in about 2 meters of water and Sarah swam down to try to get a measure of his size. We figure he was about a meter across and two or more long including his big tail. We eyed him and he eyed us and we were generally quite pleased to get such a chill up close and personal look at this big ray. Eventually he got sick of us and with an elegent motion belying his size he accelerated into the murky depths. What a find though! So great to see a big ray up close!

There was no topping that so we retreated to the beach, picked up our clothes and shoes and wandered home.

No pictures again. All this being in the water whenever we go out is not conducive to photography :/

Anyway, I hope to get a little work done this afternoon (I’m doing some work!) eat some fish and then go surfing tomorrow!

Beach Logger
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Hey-o

What have we been up to for the last week or so? Mostly surfing, laying in hammocks, and eating. With the occasional non-surfing-hammock-eating related activity in between.

Sarah has actually been getting some work done on a new game she’s working on: “Word up Dog” which is shaping up to be really really fun. Rebuild’s public release has been pretty exciting. She got a piece of fan mail today! I have been loafing around doing nothing of value. Mostly playing SpaceChem (a great game with a questionable learning curve). I’ve also been reading a great great book called A Road Through Kurdistan about a British engineer who builds a road through the Kurdish mountains of Iraq back in the 30’s when it was under british control. It is an astounding piece of non-fiction. It makes me really want to visit Kurdistan. It’s also incredibly interesting to read his philosophies on doing work in and governing someone elses country. It’s like night and day from the current American aproach.

A lot of the time it’s over 30 and that’s part of why I’m having trouble working. When it’s so hot all I want to do is go to the beach and go surfing!

We have been surfing for… 10 days? We’ve been out every day except for two rest days to let our muscles recover a little. Today was the first day I feel like we really went out surfing, like, for real surfing. Before today it was more like we were ‘playing in the waves’ practicing all the movements and timing in preperation for actually surfing a breaking wave. Today we paddled out past the breakers and bobbed around waiting for perfectly-timed waves. We each caught 3 or 4. I’d say we’re about equally skilled which I’m super stoked about. I’ve never gotten to share a physical passtime with Sarah so this is a big deal for me, her being there makes it way more fun.

We got a big fillet of Mahi Mahi as well as a Kilo of shrimp from a local fish-monger so we’ve been eating really well the last few days. Unfortunately there are no bananas to be found (!) in Samara for the last few days so our morning breakfast-smoothies have been curtailed. There are bananas ripening in the garden though so the worst-case senario isn’t that dire.

Anyway, I’m going to get back to lying in the hammock. That book isn’t going to read itself (good god I need to start doing some work!)

Bike to the beach
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Colin has always wanted to learn to surf, but I gather the few trips to Tofino with his friend James weren’t particularly fruitful. I guess the waves that habitual surfers like aren’t so good for first timers. But Playa Samara seems to be perfect for beginners, that is, the waves are relatively small. :)

On our second afternoon, we walked the length of the beach and talked to all the surf schools. We went with Choco Surf School because they seemed cool and laid back, and were able to give us an on the spot deal for a month of board rentals. We took our first lesson right there and then from Shaggy who made the whole thing so much easier than I’d imagined. I got up on my very first try and on nearly every attempt that day thanks to his well timed shouts of “get on! paddle! get up!” and gentle shoves at the back of the board. I actually did better than Colin on that first day, which Shaggy was sure to mention.

But if you know Colin, you know that won’t last long. He goes at everything with such focus, that before the end of the day we were practicing pops on the floor and watching Youtube videos on paddling tips. I would have been happy to call it a successful one time experience and leave it at that, but Colin’s determined that we’ll both be proper surfers before the month is out.

So the next day did not go so well for me; I gave myself a number of accidental Costa Rican Neti Pots (as we call it) and got tumbled more times than I got up on my board. The most frustrating, exhausting part of surfing as I see it is just getting back out into the water, through waves that are constantly crashing over you and trying to wash you and your board back in to shore. Carefully angling your board straight at the wave and upwards is important here, but even when I get that right the wave sometimes just sweeps me off my feet. For the biggest waves you need to lay on the board and duck under, which we haven’t done yet and looks frightening and difficult to me. Most of real surfing looks frightening and difficult to me. I’m still waiting for it to become fun. :(

Since then things have gotten better, in part because the waves have gotten smaller, but in part because I am in fact learning. We started by surfing white water, where the waves break before they reach you and are much easier to ride, although it’s not really considered surfing. Colin almost immediately switched to blue water waves and today I joined him. Blue water – actual waves that don’t break until after you stand up – require extra timing to make sure you’re going the right speed in the right place and that the wave doesn’t break too early and force you under. There are so many variables to remember that inevitably when I get all the hard ones right I’ll forget one of the basics. Colin’s been reading about hind-brain vs fore-brain thinking, and that what we’re doing is training our hind-brain to handle most of it for us because it would be impossible to hold all the variables in your fore-brain at the same time. He thinks the reason I did well on my first day was because I was focused and doing all the calculations in my fore-brain, but I did so poorly on my second day was because I’d started relying on my hind-brain to remember where to put my feet and so on, but it didn’t have enough practice yet. This is a theory for why people have beginner’s luck.

So we’ve tried to get out there for at least an hour every day to practice surfing. The rest of the time we’ve been laying the hammoc, walking along the beach, working, or a combination thereof. I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my game Rebuild which is set to be released on Monday, and prodding at my next game “Word Up Dog”: a game of digging and word building. Today our fellow Casa Coba-mates took us out to see their property, which they’ve been slowly turning into a home away from home over the last few years. They come every January to escape the Ottawa winter and work on the place which is now raised, drained, watered, and mostly walled. We’re taking notes, although I think this particular beach town moved past our price range around the same time it got a bank and grocery store. I suppose the trick is to find somewhere that will have ammenities five years down the road and wait.