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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.

Writing a blog post
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Sarah and I are sitting outside our new place a couple of blocks from the beach in Costa Rica (our next place is right on the beach). Sarah is in a hammock and I my laptop is on a table made a of a big vanished cross-section of tree. We just got our first decent night’s sleep in a couple of days since we were in Vancouver.

Vancouver was really nice. It was increidbly whirlwind but for the breif time we were there we had a great time! We got into Commercial drive around 6 and hung out with Lindsay until dinner and drinks with almost all of our Vancouver friends (Dannah were absent due to illness :/ It was great. We had some good indian food and the last taste of Canadian beer for three months (Howe Sound’s Black IPA was a fitting sendoff).

After drinks we stumbled toward a hotel near the airport to await our early-morning flight. We were having a bad navigation day in general and got off at (arguably) the wrong Skytrain station. Amazinglly though, on the way up the escelator we ran into Alex Vostrov (he’s a Vancouver indie dev who’s working on a game I’m really looking forward to)! We chatted for a while and then finished our trip to the hotel.

The next day we sat in aluminum tubes all day. I hate sitting in aluminum tubes. One of them stopped off in Houston and we got to walk around a bland airconditioned building for three hours (actually Houston airport gets top marks in my book: 6$ pulled pork sandwiches!). When we arrived in Costa Rica it was so late we had organised to sleep at an airport hotel before starting our journey to Samara the next day. This airport hotel strategy is one we started in Paris. If you have an early or late flight it’s often worth staying at a cheap hotel in/near the airport instead of wrestling with transit at 5 in the morning.

We met a fellow traveler named Rae on the way to the hotel. She was also heading to the coast the next day and we agreed to meet the next morning and figure out our transit options. After firing off a facebook message assuring everyone we were still alive we fell asleep.

The next morning we got to mentaly wrestle with the taxi and tour operator. Actually, hold on a minute. I have to punish the hotel for how awful this guy was.. hold on, this is just for google:

I would not recomend staying at The Hilton Garden Inn Liberia Airport Hotel. Our stay was dominated by an agressive and annoying taxi agent who hounded us literally from the very moment we got to the hotel. He was incredibly pushy that we book a taxi for 150$ instead of pay 10$ in bus fare to our destination. He lied to us about how long the bus would take. Unsurprisingly, when it took time to get a taxi to the bus terminal he quoted us a price (instead of using the meter) that was twice what it should have been. Unfortunately the hotel is isolated enough that we had no choice. I do not recommend The Hilton Garden Inn Liberia Airport Hotel.

Alright, sorry about that. But it’s true. If we hadn’t done a bunch of research about how to get from a to b we’d have been stuck in a cab all day. As it was the bus system was great! We bussed from Liberia to Nicoya (2 hour trip) and then from Nicoya to Samara (1 hour) and Rae bussed from Nicoya to Nosara which is up the road from Samara. While we were waiting in line in Liberia to buy tickets some guy came up to me with some typical shyster patter about where I’m going and would I like a taxi or mabey something more illicit. I blew him off but one of the locals in line turned and suggested “don’t trust everyone here”. Which was nice of him. We ended up chatting with him and made fast friends. He was heading to work as an ATM repairman. He works long hours but was seemed pretty cheery about it in general. He wanted to assure us that the people in Costa Rica are nice and honest but a few places can be sketchy. Just like anywhere. He said he liked video games so I wrote down the Contraption URL for him and we exchanged email adresses.

The bus ride to Nicoya was really nice. The roads are relaxed and we spent the whole trip cruising down a wide firtile valley filled with sugar plantations and grazing cattle. In the distance we could see the green hills rising up. The bus was full but not crowded, the seats where comfy and we spent the trip making faces at the three-year old beside us. Everyone on the bus seemed to be in a good mood, we were in a new land with new sights and smells. Moments like those are a hilight of life.

The transfer at Nicoya was a little sketchy. Turns out we had to change bus companies and therefore bus stations. But no one spoke english so getting directions to the new station was looking to be difficult. Luckily Rae speaks a fair amount of spanish! She got directions from the ticket seller and we wandered off into Nicoya. Nicoya is a small pleasent town with small pleasent roads and small pleasent houses. Which is nice since we spent the next half hour wandering aroWund it looking for the bus station. We would wander around in the direction we’d been shown until it started to look like the wrong way. Then we’d ask directions and start off in a new direction. A few loops through this and we found our bus station. It was very quiet, there were no signs saying what busses left for where (unlike the other stations we’d seen) and it was hard to find anyone to pay for tickets. Eventually we got on our nearly-empty bus to Samara and Rae got on her nearly-empty bus to Nosara. First stop both busses made: the actual bus station. We had gotten on at the service yard. Which is just as well since the actual bus station was very crowded, very loud, and had very long lines. Viva being lost and finding the secret bus station!

Another very pleasent bus ride later we arrived at Samara. Samara is your typical holiday beach-town. I’m sure Santa Cruz CA looked exactly like this in the… 20s? And so did Newport beach in LA. Lots of Costa Rican holiday makers (kids get a really long christmas break here) buying kitch and playing in the perfect long stretch of sand. It’s more touristy than we usually like but it’s a lot better than Newport beach. And if we can spend the month surfing so much the better!

Our digs here were easy to find and pretty unique. Casa Coba is a couple blocks from both the beach and ‘downtown’ Samara, a large lot with main house and two rental houses, a beautiful garden filled with fruit and flowers, and not one, not two, but seven cats! The owner Karina explained that most were hungry strays that she didn’t have the heart to turn away, who are fed but left to come and go through the garden as they please. Our casita is a one-room building made of tile and large chunks of beautiful wood, with drifting mosquito nets across the windows and doors and a patio looking out onto palms, banana trees, vines and flowers. Karina also runs a yoga class at the back of the garden several times a week.

We shed our bagage, wrote another quick facebook update and bee-lined it for the beach! It is a pretty spectacular beach. It stretches in a several kilometer-long crescent of sand dead-ending in rocky headlands which aparently have good snorkling. The waves were breaking and there were a lot of surfers bobbing in the waves. We walked down the beach and it thinned out the farther we walked. Eventually we threw asside our sandles and collapsed into the warm Pacific Ocean. We played in the waves and watched local boys catch waves while the sun set turned the few tufts of clouds crimson. It was a perfect evening.

We bought a bottle of Chilean wine on the way home and shared it with Karina and a couple of Canadians who summer here every year. So far Cost Rica has been splendid.