Courtney goes to PR: The Past Week Review: Part 1

Part 1

Greetings! I have had a blast the last few days surfing, hanging out, and hiking. The weather has been incredibly nice and the waves have been very fun. I’ve gotten the opportunity to see and spend time in some of PR’s natural splendor. I am falling in love all over again with beautiful Puerto Rico!!

On Friday, I did a hike from Surfer’s Beach to Survivor Beach. Remember the awesome green cliffs I write about when surfing at Surfer’s Beach? Well, that is exactly what you have to hike through to get to Survivor Beach. Lots of scrambling and climbing around huge rocks by the ocean, and through the green jungle. When you finally get to Survivor Beach, it is like an untouched piece of Puerto Rican paradise. No one really on this beach because you have to hike to get to it. Yellow sand, clear water, rocks, dense palms and pines. It’s called Survivor Beach because several decades ago, a military plane crashed off the coast and that is where the survivors ended up coming to shore.

En route to Survivor Beach

Then a long walk up the cliffs into and through the town of Ramey (the area of Aguadilla where I live). It was awesome!

Halfway up the foothill...that beach way in the background is where we came from!

Walked through this neighborhood on the way back

Friday night I had dinner with some friends at Ola Lola’s in the nearby town Isabella. It’s owned by an American expatriate married couple, and it’s definitely an expat hangout. The expats here seem to be a community of kindred spirits--the kind of people who love the tropical beauty of the island and the sea, and who aren’t afraid to chase down their dream and make PR their home. They are usually the adventurous and unconventional type. So, I feel right at home at places like Ola Lola’s ;)

One of the people at our table was Darryl, the local diving instructor. I could have listened to his dive stories for hours—I was really fascinated by all the sea-life stuff he had seen and experienced. He had crazy stories about turtles, fish, stingrays, sharks, etc. Anyway, everyone at the table told me I should go on a dive with Darryl before I leave PR, so I think I will! I’ve snorkeled a lot, but I haven’t been on a dive for 12 years since getting certified in Belize as a teenager. I’m excited!

That night I woke up just before 4am from coconuts falling outta the trees and nightmares of being robbed, and then one of me being the robber (?). I think it was due to one of Darryl's stories at dinner being about getting mugged in Cincinnati. Anyway, I finally went back to sleep and had this awesome surf dream where I was just killing it on this super long left in Cocoa Beach. Well, I woke up a couple hours later and headed out to Wilderness. And would you believe it, I pretty much lived out my dream in reality.

--I'll take a sec to explain “lefts” and “rights” to the non-surfers. A decent wave will peel off either to the left or to the right as it breaks, so that you have a "line" you can surf down. A left for a surfer is a wave that breaks to your left as you face shore, a right is to the right as you face shore. Usually, for people who surf with their left-foot forward like me, it's easier to surf a right because you are facing the wave. The other way, you kind of have your back to the wave. Puerto Rico is known for having mostly rights, but for some reason, I've gotten really good at surfing lefts here... weird.--

When I got to Wildo, the conditions were pretty good with mostly offshore winds and some fun, mellow-looking 3-5 foot waves. Tom and Masso were there, and told me they had fun surfing and there was a great left. So I paddled out, and had pretty much all lefts. I was surfing them better than I think I've ever surfed, or at least close to it! It was so much fun. The current was strong so I also got some great conditioning in by having to paddle constantly to stay in the break!

That day at Wildo

When I got out of the water, Masso was grilling up some chicken in the back of his truck. A bunch of us hung out there for about an hour or so shooting the breeze and watching people surf--and eating some pretty damn good BBQ!

Masso grillmaster

I actually went to another grill-out for dinner with a bunch of the surfers I’ve met down here, good times. It was just a grill-out kind of day I suppose!

Sunday was quite interesting. I intended for the day to be a surf day and a work day. However, I felt like a stubborn little kid all day. The only thing I could actually prod myself into doing was surfing. Other than that, I did pretty much nothing productive the the whole day except eat and relax! Haha. But I had SUCH a fun morning and evening session, surfing at Wilderness both times. In the morning, it was just me and Barb Graves (mother of professional surfers Dylan and Josie Graves from the area) out in the water. Was everyone else at church? Or was it the fact that it was a “small” day for Wilderness, with a lot of the waves that were coming in not even breaking. I’m not sure, but we had some fun 3-4 foot waves all to ourselves. Being from Cocoa Beach, I know all about “scrapping” for any wave that could possibly be rideable, which came in handy on a day like this one where the waves were a little weak. I was catching a ton of little waves and having a blast!

Barb and little Tristan Graves playing in the shorebreak at Wildo, with my buddy Lenny on the stand-up paddleboard in the background catching a ride

This is what my face looks like in front of Wilderness

That evening, the conditions were really nice with a gentle offshore wind. Out of nowhere, seemingly, the waves started going into the chest high and head high range. Wow! This time, there was a decent-sized crowd, but it was still a super-fun session under the setting sun. Later, we found out there had been an earthquake just off shore around 4pm. We all hypothesized that was the cause of the mystery swell!

Part 2 posted tomorrow... a few more pics below. :)