Courtney goes to PR: Smooth Sailing

Smooth sailing... settling in to a routine, the slower pace compared to home. Not too shabby :) Side note, it's surprising how little $ I'm spending by not going out as much and not drinking, hahaha.

It was the weekend, but I’m backwards. After putting in a lot of work at the beginning of the week, I took Thursday and Friday off and worked Saturday and Sunday instead. Don’t get me wrong; there was still plenty of play too!

Saturday morning, I checked a bunch of spots to go surf but Wilderness was literally flat, as were all the neighboring breaks. I also checked Jobos to the north. There were some waves, but it was seriously PACKED due to a charity event there (and due to the fact it was one of the only spots that actually was surfable that day). At Jobos, there’s just really one main peak anyway that you have to share with a bunch of people, and also the conditions were pretty choppy, so I passed it up. I took another day off surfing, just my second in 2 weeks. Instead, I went to Crashboat beach to bask in the sun.

CRASHBOAT BEACH

Crashboat is a BEAUTIFUL beach where a lot of people go to hang out. I must have spent the first 45 minutes there just floating on my back and swimming around in the amazing water. If you’ve ever been to Waikiki in Hawaii, it is almost exactly the same. Same pretty golden-colored sand, same CLEAR turquoise water, same lush green backdrop. It reminded me of being at the 2007 Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in Waikiki for 9 weeks. We’d have pretty much one day-off a week, which had to be used for studying. I would study all day at the beach and take study breaks by swimming and floating around on my back just marveling at how beautiful it all was. Same deal at Crashboat.

Took pics of Crashboat with my iPhone and made a panorama out of them

Rest of the day and night, I spent working, downloading lots and lots of music, and watching LOST on my computer. Stayed in for the night so I could wake up early to surf.

Sunday morning, I accidentally missed dawn patrol with Tom because I set my alarm improperly (yep, that old story). Luckily, I woke up on my own just before 7am anyway and headed out right away to Secret Spot.

This was my first time surfing Secret Spot. When I got there, Tom was just finishing up his surf and told me all about the break—the current, where to paddle out, etc, so I knew what to expect. It’s kind of a point-break off of a huge rock. For anyone who’s been to PR before, it reminds me exactly of a mini-Jobos in that respect. Mini, because it’s just a little bitty cove and one peak. The wave is very different though—Jobos is usually a mellow wave, while at Secret Spot the wave really peaks up and gets much more hollow (non-surfers think: steeper and more challenging). Today was a bit choppy and disorganized, but everyone told me that on a typical day, the wave is awesome. Today was still fun, just not every wave that came through was good so you had to pick and choose carefully.

The spot is very beautiful, tucked away, big rocks, sand dunes, palms, cypress trees. Green cliffs in the background. There were only about 5 of us out there, which was nice.

After surfing Secret Spot, I went to my friend Diana’s café El Carey for some breakfast and coffee. It was really fun because everyone I had just surfed with ended up going there afterwards. I met all of them and we all hung out for a long time just talking. Turns out we all travel to surf, and we were talking about our favorite trips. I picked up a lot of good info on places I want to go. A couple of the guys got me really interested in going to Panama after hearing them talk about how much they love it.

Tomorrow looks like surfing Secret Spot again, and on through the week until the next swell shows up on Friday. Can’t wait to see what this next swell brings; hopefully I can go back to my favorite spot Wilderness if this swell "wraps around" the island to reach the more southern breaks like the last one did.

Hope everyone has a GREAT week, and thanks again for reading! Pics from today at Secret Spot below. Will post surf pics when/if I can locate a photographer before I go!