Surfing

Today I got to go to the beach with a few colleagues from work. This was my second trip to the beach thus far in my trip. Last Sunday, I went to Gran Pacifica Hotel, or "North Beach." It was super quiet, but had a great beach break. It's actually a huge, luxury development that is still is the growth stage, as evidenced by this aerial photograph. Today, however, we went to Los Cardones, an eco-lodge about an hour outside Managua and only a few miles north of Gran Pacifica, despite the stark contrasts in style. Despite not having Although I don't currently have a surfboard here in Nicaragua, the lodge had boards to rent. So I quickly snatched up a board and paddled out right in front of the lodge. It was quite daunting at first, as I was the only one surfing out front. Apparently the other surfers staying at the lodge had walked a few miles south to a fast point break. Despite the aquatic isolation, murky water, and overhead waves, I remained steady in the lineup. The tide was dead high and the wind was off-shore, as it commonly is in Nicaragua. This made for some really solid waves. The tide made the paddle pretty easy, as the period between sets was fairly long and the waves a bit softer than usual. My initial perception of a mushy wave was quickly thrown out the door after I took off late on my first wave and got quite humbled. Once I got the rhythm of the waves down I had some great rides. Eventually I got freaked out and got a wave in when the foam started turning red. At the time, I had no idea what was causing this and was still totally alone in the lineup. It was totally a bizarre experience, so I decided that it was definetely time for lunch at that point. I later learned that the rust-red color was caused by wood and leaf sediment from the river mouth, that was only a few hundred yards away- hopefully it won't cause any genetic mutations. At lunch, I had a delicious plate of grilled chicken and rice and we had a great discussion, in Spanish, about the current state of affairs of Nicaraguan politics. It was a really unique experience, surfing great waves in the middle of Central America alone and then following that by having a highly cerebral conversation in another language. After lunch, I decided to have another go. I paddled out bit further away from the red foam, but again solo. I had some more great rides though. The waves were really pumping, with sets pushing two feet overhead. The only real problem of the day was that the fin on my board was too small and I encountered some serious turbulence on the bigger waves. The great session came to a close when it was getting close to our scheduled departure time. Sitting in the lineup alone, I saw a sudden thrashing about twenty yards away. It was definetely meal time for something and I didn't care to find out. Again freaked out, I caught a wave in and called it a day. All in all, it was a great day at the beach with some really fun surfing. Hopefully I can go back with Jill on Thursday. She'll be here for July 4th weekend, and we're going to try and make it to the beach then. I'm pumped!
Until next time,
Lucas