Last few days in PR

Oh boy! What a great trip it was. My last few days I was on my own, as Sheena went home on Thursday night. Friday morning the waves weren't too good so I did a lot of relaxing around the apartment and some errands--oil change for the Beach Bomb, getting a spare car key made, groceries. I had another wonderful lunch at El Carey and surfed at Wilderness in the evening. The current was super-strong the whole time, and I was paddling like I've never had to paddle before. I really can't remember the last time I was surfing in a current that strong--what a workout! It was a bit windy in a bad direction for the wave quality, but it was still fun. Anytime I'm out in the ocean surfing is a good day!

Saturday and Sunday, I just had the biggest urge to be outside as much as possible. I put off doing work and just really tried to soak in PR for my last 2 days. I went again to Wilderness Saturday morning only to find the current was still crazy. I went out anyway and again had a paddle battle of epic proportions. It was great exercise, but really not the funnest after 2 days of it. I made it a short sesh and headed over to Crashboat Beach to lay out and read and relax for a bit.

To my surprise, there were still waves at Crashboat, and only 2 people surfing them (as compared to the huge crowd there usually if it is breaking)! It was small, just over 2 feet, but perfect peeling right-hand waves off the point of the concrete dock (the picture above is not the best, a lot of the waves were bigger and more powerful, thankfully). I quickly grabbed my board and paddled out to surf. It was a lot of fun... and afterwards I took a good long while to lay out and read. I needed to bring back as much of a tan as possible to wintery Florida! It was an incredibly beautiful day out, warm but not uncomfortably hot, blue skies... not too crowded on the beach for a favorite hang out spot like picturesque Crashboat Beach.

Saturday at Crashboat

Saturday night was so much fun! My friends Diana and Hector who own El Carey restaurant invited me out for pizza and beers. They were joined by another married couple they were friends with. We all got along so well and had such a fun conversation for hours. We drank pitorro, which is like Puerto Rican moonshine, but very tasty as it is mixed with various fruits. So stoked to be getting to know my friends down there better and better, as well as meeting new people I really click with.

Side note, I see so many happily married couples in PR and I think that is super cool. Not sure if it's a cultural difference or just who I happen to be meeting, but I dig it. Happily married surf families especially. I love to see husbands and wives who have been married for years still being so sweet and caring to one another.

As seems to be tradition, I had my last surf of the trip at Surfer's Beach on Sunday morning. Small waves, but fun. It was an incredibly beautiful day out and I had a couple local friends out in the lineup with me too.

Later that afternoon, I spent a long time walking and sitting on the beach at my favorite spot, Wilderness (there were no waves there). I was really taking in every bit of beauty around me... appreciating every little piece of coral, the beautiful sea, the sand, the sun, the sky... and feeling so happy in that time of extreme gratitude. Also listening to some of my favorite music on my iPod which made it that much better. As I went to the parking lot to get my car and leave, I ended up running into this cute surfer guy I had briefly spoken to that morning at Surfer's Beach. We ended up staying over an hour there on the beach talking. He was super cool! We also met up later that night for beers and shooting pool before I had to fly home. It's too bad I met such a cool guy during my last few hours there but glad to have gotten to at least hang out with him some.

Pleasantly uneventful red eye flight home... it all happened so quickly and now I'm back on my sofa in Cocoa Beach typing this. It's good to be home but I definitely miss warm, beautiful PR. I plan to travel back in March, and I can't wait! Until next time...

:)

Fruit salad I made from starfruit and passionfruit from the yard

passionfruit guacamole I made from avocado and passionfruit from the yard. mmmm

I found this in the guest book... from the first time I ever went to PR with Jessica Williams and Pepe, and we stayed at the same place! Cool

Thoughts @ the End

I was just looking back over my first post on this blog and read the part where I said, each trip I learn something new. That made me think, "what have I learned this time?" As far as surfing, I didn't really learn any new tricks or anything, more of just sharpening what I already have. Progression on top turns going backside, making it like a kick-turn on a mini ramp on a skateboard, so it's a tighter, snappier turn. I also learned that I think I need a shorter board now to progress in the way I want to. I appreciated the progression I've had since April; I was able to paddle out and surf on the 12-15 foot day at Wilderness when hardly many people paddled out. I always learn more about surfing in a crowd, being patient, and reading waves better and better when I'm here.

Besides surfing stuff, I learned I am officially not a loner anymore. In years past, I used to enjoy lone adventures. I still like having time to myself to be sure, but after a day or two on my own here, I'm set. The past two times I've been in PR traveling solo, I've gained an instant appreciation for my friends back home and a realization that I am really firmly rooted with them. They are such a huge, important part of my life. The whole community of Cocoa Beach is such a big part of me now. I love and appreciate it so much, it is a special place filled with special people, and not in the short-bus kind of way (well, maybe sometimes...) :P

Having Sheena here with me made it a lot more fun and easy as compared to last April, when I was here by myself. I have some friends here, but I'm only now just starting to get closer with them. The kind of friendships I like to develop take time.

But the whole reason I sometimes like to be by myself is because for me, it's easier to simmer, collect, think, regroup, recharge, redirect. It's an essential part of my evil plot... er, I mean, grand plans in life that I like to continually make in the name of evolving, growing, learning, expanding. But I don't need huge chunks of alone time, nor do I prefer it anymore.

I also just really had a huge appreciation for the rest of my surf buddies back home--I missed surfing without them! Surfing is so much fun whether you're by yourself, with one friend, or with strangers, but it is the most fun when you're with your crew that you surf with regularly. Those are the times when I feel I surf my best--when surrounded by positive, easy-going people who love surfing and are good at it! If you guys are reading this, I really want to plan a surf trip with all of you soon!

The other thing I've had time to chew on is a personal revelation I had shortly before my trip with the help of my best friend Sharon. I can take a look at my life recently, and see that I am super-passionate about a lot of things--surfing, yoga, music, my business, art, design, friends, etc, etc--and I pursue those things. My problem is I get so wrapped up and passionate about things, it almost goes a little overboard. A little over-hyper about my passions, which creates an imbalance. I think it is good to be passionate and driven and productive, but I could benefit from dialing back a bit. That applies to my work, my hobbies, even my love life. I've always viewed myself as a laid-back person, but in some ways, I must admit being a little too exhuberant and need to chillll a little. Good for this thought to settle in while I am having a vacation for 12 days.

Days 7-9

Greetings! In the last few days we’ve actually done a little less surfing. A new swell has been coming in, but with it came some extreme north winds that made the conditions pretty bad almost everywhere in our area. The exception has been the spots in Downtown Aguadilla, which are more protected from the north winds. Unfortunately, these spots were VERY crowded, as they were the only spots to surf and are very accessible.

On Tuesday, there were not good conditions, so we did a mini Bikram yoga class on the beach at Wilderness. If you’re used to practicing in the studio, it’s really fun to practice the yoga on the beach with the beautiful surroundings and salt air. Of course, you don’t get the full effect of a typical class because it’s not as hot as the studio (105 degrees), but it still felt so great to stretch out and get the blood moving to our tired surf muscles! We took some scenic yoga pics as well.

On Wednesday, we surfed at Schoolyards downtown with a huge cadre of local surfer guys who were all very, very good surfers, a couple pros even. There was really only one peak for all of us to share. In order for Sheena and I to get waves, we would have to paddle right in the middle of this huge group of amazing local surfers and scrap with them for the waves. I must say, this is really not my style, to be aggressive out in the water. So I tried to find a spot where I could pick off a few of the smaller waves the other guys weren’t going for. In the whole hour we were there, this worked only once, but I did have a fun wave all to myself.

We decided to try another spot instead, and got out of the water at Schoolyards. Once on shore, it was REALLY cool to watch these guys shred (they had a couple photographers on the shore shooting them, so they were really surfing their best), and I learned a lot. I love learning visually from surfers who are better than me.

We then headed to nearby spot Crashboat (above), a very beautiful beach that rarely has waves. Today the swell was such that it did have waves! The first time in all my travels to PR I’ve seen it actually break. It’s a cool spot where the Air Force’s Crashboats used to be docked, so there’s a huge concrete dock that creates a point off of which the waves break. So again, there was really only one peak for a huge amount of people to share. I didn’t think it was possible, but Sheena and I got even LESS waves here (read: NONE) due to the insane crowd! But it was still nice to be in the water at such a beautiful spot, and it’s really fun to walk down the large dock and jump off the end of it into the line up instead of paddling out from the shore.

Sheena’s last day was Thursday. We woke up to a grey, rainy day with bad wave conditions in our area again. I looked at all the available meteorological info (in case you don’t know, all surfers are also amateur meteorologists) and decided that the waves could be good in south Rincon. We made the 30-minute jaunt south only to find my meteorological guess was no good. I was right that the wind was not nearly as bad in south Rincon, but the waves didn’t really reach that part of the coast. So, again with no decent waves to surf, we took some more yoga pictures and I climbed a lot of trees! You really can’t lose when hanging out on such a beautiful beach… waves or not.

Such an awesome pic of Sheena in Triangle pose on the beach in Rincon

We headed home, had some ice cream from an awesome shop I discovered back in April that has amazing waffle cones (made in-house, I believe) and delicious whip cream (has to be made in-house as well, never tasted anything quite like it). We checked Wilderness, but the waves were no good. I had pretty much given up on surfing that day, but Sheena said, please please can we go surf downtown. We had heard the waves were likely to be pretty decent there, but probably even more crowded than the day we could hardly catch any waves.

Thank God Sheena convinced me to go down there, because we found a spot that was good and not too crowded. It’s one of the first spots as you come to Downtown Aguadilla, but how to access it is not clear, as the road you see it from is up on a steep cliff above the beach. We found out from some local friends how to get down there and the particulars about where to paddle out so as not to hit the reef, but were told, “it’s a bit of a locals-only spot, but you two should be ok since you are girls.”

That made me a little timid, but it turned out to be completely fine. There were about 10 of us in the water, with 6 being local dudes who seemed to all know each other—and this break--really well. It was clear this was their spot, but they were very friendly to us. I loved watching these guys surf together. They were having so much fun yelling at each other, laughing and teasing as they surfed. They would take off on waves together laughing and both surfing the wave (normally, unless you’re with good friends, you go one surfer per wave)… yelling when good waves came in, teasing their friends if they missed the wave, even yelling (in a good way) for Sheena and I to get waves. It was good fun… a beautiful grayish sunset time at an un-crowded downtown beach. I had a bunch of good rights, but you had to be careful as you took the wave close to shore, as the water was shallow over the reef, causing the wave to jack up and get steep and fast in a dangerous spot.

I did fine with that part of it, but got a little too relaxed about the reef as Sheena and I paddled back to shore after our session. I was talking to her, and not paying attention to the fact I had drifted to a very shallow spot. A wave came and knocked me off my board. I immediately connected the dots “hey I am in a bad place” and rolled over onto my back. I curled up and tried as best as I could to stay close to the surface and avoid the reef, but the wave pushed me down and I scraped my back. I didn’t think it was that bad, it didn’t hurt too much, but when I got out, I was a bloody mess! This time it was my turn to have concerned guys doting all over me to take care of what looked kind of like a scary injury. They busted out the first aid kit from the beachside bar and restaurant Rompeola’s and doctored me up with Sheena’s help.

It stopped bleeding pretty quickly, and once fully cleaned up, it did not look bad at all, just like a big scrape. It doesn’t hurt… so don’t worry! My own dumb fault for not paying attention about the reef.

Sheena made it back to Florida, and I'm here for another 3 days. I will be doing a bit of work and of course surfing. Also going to take this solo time to do a lot of chilling in our little tropical paradise yard that I love so much and ZEN out... do some thinking and reading and meditating, that sort of thing. I love this paradise!

More Pics:

Sheena, Archer Pose, Wilderness Beach

Sheena, Bow Pose

Courtney, Standing Bow Pulling Pose, Wilderness trail

Courtney, Tree Pose

Court, Triangle Pose

Sheena, Triangle Pose at Las Ruinas (near Wilderness)

The "Sh!% House" on the road to Wilderness

Court, Triangle Pose, Las Ruinas

Sheena in a Plank position @ Las Ruinas

A new coconut palm begins...

Driving back from Wildo, we took a pic of my amazing soundsystem in my "Beach Bomb" station wagon... Thanks Mom for the portable speakers!

From the night we ran into my friend Ray at Ola Lola Garden Bar... they were having a going-away party for one of their employees and the blue icing from the cake gave us awesome blue tongues!

Sheena, Standing Head to Knee Pose on the Steps at the surf spot "Steps" in Rincon

Sheena, Standing Bow Pulling Pose in Rincon

Kid Tree Art, Tres Palmas Beach

Climbing the palm tree on the beach at Tres Palmas, Rincon

Pic from my view

I stopped here to take a rest...

Got braver and climbed further

haha, Sheena in the shot too

Next climb involved branches. Thought it was an almond tree but never saw any actual almonds on it...

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