Travel Diaries - Costa Rica

Hey kids, I'm back in town, rested and tanned from eight days in Costa Rica. I had a fantastic time, even though I am missing (in no particular order) the Maxi-Bodega, Willie the Insane Driver, “Fingers,” and Guaro. Thanks to everyone (A.S., B.G., C.M., G.B., M.S., and S.S.), who went to CR as well. It was also great catching up with A-Train and M. on the trip, who joined up from Panama.

We stayed in an amazing/huge condo near Jaco, which is a beach town on the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rich that's known for its surfing (more on that later). It was an amazing, event-packed trip over the 8 days we were there, so I’ll just break up the highlights over a few posts. What follows below is a quick synopsis of the water-related adventures, including pictures. Land-related aspects of the trip -- including, without limitation, my hand feeding monkeys and risking my life for sport -- will follow under a separate entries.

On our 3rd day there, the crew of the “Spanish Fly” (I’m not making this up) took a group of seven of us out. When they say deep sea, they mean it. I estimate that we were at least 15 - 20 miles off short.

Note to my readership - do NOT drink to excess the night before you head out on an all-day deep sea fishing. Trust me, it’s about as wise as sharing a hypodermic needle with Tommy Lee. I was green the entire way out, but managed to rally once we started cruising.

Now for me, this was my first time deep sea fishing. But having watched “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” for years when I was a kid made me an expert, at least in my mind I was. That notion was quickly disabused when we snared our first fish -- a huge sailfish -- which I got the honor of reeling in. I like to think I’m pretty strong and in good shape, but that thing just wore me out. After what seemed like an hour of struggling, I finally reeled the sailfish to the port side of the boat, at which point the real fisherman brought him into the boat long enough for me and A-Train to pose next to it:

BTW, I think this photo also qualifies for my first HNT posting.)

As you can see, the monster was huge. It was about 8 feet long and was estimated at about 100-110 lbs. Since we were releasing everything we caught (sort of a marine recycling program), "Henry" took Jaws and placed him over the side of the boat in order to get water back in its lungs and then release him back into the ocean, As he was doing this, I saw that he was starting to slip in so I instinctively grabbed his feet to so save him. He then gives me this look like “what the fuck are you doing, gringo” at which point I realize he actually is intending to get into the water with Orca, the killer sailfish. “Knock yourself out,” I think to myself.

Holding the fish by its 2 foot bill, Henry yells at me to jump in.

I’m like “are you fucking kidding me?” David James is not a huge fan of oceans, nor is he a big lover of large marine wildlife that bears a striking resemblance to a shark.

“You need to jump in to take a photo with the fish,” another crewmember admonishes me.

Powered by peer pressure and adrenaline, I jump in the water and swim over to the fish, as does A-Train … even though he had nothing to do with catching the fish. Some people are just camera whores.

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On the day before we left, I figured I would try my hand at surfing. Despite living most of my life in California, I am almost embarrassed to admit I’ve never surfed before. I’ve also never visited Alcatraz nor gone wine tasting in Napa Valley either, but we’ll just keep that to ourselves. I have a reputation to protect here.

For those that have never tried it before, surfing is really hard. It takes balance, stamina and a lot of experience before you really get the hang at it and are any good. It’s even more difficult to cut one’s surfing teeth in an a region that’s known for its challenging waves and avid surfing scene. But when in Rome ….

A.S. is a great surfer and was a patient instructor. After some basic instruction (“avoid drowning,” “try not to embarrass yourself”), I headed out to the not-so-deep blue. It was difficult at first, but I slowly got the hang of it after much trial and error. I don’t have an actual photo of me surfing (thanks for nothing B.G. and S.S.), but I imagine it looked a little something like this:

Okay, I didn’t actually surf a 30 foot wave, but I did see some 6 - 8 foot waves, which were large enough for me. I did avoid drowning and didn’t make a total ass of myself, so all-in-all it was a successful first time.

More content and photos to follow, including the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.