April 22nd, 2010-
Hello, Was just cruising the interwebs and thought about you guys, thought I’d drop you a quick note. I just finished reading the “how it all began” section on your site and realized I visited your camp only a month after you had started!!! Wow, at the time (November 2001), thought you guys had already been around for at least a few years… fooled me! We still have your original brochure in our photo album form the trip! Anyway, my wife and I were living in Whistler, BC at the time (24 year old snowboard bums) and just newly married, decided to travel to Costa Rica for 5 weeks of surfing and chillin (we joke that getting married was just an excuse to backpack and surf Costa Rica!), anyway, we hadn’t done much surfing before our arrival, just a few days here and there over the last 5 summers in Tofino (located on the West Coast of Vancouver Island off of Vancouver… yes very cold, full wetsuits, hoodies, booties and gloves!). So before we arrived we decided one of the first things we would do, was get a proper lesson to start off our Costa Rica surf tour right. As we rolled into dusty old Tamarindo, (wow, haven’t been back since but sounds like much has changed since 2001!!) one of the first things we saw was your rickety old surf camp/restaurant. Perfect! we thought, we’d planned on spending a week in Tamarindo, so we decided we get our accommodation sorted, get settled and come by the next day for a lesson. We were staying at a little place a five minute walk back up and across the road from you guys, so the next morning after stopping at that art gallery/breakfast place kinda across an up the street from you, we stopped in and booked our lesson. Spent the morning with one of your crew (don’t remember any names) in the small learning waves just outside your place. It was perfect, instructor was laid back but able to get the basics across to us in an easy to understand way, we were ripping little long board bottom turns (haha) by 9am! That morning set us up not only for the rest of our Costa Rica trip but for the next ten years of surfing good times. We spent that week surfing every day in the early morning, then chilling, exploring, eating, and drinking the rest of the day and nights away… we often utilized your gracious late night post drinking unofficial “shuttle school bus” after a long night of good times… thanks!! I have a couple photos from those late night trips… maybe I’ll scan and forward a couple. After tamarindo, we spent the next weeks visiting the great surf spots around costa rica, ending up in puerto viejo de talamanca where on our first night my wife was bitten by a rabid dog!! After a speedy trip back through San Jose for some medical attention, we decided the best way to spend our last week would be to head back to where we started – Tamarindo… Many surf days and burgers at your restaurant later we had one of the best days of our lives, we were surfing perfect little evening swell on Tamarindo beach on December 14, 2001 – when while we’re sitting on or boards floating just beyond the break quietly thinking about what a great trip we’ve had… we witness a total solar eclipse… what an amazing finish to an epic trip and thanks for being a part of it. Glad to see you guys are still going strong and have a good philosophy going forward, keep it small, keep it fun… thanks again. Cheers, Ian
