Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Day 6 of 10...first surf




Day 6 started very slowly for most of us. Kevin was sleeping in trying to recover from catching a lot of fish....something he had not done in some time. The Temple's were out cold and not a sound came from there room until well after 9am! I on the other hand was up at 7am and on the computer checking email and itching to get my surf on. I had not surfed since November which is entirely too long for this old man to be out of the water. We had breakfast and finally I got the Temple clan moving. We jumped on the road around 10:30am and made the 45 minute ride to Las Lajas. Due to the surf in our area being boat access only we had chosen to make the drive to Las Lajas. As the crow flies it is only about 10 miles away, but you have to drive inland and around a river to get to it. The road is now paved all the way into Las Lajas which is nice and sped the trip up by 10 minutes or so.

Panama is very tidal and when surfing beachbreaks it requires really being on top of changing conditions. I had origionally wanted to be on site around 9:00am to get the tide push but unfortunately a 11:00am arrival showed light onshore wind and the tide already pushing up pretty fast. This of course was flattening out the swell a bit, although it would really be fine to just get wet again.

The surf as expected was a bit wobbly and slow but this old man enjoyed it none the less. It was nice to have that dried salty feeling on your skin again, just standing on the beach with my feet in the sand soaking up some rays. Only thing that was missing was a nice cold one and luckily that was just feet away right on the beach. I sat back in a teak couch that was right on the sand under a thatched Rancho...perfect! After a cold one I decided to take some pics of the crew getting some little waves and just soaked up the energy of a tropical day at the beach.

Mid afternoon we made our way back to Kevins but stopped in San Felix at the mercado to pick up some snacks and stuff. Apparently during the previous night one of the local perro's (dogs) took off with one of JT's flip flops and also one of Kalum's. We picked them up some turbo new ones for $2.50 a pair...that's right..$2.50 a pair. Got some more sunblock, rum, and beer!

After getting back to Kevin's we packed up the truck and said goodby and headed up to Chad's to spend the night there. I called it an early night as I was exhausted at this point. JT stayed up to watch the Cannuncks in the playoff's and the rest of his clan hit the sack early as well.

Tomorrow is another day and surfing, a famous surfers surf shop, and a trip into the mountains is on the menu!

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