Kate is offically GOOFY

Well this afternoon turned into quite the success story! After Kate finished her homework (left over from Chicago), she was able to join Romz and MLazar for surf time. (she had to pull them away from lounging in the hammocks showing each other their stylish new board shorts)

The lesson started at 2pm with an overview of the "basics" by the lead surfing instructor / multi-year professional surfer, Alvaro Solano. He had us practice on a long board in the outdoor yoga platform to make sure we could properly "pop up" onto the board when the time was right. In doing so, we learned that Romz and MLazar are "regular" whereas Kate was clearly "goofy!" (this means that Kate's preferred stance is with her right foot forward...and M&M surf with left foot forward)

Anyway, we all headed to the local Jaco beach and the adrenaline was flowing. It was windy and the waves looked a bit choppy...they ranged from waist to head-high....which looked like towering walls of doom when facing them paddling out into the surf!

There were 3 instructors...one watching after each of us. They watched for the perfect wave for us and told us to PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE and then said UP UP UP which was our cue to use our "pop up" and ride that wave like a wild banchee as long as you could toward shore. We ALL "got up" and rode several waves over the course of our 2 hours in the water - which is considered pretty wicked cool for our first session. Another treat was the ambience - we finished our surf session just as the sun was setting on the horizon into the ocean - gorgeous sunset.

Mr. Nenninger - you will be pleased to know there were plenty of wipeouts along the way, but we have no photos available yet. The surf camp lady took a bunch of photos of us while we were out there, but she's holding them hostage to sell them to us on a CD at the end of the week. Lazar is working on smooth talking a bargain for the photos using his Spanish.

We got back to our bungalow just minutes before the sky opened up with a massive thunderstorm reminding us that we are on the brink of the heavy rainy season. Good thing we have our technical gear ready for all the elements.

Dinner was at a local restaurant followed by a trip to the local supermarket and back to the bungalow for some cerveza and vino before retiring for the night.

Mas manana...