The Dengue Fever Diaries (Work in Progress)

 The Dengue Fever Diaries

Prologue

As I sit here writing, my final two weeks in Nosara, Costa Rica are slipping away. It has been an extraordinary two years living here with my wife and two kids, filled with a myriad of emotions. The bittersweet reality of leaving this paradise and embarking on a new chapter of life weighs heavily on my mind. But amidst this transition, I find myself recovering from a challenging battle with Dengue Fever. The body aches, nausea, fevers, and chills were tough, but the aftermath of the illness is what truly tested me. In this region, there are four strains of the Dengue virus, one of which can be fatal. Without proper testing, one must wait for the fever to subside and endure an additional few days to determine which strain has taken hold. A sudden drop in blood pressure signifies a serious situation. Fortunately, my fever broke last week, sparing me from the more severe hemorrhagic fever. However, I haven't been myself since. A fog has settled over my thoughts and mood, leaving me emotionally detached. I lack the enthusiasm to engage in anything, finding little purpose in it all. I've come to realize that spending excessive time in bed, streaming movies, is only worsening my depression. The inertia has consumed me. Despite my lack of motivation, I push myself to exercise, meditate, swim, surf, and soak up the sun. These small actions begin to shift my state of mind. It was during a weekend road trip with my friend Billy and our daughters that I shared a few old stories around the dinner table. Billy encouraged me to write them down. My wife, too, had suggested channeling my energy into a more creative outlet than Netflix. And then there's Neal, an old friend and travel companion who recommended William Finnegan's book "Barbarian Days." He believed Finnegan's stories resonated with my own life experiences and encouraged me to document my own adventures. All these elements combined, along with the desire to break out of the lingering effects of Dengue, ignited a flame of inspiration within me. And so, in the midst of my post-illness haze, I began to write. Some stories were derived directly from my travel journals, while others emerged from my memories. Each tale is true to the best of my recollection. These are The Dengue Fever Diaries.

Fiji 1992

Cloudbreak Reef

My lungs are on fire. Panic floods my mind. My throat swallows involuntarily. I’m deep underwater, being forced deeper. I’m being dragged across a reef by a massive wave. Somersaulting, slamming into coral reef intermittently. I ball up and cover my head. Fire coral tears at the flesh on my arms and legs and then I’m rolling again. Such violence. Like the ocean is intentionally mad at me, teaching me a lesson. Pushing me against the reef with intent. Stars pop in my consciousness. Thoughts become harder to hold on to. The panic starts to ebb. A calm, almost peacefulness washes through me. Where am I?  Am I letting go? Drowning? All that remains is to give in, to breathe in. And then suddenly the violence and pressure subsides, and I somehow break the surface. Though it's a false surface, seafoam allows no purchase and my attempts to break into the air leave me sinking frustratingly into nothingness. My eyes open and the seafoam is the whitest white I’ve ever seen. It hurts. The sky framed in soft fuzzy black edges is intensely blue. “Breathe!” Only instead of sweet life-giving air, I gag, cough, sputter and vomit up seawater. I wretch again and again and gasp for more air. Another wave is bearing down on me, only this one is less intense, it’s already spent  its violence on the reef outside and is now a freight train of white water steaming towards me. My will is broken and I let it smash into me. I’m pushed further into the shallows of the reef. I breathe again, this time air fills my lungs. My vision clears. Breathe more. It’s not enough, never enough. I become aware of my heart pounding in my throat. My skin aflame in pain. Contusions, and reef cuts cover my arms and legs. Blood mixed with seawater streams down my arms, and even though I can’t see it, I’m sure my back is streaked red in blood and saltwater. I stand on the razor sharp reef, oblivious to the shredding of my feet. My bearings are returning. I’m alive. My surfboard? Gone, though the remnants of my leash, still velcroed to my ankle drifts around my legs like a sea snake. Clarity crashes back into my mind. I’m in Fiji, 5 miles offshore from the island of Viti Levu attempting to surf Cloudbreak, a wave that is far beyond my experience. I wave that breaks with intense power along a live coral reef. Boats and drivers, our transport to this offshore rarity of nature, await in the channel.

I remember the wave now and how I got here, stranded on the reef.  I had been sitting wide in the lineup, seemingly clear of danger. Out of my element and scared of being caught inside by the biggest outside sets. I had watched with intimidation as more experienced surfers had paddled into and dove down the face of overhead waves, rails barely engaged before being swallowed by barrels and sometimes spat out down the line as they raced past me. I’d paddle over the vertical walls of water looking back down into the abyss, as water drained off the reef and up the faces of the scariest, most powerful waves I’d ever seen. 

I thought I was out of the impact zone, out of the lineup altogether, until I heard the whistles. A set, a big fucking set, was approaching. The pack of other surfers were too far inside. Hearts in their throats as they paddled hard for the horizon hoping to make it under the impending waves. But not me. I was in the perfect spot. The perfect position for the biggest set of the day. Only I didn’t want it. Not really. I wasn’t ready for this. In spite of my doubt, I felt myself spinning, head down, and paddling hard to catch the first wave of the set. Mistake number one. Screams and yells of encouragement from the channel. We had formed a fraternity of camaraderie over the last few weeks sleeping in an open dorm under mosquito nets. Sharing boat transfers and surfing the outer reefs at dawn and drinking beer, telling stories and eating meals together to pass the rest of the days. Travelers with a purpose, seekers, adventurers, brothers in arms. Or so it seemed to my 18 year old idealism. I wanted to impress them with my courage. They wanted to push my abilities, or maybe just to see carnage. And so they were yelling “Go! Go!” The wave was bearing down on me. I felt myself rising, being lifted like an ant in a fist. “Get to your feet”. I was dropping, it felt as though the board was detached from the wave, then the fins engaged, the rail set on a course down the line. I grabbed the outside rail of the board and held on for life. A roaring, spitting monster was chasing me from behind. The elusive barrel. I had never been barreled to this point in my short surfing life. Desperately conflicted, both wanting the experience and the validation of my dedication and ability, but fearing the intensity, the violence and the consequences had led me to never quite being in the throat of such power. This time, there was no choice. It swallowed me, and there it was. The vision I had sought and feared. I was in a cavernous barrel, looking out at the blue sky, dark blue water, white boats and white clouds. And then I was out. Elation. Flood of adrenaline. I aimed for the lip and leapt. Attempting to jump out of the maelstrom. Over the back of the wave. I splashed down in blue water. And then, as if being pulled back into the netherworld, my leash, attached to my board that was still in the wave, dragged my leg back into the violence. Pulling. I stroked in desperation toward the depths of the sea. It was a losing battle. I was about to get sucked backwards into oblivion. Into hell. When suddenly my leash snapped, the pressure released. Relief, joy, elation. Though it was short lived. I looked up to see the next wave in the set. Bigger. Lip already feathering. It had teeth. I swam for all I was worth. Deep, true fear. It was a race between the breaking lip and my ability to swim fast enough to make it under the point of impact. It was going to be close. I dove with one last powerful stroke. The water pulled at my face, dragging me backwards but I had made it through. And then I saw it, the third and biggest wave of the set. It was too late. Too much distance to cover. The last wave had dragged me back onto the reef. What now? Doubt and panic. I swam down and grabbed onto the reef. Mistake number two. The wave detonated with all of its power and force, energy forged by cyclonic storms, pushed for thousands of miles through deep water until it was dragged reluctantly to its death as it tripped up on this shallow outcropping of reef in the middle of the South Pacific. That energy, with all of its unbridled force, was unleashed 10 feet from where I was feebly grasping onto fragile coral for dear life. An impotent attempt to avoid the inevitable. Then my world exploded.

And that’s how I ended up, vomiting, bloodied and without a surfboard standing in waist deep water on a coral reef off the coast of the Fijian Islands. What now? Respite and safety lay in the boat anchored in the deep water channel. I starfish swam, careful not to kick the reef until I was in deeper water. Not wanting to add to my already plentiful reef cuts. Eventually the whitewater fell into darker blue, deep water. Earlier in the week, snorkeling in this very channel I had seen half a dozen reef sharks, and heard sighting of a resident tiger shark. Not much concern typically, with the abundance of life and prey on the vibrant reef. But now I was leaking blood. A lot. Kicking out over the deep channel, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. More fear. I grasped the gunwale of the skiff. Benny, our Fijian boat captain, reached down and grasped my forearm. He was enormous, a rugby player. His thigh was as big as my torso. We had heard a story of Benny swimming the 5 miles to shore after an altercation with two other boat captains over commerce of the coveted Cloudbreak reef had led to violence and the cutting of anchor lines. This piece of reef was hotly contested by two neighboring villages. Nomi Bay (of Benny’s heritage) had traditional fishing rights to the reef, but Tavarua which was closer had established a surf camp and started bringing paying surf guests to the reef. The conflict had escalated into violence, and politics and at the time I was there, both groups were still contesting rights to both fish and bring the lucrative surf tourism racket to the reef. The point being, Benny was a formidable man. He pulled me by my arm over the hull of the boat like a gaffed tuna. He took one look at me, dripping blood, feeble as a drowned rat and laughed a deep guttural belly laugh. Humiliation mixed with a deep gratitude and relief to be alive washed over me. I had been humbled, but had somehow crossed a threshold into a new level. I had come closer to death, to drowning then ever before but had added a level of knowing and strangely, confidence from the near death experience.

A night out on the town

Perry, the plumber from Sydney and undoubtedly the most skilled surfer in our group, was excited to "get into it," as he put it. After spending the afternoon sipping beers by the pool, he managed to convince a bunch of us to venture out and explore the nightlife in Nandi. We all hopped into a minivan and maneuvered through plantations, past fancy beach resorts, and dimly lit alleys and streets until we reached a bar/nightclub on the outskirts of town, known to our taxi driver. We joined a small group of locals for a Kava ceremony outside the bar, although the term "ceremony" was used quite loosely in this case. It involved a few locals sitting on milk crates, passing around a muddy bucket of Kava and a half coconut shell without the customary clapping exchange. During my month in Fiji, I had been fortunate enough to experience several traditional Kava ceremonies. Usually, we would be invited to a village, buy Kava root as a gift for the chief as a sign of respect, and then participate in a ceremony to welcome us. I had grown somewhat accustomed to the muddy-colored, slightly peppery water with its mild numbing effect on the tongue and lips and a gentle sense of euphoria. However, this nightclub version of the tradition was solely focused on consuming the strongest brew possible. Once inside the club, it didn't take long for us to catch the attention of some local women. Without passing judgment, it was likely that these women were ‘working’, but our group welcomed the attention. Towards the end of the night, one of the Kiwi surfers in our group informed us that we had been invited to an after-party on the beach. He decided to go ahead with the girl he had hooked up with, and a couple of the other women would ride with us and provide directions. Without much further discussion, the Kiwi and his girl disappeared into the night. It took us about 20 minutes to gather everyone in our crew, along with our nightlife guides. The women directed our taxi driver through a series of cane fields. We were loud, intoxicated, and ready for more excitement when suddenly, out of the sugar cane, appeared the Kiwi, sprinting at full speed in his underwear, yelling, waving, and cursing at us. We swiftly slid open the side panel of the van, and he dove headfirst inside. "It's a setup! Get the fuck out of here!" he exclaimed. It had been an ambush. When he arrived at the beach fire, he started making out with his partner for the night, only to be accosted by men wielding knives and machetes. He managed to escape and had been hiding and evading capture in the sugarcane field. We had arrived just in time for him to escape with us. Urging our taxi driver, we sped through the rough tracks of the cane fields. We dropped off the women back at the nightclub and retreated to our hostel, with the Kiwi having lost his wallet, a pair of board shorts, a t-shirt, and his shoes. It was a late-night travel lesson: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The worst dinner party of my life:

I had taken a bus down the Vitu Levu coastline past Suva to another renown surfbreak known as Hideaways. Unfortunately, the surf conditions were terrible. But the beach, and the sunset were incredible. I was sitting on the beach taking it all in when a man approached me and asked if I wanted a coconut. When I accepted he promptly scaled a 40 foot coconut palm, and knocked down two coconuts. One for each of us. He hacked them open with his machete and we sat, enjoying the sunset and drinking from our coconuts and chatting about life, Fiji, travel and whatever it is two strangers sharing a moment of beauty watching the sun fall beyond the horizon talk about. Eventually, as darkness was setting in he invited me to his house for dinner. I accepted, though he informed me that we would have to stop at a market on the way and I’d have to buy the food. It seemed like a fair exchange so we set off up the hill adjacent to the beach. He picked out some taro and spam and a large beer for each of us. We arrived at his village shortly after, and he invited me into his simple one room bure. He handed his wife the food, and introduced me to his children. There were several, maybe five, ranging in ages from 1 to about 12. Two were albino. Covered in freckles and white blonde curly hair with Fijian facial features.. After choking down my meal of spam and taro root, they invited me to their neighbors house for a movie. He had both a TV and VCR (the only one in the village) with exactly one VHS tape: the action movie: Chuck Norris’s  Delta Force 3 The Killing Game. The kids in the village knew the movie and its lines verbatim. I sat with about 10 kids and a few adults and watched as Chuck Norris narrowly defeats a terrorist plot to detonate an atomic bomb in the United States. In the penultimate line of the movie Chuck Norris catches a knife and prevents the terrorist from detonating the bomb. He says with new found respect to his Russian ally and rival “Nice throw” and Sergei responds “Nice catch.” The kids ran wild around the house yelling “Nice throw, nice catch!” with unbridled enthusiasm. Then things took a dark turn. One of the Albino children, a girl of about 10, said or did something offensive. I was oblivious to what it was but it was apparent that it was rude and had embarrassed her parents. Her mother took her outside and out of sight, began to beat her. The hut fell silent, as we all sat and listened to her wailing and crying. I knew that I was somehow involved in this domestic dispute. I was deeply uncomfortable, and confronted immediately by culture clash. What was my role in this? How could I stop it without offending or making things worse? Was I just supposed to sit there and listen to this poor child get beaten mercilessly? In a short time  I thanked my host, asked him to thank his wife and gave the rest of the children high fives and promptly departed. That moment sits with me still, and makes me deeply uncomfortable 30 years later.

Australia 

I traveled to Australia three separate times, living in Noosa, Queensland for a total combined time of about two years. The first was when I was 17, straight out of high school. This was where I cut my surfing teeth and developed my taste for wanderlust. I’m not really sure how I chose Australia, and I feel like surfing somehow chose me. As long as I can remember I was obsessed with surfing. Growing up in a small, landlocked town in the interior of BC, known more for fly fishing, mountain biking, its pulp mill and alcoholism than anything else, it’s a mystery how surfing piqued my interest. Monthly I would seek out Surfer Magazine from the local bookstore that, for some confounding reason, carried the publication regularly. My walls were covered in images of both surfing and skiing. The adventure writing in both Surfer and Powder Magazine (skiing), resonated with me on a deep level. I was heavily influenced by the tales of travel and adventure that featured in these magazines of that era. These were the stories of dirtbag travel to far flung locales, with adventurers seeking and finding peak skiing or surfing experiences. The writers took readers through off the beaten path missions, rich cultural tapestries with surfing perfect waves and skiing stunning peaks being the backbone of these adventures. The fires of my desire for adventure were stoked by these evocative tales, and unbeknownst to me at the time, the needle on the compass of my life was set Southward by these very influences.

On a family vacation to San Diego when I was about 12, my brother and I rented thick yellow plastic longboards from a surf shop in La Jolla, dawned awkward fitting wetsuits and got way in over our heads, both literally and figuratively, in our attempts to surf. I did manage one green wave that I rode to shore, and my father managed a picture of the rather unimpressive wave. A fortunate memento. But that was it, I was hooked. I didn’t know it then, but that singular experience set a course for my life that in many ways has shaped me, defined me, challenged me, and without a doubt also limited me. The thing about being obsessively passionate about anything, is that you will make sacrifices, significant ones at that, to pursue it. Careers, education, and more conventional paths were far less important to me than the pursuit of surfing, travel, exploration and all that it entails. The magazines curated the highlights, the bliss and the romance of a life dedicated to this pursuit, strategically omitting the costs. Don’t get me wrong, I have lived a life of purpose and passion and I am eternally grateful for this path, but at times I have had blinders on, missing connections to community, culture and much, much more. Nearing 50, with perspective and hindsight, I see now that allowing a singular pursuit to dominate your experience of life is a narrow path to walk. I’ve had many rich and exciting experiences gifted to me from surfing, as I’m recalling in the writing of this book, but surfing, while still a part of my life, is no longer the obsession it once was. I am satiated, and grateful for the hard learned wisdom to appreciate the more important things in life. With all of that said, just last week I pushed my 10 year old daughter into a wave next to one of her closest friends. I watched in pure joy as the two of them, bathed in the warm Costa Rican waters, rode a wave all the way to the beach smiling and laughing together. I took pause to register the moment;  the sun rays peeking through the rainy season thunderclouds and the jungle-covered hills in the backdrop, glowing a shade of deep, vibrant green. There is a beauty to this surfing life that is hard to describe, it must be experienced firsthand.

August 1992 Sewage Lagoon Project 100 Mile House, BC

Right after I graduated highschool, I set a goal to travel and live in Australia for a year. I convinced one of my closest friends that we could live on the beach and surf everyday, though I had very little hard data about Australia. Despite my naivety he was in. Motivated to make this dream a reality, I picked up a grueling labor job for a construction company. They would develop entire neighborhoods from the water and sewer lines and roads all the way through to framing, painting and complete finishes and landscaping of move-in ready homes. There was a lot of work, and the crew were absolute workaholics. At about 130 lbs soaking wet, I was at a pretty distinct disadvantage on a construction site. With that said, I made sure to keep my head down, my mouth shut and to bust my ass from clock in to clock out. Despite my efforts, I still nearly killed my foreman. We were pouring concrete foundations into forms. The diesel soaked forms were for 8 foot foundational walls, tied together with rebar ties. So before the concrete is poured, they are hollow and wobbly approximations of walls. On the day we were pouring, I was tasked with holding the cement truck chute (a half cylindrical tube about 15 feet long) and directing the concrete into the forms. To do this, I had to balance on top of the wobbly forms eight feet off the ground, while holding the chute. I had never done this before. When the concrete started to slide down the tube, suddenly the weight of the concrete (hundreds of pounds worth) started pulling the chute away from me. I was balancing on the 8 foot forms and about to be pulled off. I let go of the chute, and with all of its momentum, it swung in an arc across the whole foundation, spilling concrete everywhere and nearly taking off the head of my foreman. He yelled a string of obscenities at me and told me to go home. It was only 10:00 am. Not a good sign. The following day, I didn’t know if I still had my job or not, or if Roy the foreman still wanted to kill me. I showed up sheepishly, 20 minutes early. He sat me down at his desk in the office trailer and told me to “never fucking let go again”. Round two, and I was in the exact same scenario, as we had more foundations to pour. My nerves were firing, heart pounding. I was holding onto the cement chute with a death grip. I watched with dread as the concrete started down the chute, I felt the weight start to pull. I committed to not letting go. Before I knew it, I was in the air, still hanging on to the chute, swinging across the foundation spilling concrete everywhere. Again. When the chute reaches its full swing and starts to return from its zenith I can hear the laughter from the crew. “Atta boy!” yelled Roy. I believe it was this single act of determination, in spite of my size and inexperience, that led to a promotion operating a compactor (a steamroller) for 12 hour days, 7 days a week for 3 months and earned me enough money to live in Australia for a year without working.

The hardest part of operating the compactor was staying awake. We’d start at 6:00 am and go until 6:00 pm. I’d roll at just over 1 km per hour, over the exact same patch of dirt, 7 days a week for months on end. To add to the monotony the compactor had a soothing vibration that felt designed to induce sleep. The earth movers would lay down a layer of fresh dirt, and I’d roll over it in perfect rows packing it down, back and forth, the same rows, the same view at 1 km an hour for 12 hours a day. I had memorized the local fm radio station’s playlist, I had a bag of cassette tapes that I’d completely played out, I had developed a sunflower seed habit, which thankfully hadn’t escalated into a chewing tobacco habit like most of the crew, and had started to talk to myself to keep from falling asleep. I remember having full-on conversations with myself, then passing the operator in the other compactor and seeing him chatting away to himself. He eventually fell asleep at the wheel one day, and rolled his compactor off the edge of a 30 foot berm. Luckily he jumped out as it was going over but the compactor was totaled and he was fired. The crew nicknamed him ‘Flip’ from that day on. After months of this, my bank account was as full as it ever had been. At the end of my contract I purchased my plane ticket for Australia.

Queensland, Australia 1992

It’s about a twenty hour flight from Vancouver to Brisbane. The plane finally touched down on the tarmac and my life was about to change. I was 17 years old, alone halfway across the world. I was supposed to meet my travel partner Jay in Sydney as he was scheduled to be on the connecting flight to Brisbane with me. In our I’ll conceived pre trip planning I had read about a town called Noosa, it was the furthest north in Queensland that you could surf without the swell-blocking barrier reef and therefore it had the warmest water. It had a one paragraph description in my Lonely Planet, describing it as a small beach town popular with surfers. It sounded perfect.

Jay and I were supposed to catch a bus from Brisbane to Noosa and camp in the campground fronting the beach. Only upon my arrival in Sydney and aboard my flight to Brisbane Jay was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t on my flight as planned. I fought off the urge to panic on the short domestic flight into Brisbane and the unknown.

Baggage claim took forever, as I had foolishly packed a mountain bike (god knows why). My backpack was stuffed to the brim with 6 pairs of jeans of all things. All of this for subtropical Queensland. What the hell was I thinking? After gathering up my outrageously cumbersome gear, purchasing a bus ticket and exiting the arrivals terminal, I searched fruitlessly for Jay. I was just about to round a corner out of sight of the terminal on my way to the bus station when I heard my name being yelled from a taxi. Jay had found an alternative connecting flight after arriving late to the airport. His flight had arrived in the domestic terminal, my colleague n the International. He had hopped in a cab and raced to meet my international flight. After days of travel, halfway across the world, we were literally seconds from missing each other, and starting our first overseas travel experience completely alone with no real way to connect. These were the days of very limited internet and payphones were commonplace to stay in touch. We boarded the bus together, with our bikes and backpacks stored below and laughed nervously and hysterically at the near missed connection. Just as the bus pulled out of the airport, I watched a dog dart across the highway and get struck by a transport truck. It was an inauspicious beginning to my first travel experience.

Finally in Noosa, we spent our first night wandering aimlessly looking for the campground we had read aboutin the guidebook. Unfortunately, the guidebook was outdated and the campground no longer existed. It it had long since been replaced by luxury villas, a gentrification trend of surfing hotspots that I would soon become all too familiar with. Exhausted, jet lagged and lacking any real life problem solving skills or money we finally gave up and set up our tent in the posh little town’s public park. We endured numerous embarrassing taunts and jeers from displeased locals throughout the evening and into the dawn.

Eventually we settled into life in Noosa. We found a relatively inexpensive beachside hostel in Sunshine Beach, a quiet little beach community just to the South of Noosa. The neighborhood overlooked an expansive, ever changing beachbreak that spanned 35 kilometers to the South, and to the North, was bordered by an amazing National Park littered with secluded beaches, coves and five incredible pointbreaks. We explored the park awed by its iguanas, lizards and koalas. We swam recklessly in dangerous little wave-battered, current-affected coves, oblivious to the risks we were putting ourselves into. We bought used surfboards, mine a yellowed 6’6 Rodney Dahlberg thruster totally inappropriate for a beginner, but resembling the sleek performance boards the pros rode. With wide open schedules we immersed ourselves into the learning process. Like everyone else learning to surf, we had incredible difficulties, immense frustrations, ate shit constantly, interspersed with moments of fleeting success and pure elation. 

The hostel, our home base, housed an ever changing crew of travelers. At 17 years of age, meeting people from all over the world with diverse perspectives on life was a transformative experience. Almost daily, the hostel van would pull up and young adventurers, partiers and seekers from different walks of life would pile out of the van, massive backpacks in tow. We were of course drawn to the young women (though I had little game) and to the traveling surfers. I was eager to learn anything and everything I could from more experienced surfers.

There was Greg from California, who was super skinny but ate a 12 pack of donuts for breakfast and ridiculous amounts of KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonald’s throughout the day, all while washing it down with 2 liter bottles of Coke. Everyday. It was the grossest diet I had ever seen and yet he was rail thin. He surfed so much that he had two massive surf bumps (calcified growth on bone) on the bottoms of his ribcage. At that time, he was the best surfer I had ever met and he was a wealth of information and knowledge.

There was Christopher, a Haole (non-native) from Hawaii who was a giant, 6’6 and pushing 300 lbs. He rode a huge  longboard by necessity and snored louder than I thought humanly possible. 

There were the groups of Israeli surfers who traveled in packs and were kind and gregarious on land and relatively aggressive in the surf. Given their upbringing, mandatory military service and living in a perpetual state of conflict, their demeanor in the water was not all that surprising. 

One evening, in an effort to meet some Australian women, who we heard had an affinity for foreign accents, we decided a trip to Maroochydore was in order. Looking south along the expanse of beach we could clearly see the city buildings of Maroochydore. It was a bigger town than Noosa and the lure of the unknown was irresistible. As evidence of our 18 year old ignorance, we decided we could walk. The perspective of distance along the wide open coastline was deceiving. What we thought would be an hour walk, was actually 35 kms and after hours of trudging through the sand, the big city lights seemed no closer. Finally, close to midnight we gave up the pilgrimage, and found a trail up to the coastal highway. Hitching a ride at this hour seemed unlikely, but the alternative was the beach march back. We were unsuccessful late into the night. When suddenly a car swerved into the ditch, fishtailing to a stop. I approached the window and asked “Can we get a ride?”  The driver, looking pretty rough, yelled back “I didn’t stop for fucking nuthin, get the fuck in!” Jay and I exchanged concerned glances, but passing up our only ride seemed unbearable. We both hopped in the backseat with a nervous laugh. The driver, clearly high and intoxicated, was yelling at his girlfriend in the passenger seat. It was nearly impossible to follow the argument over the stereo that was blasting death metal. What the hell had we gotten ourselves into? Jay and I kept looking at each other and laughing, shit like this only happened to us. At one point, after swerving recklessly across the center lane on the deserted coastal road,  the driver leaned over from the front seat and yelled to us “Sorry boys I just got this car!” and then he and his girlfriend cackled hysterically. What the fuck? Where does someone just get a car in the middle of the night? We raced past the Sunshine Beach turnoff and felt relief when, without further incident, the driver yanked the steering wheel towards the shoulder and slammed on the breaks. “There ya go boys, Sunny Beach!'' We piled out and thanked them both for the ride and laughed in confusion for the rest of the 15 minute walk home. Around midday the following day, a police car pulled into the hostel parking lot. Two officers got out and started questioning backpackers. They had a printout of the very same car we were picked up in. Apparently it had been stolen in the night and the police were looking for information. We gave them a statement, but had little more information to share. Who picks up hitchhikers in a stolen vehicle?

During this time, one surprising mentor was Jeff, a calm, quiet older surfer from California, who was traveling Oceania (Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand) after a teaching stint in Japan. He really left an impression upon me. One day we hiked into the National Park together to surf a secluded and stunningly beautiful beach break called Alexandria Bay. I had caught a number of the best waves I had surfed to that date, but was mostly in awe of Jeff’s calm mastery and flow in the relatively powerful waves. I was buzzing on the walk back through the rainforest. Jeff commented that he was envious of me. For the life of me I couldn’t fathom why, as he had just put on a masterclass of beach break surfing and I had mostly floundered.  

“For you, right now at this stage in your surfing, every day has the potential to be your best day ever.” He was right. After every milestone, every biggest wave yet, every new longer ride, more committed turn, every clean duck dive, even every wild wipeout, the excitement of making progress was so addicting. That constant striving for progression drove my surfing journey for decades. So much so that it eventually became problematic. After a decade of surfing, I’m ashamed to admit that some days, I would drive home from surfing miserable, angry and frustrated at my ‘performance’. Days I hadn’t surfed as well as my expectations drove me crazy. It took me way too long to recognize that this was ridiculous, that my fortune to be able to be a grown man playing in the ocean for hours at time in a fruitless, wholly unproductive pursuit was outrageously privileged. My perspective finally shifted sometime in my 30’s and my time spent surfing became much more a practice of gratitude and joy, a dedication to time well spent. I would often look back on that comment made by Jeff, my elder, and wonder if he had found his way back to having “his best days ever.”

I returned home from Australia that first time, via Fiji, after my first year away, oozing pus from multiple reef wounds and ulcers, violently ill with an advanced staph infection, sun bleached and reeking of curry (Fiji has a huge Indian population and it has had widespread culinary influence in the country). To say my mother was concerned and relieved when she picked me up from the airport is an understatement. Unfortunately for her, the hooks had been set. I had a taste for travel, adventure and most significantly surfing. 

Victoria BC, Canada

An Invitation

Anne Marie lived in the apartment below ours, alongside my roommate (who also happened to be her best friend, Nolene). Anne was part French, beautiful, with dark skin and brown eyes and she was interested in surfing. We had an instant connection and spent a lot of time together, surfing and camping up the coast, drinking wine and flirting. She was always in some state of relationship or other, and I was never confident enough to say fuck it and make a move, though my feelings ran deep. So when she took off to New York, hopped on a sailboat and ended up in the Caribbean, one could say I was heartbroken. Then came an email. She could get me a job as a deckhand on a yacht. We could sail, drink rum and explore surf spots throughout the Caribbean. While life in Victoria afforded me plenty of opportunities to surf the relatively uncrowded waves of Vancouver Island, I was ready to ditch the 5mm wetsuit, booties, hood and gloves and seek warmer waters and quench my wanderlust. I quit my job, and bought a plane ticket the next day. I was in need of some transition money and I had an old piece of shit  Rennault that had four brand new tires and a month old battery. Though it was a French car, it had to be worth something. I drove it out to an auto wreckers. It was running well and I was confident. The mechanic casually strolled around the car, spat on the ground and said ‘I’ll give you $50 bucks.” I was incensed. The tires alone had recently cost me $400 and the car was running! I drove out of there without a word. 

About twenty minutes later I was at a red light at the busiest intersection in Victoria when I noticed the car behind me flashing his lights and honking. He was yelling something, and it was directed at me. I started to roll down the window and caught the last half of what he was yelling “....ar’s on fire!”. I questioned myself, “What did he say?” He continued yelling “Your car’s on fire!” I opened my door to flames spitting out from underneath the car! I turned the ignition off and stepped back away from the burning vehicle. Luckily the flames subsided and he helped me push the piece of shit into a 7-11 parking lot. I grabbed the registration and removed the plates, called a tow truck company and said “if you want a car it’s at the 7-11 on the corner of Douglas and Mackenzie.” I walked home. I should have taken the $50. 

Antigua, Caribbean (1 week later)

I arrived at the Antiguan airport just outside of St. John’s, with not enough money, no visa for a long term stay, a backpack, surfboard and a heart full of optimism. Walking onto the tarmac the warm Caribbean air embraced me. Anne Marie was there in the arrival terminal to greet me with a warm embrace of her own and an iced rum punch. After taxiing across the island we hastily dropped my bags off in some crew house in English Harbour, a friend of hers had agreed to put me up for the night. We promptly headed out to the nearest reggae bar. Over drinks, Anne Marie told me about her sailing journey down the coast from New York and the creepy captain and his unwanted advances that her and Nolene had to endure while at sea until they arrived in Antigua. They had abandoned ship with him and were now working as stewardesses on some mega yacht and loving it.

 

We hit the small town, walking past the marina jammed with the gleaming white mega yachts of the mega wealthy, interspersed with sturdy little sailboats of the vagabond yachties. Stunning wooden tall ships swung on the tide at anchor under the moonlight, stars reflected on the ink black water and reggae and marijauna smoke filled the sweet night air. It felt so surreal, romantic and paradisiacal, until we were approached by a disheveled man in torn clothes with the telltale gait of malnutrition and addiction. He begged us for money to get a hit. Apparently the small island was in the throes of a severe crack epidemic and some of the local rastafarians had upgraded from spliffs to glass pipes. 

We hailed a taxi. There was a hilltop bar that overlooked the entire English harbor. Shirley Heights. It was a colonial gun battery and lookout that had been transformed into an outdoor bar. The place was packed and part way through the evening there was a surprise musical guest. Wycleff Jean. The place went wild. We drank, we danced and sweated under the stars to hip hop and reggaeton and we were closing the club down when Anne Marie introduced me to Angus. The chef on her boat, The Spaniard. Her boyfriend. I was in shock. What the fuck? How did I misread this so badly? How did she not mention Angus once? My heart felt like it had been ripped out of my chest.

I slept on the floor of the house of Anne’s friend that night and the next day I found another crew house. I was eager to distance myself from the disappointment. From what I could tell, aspiring young travelers and sailors from around the world gathered in these little Caribbean ports, looking for crewing positions on yachts that both paid well and offered board and travel to amazing island destinations. In the meantime, days were spent walking the docks looking for daywork (polishing chrome and scrubbing teak decks), hitting the beach and partying. The crew house I landed in was a simple two bedroom claptrap home, only it currently had eleven hopeful crew workers living and sleeping in it. In my desperation, I shared a single bed with Mira, a woman that I was not romantically involved with. Two inches across from me if I rolled to my left was another bed, with an alcoholic Brit that reeked of booze and snored all night. One evening he confessed to me that he felt like he was in the movie Leaving Las Vegas (which chronicles an alcoholic drinking himself to death) but he doesn’t get to shag the bird. I had to step over those less fortunate roommates who only had floor space, to make it to the bathroom. I had to get out of Antigua.

Christmas morning. Murder, Champagne and Solo Surfing:

Christmas morning dawned like every other day in Antigua, impossibly blue skies and distant white cumulonimbus clouds. The talk of the town in the days leading up to Christmas had been a champagne breakfast and party at Nelson’s Dockyard (a brick and stone collection of colonial structures constructed in the 18th century by the Royal British Navy to defend against pirates). I wandered into town and immediately sensed something was amiss. There was a heaviness in the air and people were talking in low murmurs, some were even crying. It was then I noticed the police presence, and the smoldering ashes of a guesthouse. 

English Harbour was a small community of yachties, day workers, crew and locals that had been socializing and intermingling for the months of favorable sailing season. Many people knew each other, at least as acquaintances. I was an outsider, a newcomer. It took me a while to find out what had happened. 

A foreigner, a British woman that was well known in the yachtie community, had cheated on her local partner with another local. The betrayed man was a tall Ivorian (an Antiguan descendent from Cote’ D'ivoire or so I had been told). He was a man that I had had an uncomfortable encounter with. A few days prior to Christmas he had an air of menace when he had asked me for money as I was leaving the docks flush with cash from working all day on a yacht. We both knew that I had at least $100 dollars American in my pocket, as that was the going day rate and he had obviously watched me disembark from one of the gleaming white yachts. I couldn’t lie but I simply just said “sorry” and walked past him as he stared me down. I shoulder checked a handful of times on my walk home, double checking that he wasn’t following.

As it turns out, my unease with him was warranted. On Christmas Eve, upon finding out that he had been betrayed, he murdered both his girlfriend and her lover and burnt their room to the ground.

Strangely, this didn’t stop the festivities at Nelson’s dockyard. Though the mood was morose, the partiers were still intent on partying. Not to let a double homicide ruin the festivities, they kept the party going. Someone handed me a flute of champagne. I downed it, took one look around and got the fuck out of there. 

Having been confined to traveling by foot since I had arrived in Antigua, I was eager to explore the potential for surf around the island. I treated myself to a day rental of a scooter. Merry Christmas. I grabbed my surfboard bag from the crew house and decided to get out of English Harbour and away from a scene that disgusted me on so many levels.

Eventually I pulled up to a hilltop lookout. Out to sea, about half a mile, a dark blue line, a right, peeled along a coral reef into a turquoise lagoon. It would be a long paddle, alone with no one in sight. But I needed to wash off the events of the morning. Champagne burps burned in my throat as I paddled out into the middle of the warm Caribbean sea. The wave was far from perfect, but the moment was. Sitting, alone on Christmas morning, digesting the events of the last week, I felt a sense of contentment. I was unencumbered, adrift in the Caribbean sea. I could do anything I wanted. I decided to find a passage on a yacht and see where the winds took me.

SV Lucifero

A paper posting on the Marina’s message board. 

32 foot Oyster, Sailing Around the World, Seeking crew

There was a photocopied image of the boat, ominously named Lucifero (after the devil) and directions to the berth it was moored in. I walked across town to the docks where Lucifero was moored. She was tied up alongside Nelson’s Dockyard. She was eggshell white with a green stripe down the hull at the water line. There was an elderly woman aboard, messing about with lines and gear. I was completely green, wet behind the ears, having never sailed a day in my life. Angela extended her unbelievably strong, gnarled looking hand in greeting. She was British, 72 years old, a widower from Tenerife in the Canaries. Her husband had founded Oyster Yachts (apparently a big deal) and they had spent their lives sailing. I looked around the vessel, she seemed old and tough like Angela. I noticed stress fractures where the rigging met the decking, but couldn’t tell if that was normal or not. We spent some time chatting and she didn’t seem too discerning about my lack of experience. Of course, I was desperate to get off this god forsaken island and away from the pain of heartbreak. And I was dead broke. Day work was competitive and drying up. I heard the mega yachts would be moving on to expensive sounding destinations like St. Barts and St. Martin. I needed this job. The deal was we would sail across the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal. She would provide food, and a plane ticket back to our point of origin or a destination of equal value. Done deal. She had one more crew member to meet and bring aboard. 

I went home, shared my news with my roommates and began to pack my bags. The next morning, I made the walk into town with my boardbag, and my backpack. Apparently word travels fast in small port communities because a stranger stopped me and asked “Are you the one getting on that boat Lucifero?” I looked at him in surprise. “Yes, why?” “Don’t, she’s crazy. Her crew abandoned her because she had no charts. The boat’s in disrepair and she’s senile. That’s why she needs crew.” Hmm. I was in no position to be picky. 

When I showed up on time, ready to board the boat Angela gave me a hard time about my surfboard bag. There was precious little deckspace. The 32 foot boat had about 15 feet of actual living space. I told her the board was non negotiable, we were a package deal. She capitulated and introduced me to Roger. Roger was in his late 30’s also British and looked like an outlaw biker. He had owned a fish and chips shop in Britain and knew how to sail.

Day 1 at Sea

Leaving English Harbour and nosing out into the Caribbean sea was such an exciting feeling. I felt like I was throwing the shackles and darkness of Antigua off and setting out into freedom and the unknown. I was tasked with making dinner the first night, admittedly not my forte. Angela suggested huevos habaneros or Cuban eggs as she said it was simple. I wanted to make a good impression so I set myself up in the tiny galley. The stove was on hinges so it would roll and sway with the boat in the swells. There was a rope with a latch to essentially keep me from falling out of the galley. Halfway through cooking, the scent of eggs and tomato sauce, coupled with the rolling and swaying of the boat and the intense heat trapped in the tiny galley and I was ready to lose my guts. I plated the food (which looked like a dog’s breakfast and made me even more nauseous) and raced up to the deck to lay out in the fresh air and let my seasickness abide. I felt terrible but was able to hold off from vomitting. Not the best first impression. 

Night 1 at Sea 

I was given the shitty watch, from midnight to 3 am. I was told to keep the boat on the same bearing by looking at the compass and steering the helm to keep the bow pointed in the right direction. If anything went awry, I was to wake up Angela and Roger. No problem. After about a half hour of pride filled ‘captaining’ staring at the compass, I started to take in my surroundings. The waves seemed really big, and after cresting each swell, we would surf down the face and the helm would pull hard to the port. I later found out this is called broaching and it is dangerous. The wind was picking up and some of the waves were washing over the stern. I was getting soaked. I stared aft the stern watching huge waves bearing down on us, and I would brace myself preparing for the sharp direction change and the surfing down the face into the trough. I looked at the compass. Lucifero would be on the bearing and then she’d sharply veer off course as she broached down the face of the wave, stuffing her bow in the trough of the next swell, sending a sheet of water over the deck. I later learned from Roger that this exact scenario is when boats pitchpole, causing the boat to capsize. While I had no frame of reference and believed that this type of sailing was commonplace,  I wondered if each of these little course corrections would take us off course. “Shit this sailing is pretty crazy” I thought. I looked at the gauge that gave our speed. Each broach, the speed would hit around 15 knots, which at that time meant nothing to me. After a large swamping wave, I thought I saw two sharks finning behind the transom. Now I was scared. It took me two more waves flooding the stern to realize that they were fenders that had been dislodged from the railing and were dragging behind us. “That doesn’t seem good.” This fretful watch went on until 3:00 am when Roger’s watch started. He popped his head out of the hatch.

“Bloody hell what the fuck is going on?!” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Why the fuck didn’t you wake us up?”

“I didn’t know what was normal”

“We need to reef the main!” 

Whatever that means. I had no clue. Apparently the cruising yacht was meant for a top speed of about 4-7 knots. We were regularly hitting 15 knots. Not good. We needed to make the main sail smaller to catch less wind, and therefore slow us down to a safer cruising speed. I had no previous experiences to compare to and therefore no idea what was normal. Nor any idea of how to reef the mainsail. I learned quickly.

Caribbean Sea: Days 2-28 at sea

I eventually fell into a rhythm with sailing. It was endlessly fascinating to me. Watching the flying fish disperse from the bow wake and cruise for impossible distances. Reading the water and adjusting the course of the boat reminded me of surfing. There are deep rooted parallels and the endless hours of deciphering the patterns of waves, how they move, break and flow crosses over into surfing, choosing waves, reading sets, positioning. I loved it. Roger was patient and friendly. Staying up during my night watches teaching me the southern sky, the constellations, the parts of the boat and their nautical names. We spoke of our lives back home.

Angela on the other hand was an absolute nightmare. Rude, condescending, controlling, and arrogant, she would even try and dictate when I could eat. “You can't have a biscuit before dinner!” I had to remind her that I’m a grown man and I’ll eat when I choose. If our relationship was tense, her and Roger’s was downright hostile. They hated each other openly. Both from the same country but clearly different worlds. I don’t know the distinct regions and the nuances of British society, but it was clear to me that Roger was of the blue collar working class, and Angela was of the class that looked down her nose at those of lower stations. 

We would pull into an anchorage, in an idyllic tropical setting. The palm fringed and sugar sanded San Blas islands of Panama sitting like jewels in crystalline waters. Roger and Angela would be screaming at one another at the top of their lungs about how and where to set the anchor, disrupting the impossible beauty and destroying any chance of a warm welcome from the local residents. It was a lot to take. 

After one particularly tense evening off the coast of Columbia, Angela’s senility and incompetence had nearly killed Roger and I. It was late in the night and we were taking in one of the sails. Angela had become distracted and had stopped paying attention to the bearing of the boat, a powerful gust of wind caught the mainsail with full force and swung it violently across the deck. If Roger hadn’t yelled for me to duck the boom would’ve smashed into my head with full momentum and that would’ve been it.

Later that night, Roger and I were up in the middle of the night on watch. Looking for freighters on a collision course or opportunistic pirates. He was going on about how terrible Angela was. 

“You know, she could fall overboard out here and no one would know,” he half chuckled.

My mind raced, “What the fuck” I thought, “is he serious?!” I let his comment drift away on the night wind and we never addressed it again.

A few days later, on my mid day watch, the horizon appeared white and boiling with froth, the telltale signs of waves breaking on a shallow reef. We were in seemingly open water, with no land or islands in sight. I checked my bearing, still on course. Roger and Angela had plotted a course that meant deep seas and easy sailing. So why did it look like whitewater on the horizon? Were we off course? Heading for an unmarked reef? It took a few tense moments for it to become clear what was happening. What had appeared to be a barrier reef was actually thousands of spinner dolphins, in a thick wave of frothing action bearing down on us. A gigantic wave of dolphins, jumping, spinning and racing approached, and then passed by us at full speed. It was one of the most incredible sights I had ever seen, and then, just like that they were astern of us and gone. We were left in awe.

That evening we pulled into an anchorage in the San Blas Islands. The islands were home to barely afloat villages of the Kuna Indians, the indigenous population of Panama, famous for their colorful textiles known as Molas. We went ashore and after wandering the villages were somehow invited to a quinceañera, a celebration that marks a girl’s passage into womanhood. The evening was spent in a crowded hut with traditional Kuna music and dress, dancing and plenty of drinking. We downed some home batch spirit that burned our throats and sat in the pit of our stomachs. I watched two men trade shots until one fell on the dirt floor of the building unconscious, the other celebrated his victory with another shot. The celebration went deep into the night and the return trip home to Lucifero is a little hazy in my memory.

In the night I felt a light tapping on my chest. Then a fluttering sound and disturbed air above my head. My bunk was directly under our fruit hammock, which at the time, was filled with ripe bananas. I opened my eyes to see a massive fruit bat, eating our bananas through the hammock, and shitting on my chest. My sheet was covered in guano.

One morning, I awoke to a knocking sound as if someone was knocking on the door. Only we were anchored a couple hundred meters offshore. In my foggy mental state I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on? Where am I? The knocking sounded again “Hola, langosta?” It was a child’s voice. “Hola langosta?” They were knocking against the hull of the boat. I poked my head out of the hatch to see three young boys, in a dugout canoe with a handful of lobsters. They were trying to sell us lobster. I was more interested in how they caught them. At the one boy’s feet rested a long, well worn stick with a lead wire snare hanging off one end. I pressed the boy for information on how he would catch the lobsters. The boy mimed snaring a lobster by the tail. I asked him how much he wanted for the snare and I said that I would give him the price he asked if he would teach me how to use it. He eagerly accepted and I swam with him to the nearest reef with a snorkel and mask. I watched from the surface as he quickly spotted a lobster and flushed it out into the open deep water of the channel. I had never seen a lobster swim before and was fascinated. In one quick and well practiced motion, he looped the snare over its tail and pulled it tight. Simple.

I came to find out that snaring a lobster was anything but simple. After several failed attempts in which the lobsters would simply retreat into caves in the reef leaving me digging and struggling for them and eventually running out of breath, I gave up on the snare. Aboard Lucifero, I pulled out a pair of leather gardening gloves that I had seen in the storage locker and duct taped them at my wrists. If I couldn’t snare a lobster then maybe I could just simply grab one when it hid in a recess of the reef. I stalked the reefs, loving the thrill of the hunt. After about twenty minutes of fruitless searching, I saw the biggest lobster that I had ever seen. In my excitement I clumsily kicked down toward him. He saw me coming a mile away and instantly retreated into a cavern in the reef. He was deep, deeper than I felt comfortable diving, but just within my limited breath hold capabilities. He was too big for his hole and his massive attanea were hanging out into the open. That was it. I would dive down, grab his attanea and pull him out of his hole. I gathered myself at the surface, trying my best to calm my movements and slow my heartbeat and breathing. I took a massive breath and kicked down towards my prey. As soon as I grabbed a hold of his attanea he resisted, retreating with surprising force into his cave. I had no purchase, with my legs kicking feebly out into the deep. This lobster was beating me in a tug of war. I was out of breath. Humiliated, I kicked to the surface.  But I was determined to succeed and so, treading water at the surface, I regained my composure. Down I went for the third time. This time I wasn’t coming up without him. Again I grabbed his attanea, only this time I used one hand to push against the reef. Snap! I was left dumbfounded, as I had one attanea, detached from the lobster in my gloved hand. Defeated and feeling cruel I returned to the surface, and then to Lucifero. Roger had taken a mild interest in my all day harvesting attempt and laughed hysterically when I held up the enormous antennae, still with no lobster. 

Finding Waves

The crossing wasn’t entirely void of surf. Anchored in the San Blas Islands of Panama, I would take the little dinghy and scout the outer reefs in search of a surfable wave. Cruising slowly through a channel between islands, from a distance I watched a wave lurch up out of the deep and dump onto a mysto reef that I hadn’t even previously noticed. The wave was short, but powerful and looked surfable. The wave broke both right and left, with the right looking like the better option. I imagined the reef sitting like a pinnacle in the deep, with swell filtering through the channel tripping up upon its peak then passing by. I watched one more set unload on the reef, where the spent wave would recede back into deep water. That was all I needed to see. I raced in the dinghy full throttle back to Lucifero and started to unpack my board from its hibernation. With all of my excitement both Angela and Roger’s curiosities were piqued. Angela had a small handycam video recorder to document her sailing trip, as this predated the ubiquitous cell phone cameras of today. I had never actually seen myself surf. I wondered if my self perception, my imagined skill and style matched reality (unfortunately it never does) so I was agreeable to Angela filming my rides. The three of us piled into the eight foot dinghy and I guided us back to the mysto reef. The sea looked relatively calm, with a glassy rolling swell gently lifting and passing beneath us in the dinghy. When we arrived in the still channel, they looked at me full of doubt. Then, just as before, seemingly from nowhere the water sucked downward off the reef and the wave lurched up overhead, poured itself as if from a pitcher onto the reef and dissipated back into the dark blue water. I hopped out of the dinghy and paddled to the reef. In the time I was waiting, two Kuna Indians paddled near the reef in their dugout, and stopped to try and discern what exactly I was doing. Sitting there, with a virtually flat ocean in front of me and an audience with one handycam documenting and at least two pairs of eyes that had never been exposed to surfing, watching me intently, surfing a reef that in all likelihood had never been ridden, was a little unnerving. As the uneventful minutes ticked by, I began to feel the pressure mounting. Roger and Angela were only vaguely familiar with surfing in the way that your Grandma may be. The Kuna tribes’ people were now fully committed to see what would happen when a set arrived. Here I was, in the flesh as the sole representative of something that was so sacred to me. No pressure.

The water began to draw strongly off the reef. The strangest wave I had ever surfed began to form in front of me. Well not exactly in front of me, rather below me, I was looking seemingly downward, below sea level at a wave that was beginning to build upwards. I spun, paddled for the wave and caught it as it lurched upward and outward toward the reef. I made it to my feet, made the drop and had time and space for a quick cutback before the wave dissipated into deep water again. The two Kuna in the canoe hollered and clapped. I made the short paddle back to the take off spot at the edge of the reef. Roger pulled up alongside me in the dinghy. Angela told me she liked my ‘pirouette’. I cringed. I noticed that Roger was idling in the dinghy right alongside me, right in the peak of the take off zone. Then the water began to pull off the reef. I yelled at Roger. I also spun to catch the wave. Roger’s eyes were huge as he pinned the throttle away from the now lurching wave. Again I made the drop only this time Roger and Angela were riding down the face of the wave just feet in front of me at full throttle. They outran the explosion of the wave and made it to the safety of deep water, narrowly avoiding disaster. I surfed for an hour longer, more pleased that I had discovered and surfed a new spot, than with the actual wave riding. Back on Lucifero I was eager to see the footage. I had a lot of curiosity and admittedly my share of vanity, urging me to see how I looked surfing. Angela pulled out her camera and hit play as we crowded around the tiny screen. The grainy footage showed me sitting and waiting for a wave, as a set approached we could hear Angela remark “Oh he here goes” the footage then stops. It starts again as I kick out of the wave and Angela remarks “that was a good ride.” She had reversed hitting the Record and Stop buttons. While I was frustrated at the moment, maybe it was a blessing. Maybe it was best to keep the mental image of my surfing unblemished with the harshness of reality.

Influential Neighbors

One evening a sleek looking yacht anchored near us. As we were the only vessels at anchor in the secluded little bay off this particular island it seemed appropriate to welcome them. I swam over to greet the new arrival and was surprised to see a young family, with two elementary school aged kids. They invited me aboard and shared some food and drink with me as we got to know one another. They were a Dutch family, sailing around the world with their children. The kids were being homeschooled. This was long before online education. The living quarters were stacked with books and the kids were diligently working away down below in the galley on some homework. I wondered how this unconventional upbringing would shape them? Of course the idea was romantic, the kids learning about the world through firsthand experience, adventure, and cultural immersion. The reality I imagined could be much different, a socially isolated, lonely existence with a singular perspective of the world (that of their parents). No friends, no activities outside of the limited world of yachting. No deeper connections, and especially no real sense of community. Despite my conflicted thoughts, I was inspired by this family, they left a deep and meaningful impression upon me, but raised in me more questions than answers. Little did I know at the time that more than 20 years later I would be confronting these questions in a much more personal manner.

The Panama Canal

We approached the busy port of Colon on the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal. Lucifero and her crew were scheduled to sail through the canal the following day. I had a day to kill ashore in Colon (which was aptly named) as by many accounts it was the shithole of Panama. The Lonely Planet Guidebook warned of the dangers of Colon, where the world’s materials, commodities, goods, narcotics and every other lucrative trade item passed through on their way to wealthy nations with endlessly hungry consumer appetites. There was a massive Duty Free Zone where the illegal and stolen goods trade was rampant. I took a bus into the heart of Colon, careful not to carry much cash or anything else of value. The buses in Panama are epic. They are old decommissioned school buses from the United States, each more pimped out than the next. Covered in full murals, graffitied, flashing lights, bells and whistles, chrome megs, the whole works. Each seemingly a status symbol and reflection of the driver's unique passions, faith and interests. At the central bus transfer station vendors hop on stationed buses and sell anything and everything you can imagine, from street meats and sodas to stolen TV’s and nikes. At the bus station I met a teen whose mother was a coconut vendor. Though I was wary, he spoke English well and I decided to take the risk and trust in the kindness of strangers. We spent the day wandering the streets of Colon. I was perpetually on high alert, as he had shown me the scar of a knife wound on his chest that he had received during a standard, mid day street mugging. We spent some time helping his mother sell coconuts, and the rest wandering the dirty streets and black markets of Colon.

The next morning Angela, Roger and I cast off for the locks of the canal. There was much anticipation entering the locks abreast much larger vessels, but the whole process ran like a well oiled machine. Lines were cast, boats rafted together, pilots boarded the boats to make everything run smoothly. It was interesting to watch the locks fill as the sea level rose, but rather anticlimactic if I’m being honest. It was an overnight sail, we anchored in a beautiful but croc infested bay and by the next afternoon we were in a marina in Panama city on the Pacific coast.

The following day, true to her word, Angela and I went to a travel agency in Panama City to buy me a plane ticket. I couldn’t wait to get off of Lucifero. I was not eager to return to Antigua and I had heard there was lots of boatwork in Miami. Fortunately, there were regular flights to Miami (one that evening) and the price was about the same as to Antigua. Ticket in hand I walked out of the travel agency and into a Taxi. That was the last communication that I had with Angela (and Roger). Though a month later in Miami I got word through fellow yachties that Lucifero had sunk in the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. 

Australia Round 2

After my experience sailing in the Caribbean and then the later boatwork in Miami, I had dreams of parlaying that experience and getting hired aboard one of the surf charter boats starting to ply the waters of Sumatra, ferrying and guiding guests into the unparalleled surfing perfection of the Indian Ocean’s world class surfing reefs. Pairing my boating experience with my love for surfing and adventure seemed like an ideal fit. Jay, was back in Australia, managing the very same hostel that we had used as a home base on that initial, transformative trip. He invited me down under to stay, work and earn enough money to fly to Bali and on to Padang in search of work. I didn’t know it then, but that Australian detour, with all of its debauchery, surfing, love and misadventure would be one of the single biggest life changing decisions that I would make in my life. And it would take me more than a decade more to make it to Indonesia.

The Hostel

The Sunshine Beach Hostel, was ideally situated on a bluff above Sunshine Beach (once rated the most beautiful beach in Australia). Its owner Errol, was a bachelor, never married, in his late 60’s. He had no family, no real friends and lived alone across the street from the hostel in a beachfront house. His house, though worth millions, was dank, dusty, full of cobwebs and old newspapers. He hadn’t stepped foot on the beach out his backdoor in seventeen years! The world-class and expansive oceanfront view was constantly obscured by his dark curtains and an incessantly blaring television set. Errol cooked the same meal (steamed vegetables), read the same newspaper, and watched the same nightly news each and every night. He even wore clothes that he had pulled from the Hostel’s lost and found. Despite his idiosyncrasies, to our great fortune, he took a liking to us and was endlessly patient and generous with us. All of this  despite his miserly nature. As part of our work agreement he housed us in one of the two story condos as a staff residence, tasking us with the most minimal of work (about an hour daily, of picking up backpackers from the bus stop and checking them into the hostel), and he even routinely brought us a nightly KitKat bar and a small weekly stipend of cash. Even better, he cared little about the day to day operations of the hostel or its guests as he had already sold the property for millions and was simply awaiting its closure. This meant we had free reign of the place, and no real responsibility to be responsible, or even decent hosts. We were largely anti-social and were selective of which guests we picked up from the bus stop. Anyone with a hint of high maintenance and expectations was promptly told that the hostel was full for the night. 

Our staff condo, while relatively new and well appointed, fell into a state of complete depravity and filth. Imagine three young men in their early twenties, with no real responsibilities or priorities other than surfing, in a home that was going to be torn down and replaced with luxury condos within a year. Errol stopped hiring the fumigators which led to our biggest problem; the cockroaches. With dirty dishes piling in the sink and leftover food remains strewn about the counters it didn’t take long for the cockroach infestation to reach extraordinary levels. At night, if the lights were turned on, the floor would come alive with movement as dozens of cockroaches would scurry for shelter. I would find baby cockroaches in the bristles of my toothbrush and would replace it out of disgust regularly. In the night, it was not uncommon to have one scurry across your face. There was one infamous cockroach that we actually named ‘The Great White Cockroach’. One evening while watching television, a large cockroach scurried out into the middle of the living room. I stalked to the fridge slowly, and without looking, grabbed an aerosol can from the top of the fridge (this is where we kept our insecticide, among other random supplies). I reached down and doused the cockroach. Unfortunately, I had grabbed a can of white spray paint rather than the Raid, and the now all-white cockroach made its escape. We would occasionally spot The Great White Cockroach from time to time, without ever being successful in killing it. We knew the problem was out of hand when our fax machine stopped working. Jay took it into an electronics repair shop and when they opened it up, they discovered a cockroach nest that had entirely destroyed the inner workings. The roaches had found a warm safe place to breed and reproduce. The sight of it made Jay gag in disgust.

Moonlight Surf

Apart from meeting and checking in backpackers, and attempting in vain to rid our home of cockroaches, we mostly spent our days surfing. Sunshine Beach was our regular, daily local. We’d stroll out our door at sunrise to the lookout a few hundred feet down the road, spot the best bank and head out into the warm Queensland water. There were also the five exceptional point breaks in the National Park, each amazing and unique in their own right, but almost always very crowded. On a big cyclone swell, it wasn’t uncommon to see a couple hundred people fighting for waves at Carparks and Tea Tree Bay. During one particularly consistent swell, we had a bright idea. We’d sneak the hostel van out in the dark like guilty teenagers (Errol was surprisingly restrictive of us using the Hostel Van outside of work hours) and surf Tea Tree Bay under a full moon.

We rolled the van out of the parking lot to keep quiet, though Errol was doubtlessly fast asleep after the evening news. Jay fired it up halfway down the street and 15 minutes later we were pulling into an empty parking lot in the National Park. Lines of perfectly angled whitewater practically glowed in the dark as they rolled down cobblestone point. We were giddy with excitement and ran most of the way through the subtropical forest of the National Park to Tea Tree Bay. We hardly hesitated to jump into the ink black water, though I had a flash of concern thinking about the Tiger Shark that had been sighted at the rivermouth about a kilometer away in the last week. Then again, when would we ever have this opportunity again; a perfect swell aligned with clear skies and a full moon? We paddled, full of adrenaline for the top of the point. At first it was very difficult to assess, line up and take off on the fast approaching lumps of swell that appeared like aberrations out of the dark. I lucked into one, made the drop and angled down the line. The vision I had in that moment is forever etched into memory more than twenty years later as one of my peak surfing experiences. Everything was midnight black, except the silvery, glittering moonlight, lighting a path perfectly along the concave of the wave. So long as I aimed for that moonlight, I stayed in perfect trim, in the heart of the wave. The experience is ineffable, and writing these words don’t do the beauty of those moments justice. The challenge came in paddling back out. Jay and Eli were also locked into dreamstate waves, but completely unable to see me paddling back out, nor I, them racing down the line on a collision course with me. After both nearly ran me over, we decided a ‘doppler effect’ noise making would help avoid a severe accident. Both surfer and paddler would make ridiculous intermittent beeping noises when paddling and surfing. Surprisingly it worked. However, being the only things splashing and yelling and making noise on a shark infested coastline in the dark, started to concern us all. I kicked out of yet another long, mind bending wave, only to see a handful of baitfish scatter in the moonlight and the inch of a dorsal fin, knife through the water in pursuit. It could’ve been a bigger fish, or as I had pictured it in my mind a 12 foot tiger shark. I’ll never know, but it was enough for me to yell “Shark!” and for all of us to get the hell out of the water.

Sharks

Sharks were an ever present fear for us surfing on the Sunshine coast. We each had a couple of sightings throughout our time there. For me, the thought that I was in the food chain as prey, nagged in the recesses of my thoughts. Most sessions I was consumed by the challenge of surfing, and I thought little of sharks, but in those moments of stillness between sets, or on gray ominous days or when surfing sunrises or sunsets, an eerie feeling would ignite, the thoughts would intrude and often overwhelm me.

One evening the nightly news reported a fatal shark attack on a surfer on the Gold Coast, just South of the Sunshine Coast. There was an annual run of tuna, with schools in the thousands making their way North. An aerial image of a massive school of tuna surrounded by dozens and dozens of sharks of various sizes left a pit of fear in my stomach. The next morning at the local shop, the headline to the newspaper read “Beach Closures in Effect. Shark Danger” Of course, the waves were as good as they could get. Crowds of surfers would stand at the lookout, salivating over the empty, perfect waves. All the while we could see the schools of fish, thrashing and splashing just outside the surf zone. Then, one lone surfer, tempted by perfection, would paddle out. Inevitably the crowds would follow suit, taking comfort in the safety by numbers theory. We joined the crowd, though I intentionally sat further inside than everyone else. Even then, the sight of tuna in the waves would scare the shit out of me. Finally the surf lifesavers, in their yellow and red beanies and speedos would race out in a zodiac and yell at us to get out of the water. We’d comply, and the whole routine would repeat itself over again.

About a week after the shark closures, I was out alone on a relatively big day. As I sat waiting for a wave, I was startled nearly off my board by a gray mass bursting out of the water right in front of me. To say my heart stopped would not be an exaggeration. Luckily, it was a dolphin, followed by two much smaller calves. The two baby dolphins approached me, swam under my board and circled me, exhaled within an arm's length and then returned to what was presumably their mother. A wave approached, and in the face of the wave, half a dozen dolphins were surfing inside the wave directly toward me. I let the wave and dolphins pass under me and turned to watch as they burst out into the air just as the wave crashed. There are these moments we are gifted as surfers that change you as a person.

One of the sharkiest feeling places that I have ever surfed was North Stradbroke Island. It juts out off the Eastern Seaboard of Queensland into the Pacific and is absolutely teeming with marine life. It’s a beautiful sand island, the second largest in the world, with rocky headlands, stunning vistas, small laid back Australian communities and amazing waves. When we were there the water clarity was incredible.  There were several hikes to remote bays and beaches where we often surfed, and along the coastline humpback whales and giant manta rays were often visible. One afternoon we were returning from the ominously named Deadman’s Bay when we stopped on the clifftop headland directly over the premiere surf peak at Main Beach. A couple hundred meters below us was a pack of surfers ripping in clean overhead waves. The unique bird’s eye perspective was fascinating so we sat and watched. Then, one of us noticed a huge, shadowy shape slowly approaching the lineup. As it neared, it had the unmistakable shape and eerie, predatory seeking motion of a large shark. We yelled a frantic warning to the crowd below us, and other than an odd disgruntled upward glance, no one made any move to acknowledge the danger. The crowd sat nonplussed by the threat and continued their evening surf. The shark swam directly under the crowd, dwarfing the surfers and then continued down the coast along the surfline. 

The Ding Repair

There were three of us in our condo. Jay, my childhood friend, a funny, kind hearted eccentric who was non conformist and anti-social, but well liked by most. He was a gifted musician, and could just as easily compose a classical concerto as a Nirvana inspired tune. In fact, I would venture a guess that his three biggest influences were Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Kurt Cobain and Charles Bukowski. Jay has lived a life that somehow blends these influences, which has led to an interesting, somewhat conflicted path. 

Then there was Eli. California born, commune raised. Eli was brilliant, resourceful, and an arrogant asshole. We got along well, and Jay deeply respected Eli, but most people couldn’t stand five minutes with him, nor he with them. One of my best memories of Eli was a day we pulled up to the supermarket and he was shirtless, and realized he’d be barred entry without being properly clothed. He grabbed a pillow case from the back of his station wagon, pulled out his ever present knife and cut three slits in the case, one for his head and two for his arms. He proceeded to shop for his groceries in a fucking pillow case.

One day I was performing a fiberglass ding repair on my surfboard. We had a ding repair kit sitting on top of our fridge (along with the white spray paint and Raid). We had all used it at some point, Eli most recently. Ding repairs or fiberglass repair is an oddly gratifying way to spend an onshore afternoon. You cut out the damaged fiberglass and foam. Replace it with new foam and cut a sheet of dry fiberglass to cover the repair. Finally, you mix resin with a catalyst (using a dropper to measure about 5 drops) that starts a chemical reaction and starts to harden the resin. The last step is to sand the repair smooth to the touch. On this particular day, I accidentally splashed a drop of acetone in my eye while preparing the repair site. Panicked, I ran into the house to flush it out under the sink. There wasn’t much pain or damage to my eye so I returned to the repair. Then I noticed a Visine container in the repair kit. Perfect. Eli must’ve thought ahead and put this here in case something like this happened. Or so I thought. I pried open my eyelids and squeezed the contents of the Visine container directly into my aggravated eye. Instantly it felt as though I had been stabbed in the eye with a white hot blade. What the fuck?! I raced back to the bathroom, this time in much more pain and panic. I repeatedly flushed my eye to little avail. The pain wouldn’t subside. By this time a crowd had gathered. It turns out Eli had poured the chemical catalyst into a Visine bottle as it made a better dropper than the one that came with the kit. I had unwittingly poured the toxic catalyst directly into my eye. I spent the rest of the day in the hospital getting an iridium flush to assess the damage, and the next two weeks wearing an eyepatch like a pirate. Eli never apologized, nor accepted responsibility for neglecting to label a bottle that is explicitly meant for dropping in your eye and indicating that he had replaced it with a toxic poison. 

Love 

Christine came into my life when I was least prepared for her. I had been a bachelor, enjoying the responsibility-free, unencumbered life that managing a hostel entailed. There was always a new crew of travelers, eager to socialize and party. The hostel was a short walk, or stumble, from The Sunshine Beach Bar. It was a small, one room, five table establishment with a halfmoon bar, great music and a classic barman. Troy, the barman, comped us drinks so long as we brought in a couple of guests from the hostel. We ended up making fast friends. In addition to tending bar, he was a late night radio DJ and his favorite thing to ask the bar patrons was “Which song would you want played at your funeral?” His, hilariously, was Frank Zappa's  “Freak out!”. We shut down the beach bar many nights. I still intended to make my way to Padang in Indonesia in order to find boatwork, though things were going pretty good in Australia and I was in no rush. The point being, the last thing I was looking for was love.

At the time I was casually dating an Australian woman. The relationship had run its course and I was ready to be unhitched again. I broke things off with her and literally within days, Christine arrived at the hostel. Christine and her friend Jenny were Canadians and both were attractive, outgoing and kind. After a night out at the Beach bar, Jenny joined me on the walk home along the beach. At one point, she leaned in to kiss me and for some reason I pulled away. I told her it was because I had just broken up with my girlfriend and I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t a lie, but it was a stretch, and it was intended to spare her the rejection. If I’m being honest, I’m not really sure why I wasn’t interested, but that decision changed my life. 

A couple of days later her childhood friend and travel companion Christine and I went for a hike and a swim in the National Park. We connected naturally, and I was crazy about her from the start. She was smart, bold, funny and incredibly beautiful. The chemistry was palpable between us. Before long we were inseparable. She had no idea that her best friend had made a move on me just days prior, and insists she would have avoided me had she known. It’s crazy how these small, seemingly insignificant moments can have such profound impacts on the course of your life. 

We enjoyed a couple of months of intensely deep connection. All the while we agreed that this was a travel fling, and that it would inevitably end when Christine continued her travels. After a couple of months that day was fast approaching. After managing the hostel for so long and both of us traveling and meeting so many people, we were accustomed to forming transient and temporary friendships and having them end abruptly. We discussed the inauthenticity of collecting contact information for all of these temporary relationships, with hollow promises to stay in touch. We accepted that these encounters ‘on the road’ were unique and amazing and should be enjoyed in the moment for what they were, without the obligation of any future commitments.They were short, often beautiful connections over shared experiences. I had made a comment about ending the relationship like ripping off a bandaid, in one quick, detached moment. The day inevitably came, and we agreed to say goodbye without trading any further information.

Shortly after Christine left, I couldn’t sleep. It was 3:30 in the morning and all I could think about was Christine. How, on a visceral level, I knew that she was the one, and that I had fucked up. How could I let her walk out of my life forever without so much as an email address? I stayed up into the predawn light, writing her a letter, pouring my thoughts and heart out onto the paper. Something I had neglected to do with her directly. I had no idea how, or if I would ever be able to share the letter with her, but I felt compelled to write it anyway. In the morning, unable to stop thinking about her, I realized that she and Jenny had obviously checked into our hostel and at least one of them must have signed into our sign in book. I thumbed through the pages until I was near the date range that she and Jenny had arrived. And there was Jenny’s name and her family’s  full home address in Edmonton Alberta, Canada. I would mail the letter to Jenny’s parents asking them to pass it on to Christine. It may take a year, but at least she would know what she meant to me. 

A couple of weeks passed, and I had yet to mail the letter. I was doing my daily van run/backpacker pick up from the bus stop in town, when I saw her get off a bus and walk back into my life. I could hardly believe my eyes. She was back! She made some excuse about picking up an overdue paycheck from a restaurant that she had a brief stint working in. I later found out that this was not the full truth. We went for a hike together through the National Park, reminiscent of our first date. We easily picked up where we had left off. I had the letter in my pocket, and was nervously thumbing it. Would I share it with her? How would she react? We sat down on the rocks overlooking Alexandria Bay. She apprehensively shared with me that she had actually returned to see me, that she had missed me and that she wasn’t ready for things between us to end. I pulled out the letter and handed it to her. More than 20 years later we are still in love, together and parenting two amazing kids.

New Caledonia 

The Worst Trip of My Life

In a strange and cruel twist to my newfound relationship, there was the awkward issue of my preplanned visa renewal flight to New Caledonia, with my ex-girlfriend Angela (what is with women with that name in my life?). She had close connections in the travel industry and prior to our split had offered to book me a massively discounted flight to New Caledonia. My Australian visa was expiring and I needed to leave the country in order to renew it. I had researched it, and it looked amazing. A remote, subtropical French Colony, in the South Pacific, north of New Zealand and East of Queensland. There apparently were remote offshore reef breaks with incredible surf, great cafes and french cuisine. I was in.Then I found out one little hitch. Angela had booked a vacation with her family at the same time and even on the same flight. Christine, being confident in what we had built together and not typically the jealous type, suggested that I go. Things were amicable between Angela and I and I did need to renew my visa. Things were going as planned at the Brisbane airport, until I went through customs. Angie had booked my flight a day later than I had asked (presumably so we’d be on the same flight) and now, too late, I realized my current visa had expired a day earlier. I was pulled into a backroom and questioned extensively. Why had I overstayed my visa? My ex-girlfriend excuse held no water with the customs agent and he stamped my passport inoperable. Shit. I had a return flight from New Caledonia in a week. I asked the customs agent what my options were. He shrugged and said you’ll have to take it up with the Australian Consulate in New Caledonia.

When I arrived in Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia. I checked into a gritty hostel on a hill above town. I immediately walked into town and found the consulate. When it was my turn to speak with the consular agent, I shared my story and asked what I could do to get back into Australia. She replied gruffly, “Write me a letter explaining why I should let you return to Australia and bring it to me in 7 days. I’ll decide then”. My return flight was in 7 days.

I poured my heart out into that letter and may have stretched the truth about my ‘fiance’ Christine waiting for me in Sydney. While we were nowhere near engaged, I knew deep down that one day we would be. 

The remaining 6 days were miserable. I tried unsuccessfully to find a boat to take me out to explore and surf the outer reefs. It was cold, rainy and windy anyway. I was mostly confined to my dorm room in the hostel wondering if I’d ever get back to my life in Australia, and back to Christine. One day Angela showed up at the hostel and invited me to join her family for the afternoon. They were staying at a 5 star resort on the beach. I accepted her offer and joined her wealthy parents for lunch. Her father was a decent guy and we got along well. However Angie’s mother was extremely rude and condescending to the wait staff. I recoiled in shame as she ordered the staff around, complained endlessly and generally embarrassed us all. 

Though my greatest embarrassment came later that afternoon. I took advantage of the opportunity to use the resort’s steam room. After my steam I took a shower in a luxurious private shower room. When I tried to open the locked door to the shower room and leave, it wouldn’t unlock. I tried various means to shake the handle and eventually it sunk in that I was trapped. My first cries for help were quiet and sheepish, as the reality hadn’t quite set in. Eventually, as time passed and panic started to rise I was yelling and banging as loud as I could. Finally I heard someone on the other side of the door answer. Within minutes the french speaking maintenance staff were trying the handle from the outside. After many failed attempts they told me to back up and I heard power tools. I looked around, I was completely naked and realized there was only a tiny face towel in the shower room. My full sized towel was on the other side of the door. I covered myself as best I could and waited for the door to come off its hinges. When finally I was freed, a small crew of workers and strangely Angela’s father were standing outside the shower room, while I stood shivering, wet, holding a face cloth covering myself.

The morning of my flight, day 7 of 7 I walked directly to the Australian consulate for its 9:00 a.m. opening. The consulate was on the second floor of an otherwise unremarkable building, and there were several other consulates in the same small office space, each with their own reception window. When I entered the office, letter in hand, full of nerves and anticipation, I was met with an empty window. The other consulates were staffed, but the Australian one was vacant. I asked at the New Zealand consulate’s window where they informed me that the Australian woman, my only hope of returning to Australia, to Christine, to my life, had called in sick. My heart sank. Disbelief. I left the office and walked aimlessly around Noumea, despondent, depressed and at a loss of what to do next. I sat in the central park feeling defeated and tried to solve the problem solve. I ended up in the pub. A couple of hours had passed and I was making my way back to my hostel, sure that I would miss my evening flight. On a whim, with little to no hope, I returned to the consulate. When I opened the office door, to my surprise, the consulate agent was there. I couldn’t believe it. I approached and handed her my letter. She read it. Stared at me for a long moment.  Anxious seconds passed. She asked for my passport and without a word, granted me another entry visa. I raced back to the hostel, packed my bags and headed to the airport hours early. 

Christine and I spent the next few months growing closer, until I had to return home to Canada. Christine started to work in Sydney and we planned on trying living together in Victoria BC when she returned to Canada. I had scrapped my plans to continue on to Indonesia. That year in Australia marked a turning point in my life. It was the death knell of my youth and the last time in my life that I felt that I was without responsibilities. My thirst for travel, novelty and surf were not quenched, but my perspective and approach to life shifted in a new and meaningful direction.

 

Costa Rica 

The first time we visited Costa Rica was 2001. Our friends Chris and Jen had shared information about a dusty little beach town, with a small eccentric expat community located on a beautiful beach. They told stories of warm consistent surf, and a mellow jungle vibe on land. We were sold on the idea of visiting.

What started out as a plan for a surf trip, quickly evolved into an elopement when, shortly before our departure I proposed to Christine. We were naive and in love and as it turned out, probably too young to take such a step. One of my closest friends, Neal, was joining us on what he assumed was just a surf trip. We let him know of our plans for an impromptu beach wedding and recruited him to be our Best Man, our Witness and our Wedding Photographer. The thing was, Neal had never shot a roll of film in his life. We gave him two cameras, one a point and shoot and one my Canon SLR, a few quick directions and hoped for the best.

A couple of nights before the ceremony we had a celebration. We pulled up to the bar that was located in our hotel. Diego the bartender, who was about 16 years old and a hopeless romantic (he had Lionel Ritchie on loop every shift) was as excited as us about the wedding. He wanted to be a part of our day so he volunteered to be a witness and he had a video camera to record the ceremony. That night, he unfortunately also introduced us to Cucarachas (a flaming shit mix cocktail that is meant to be consumed while still on fire). This led to a forgettable night and a last minute blow out between Christine and I. Fortunately, the following day we were able to smooth over the conflict and we both still wanted to marry one another. The day before the wedding we scouted a beautiful little spot at the foot of a grove of palm trees. This end of the beach was usually quiet and relatively private. The day of our wedding there was a large Tico family hosting a barbeque on the beach and we were concerned that we’d have to find a last minute alternative venue.  As the day progressed and the hour approached our nerves intensified. We had arranged for a lawyer to arrive from Nicoya (the capital of the Canton, about an hour's drive away over a very rough road with a handful of river crossings). Our lawyer’s arrival time came and went and he was nowhere to be seen. The sun was getting lower in the sky and the chances of having a sunset wedding were slipping slowly out of reach. Then, in a flurry the lawyer and his wife arrived. Apparently the bus they had used to travel to Nosara had broken down and they were delayed by an hour. We hurried down the beach to find that to our luck, the family bbq had vacated, and the sun was still high enough to perform the ceremony. Our wedding went off without a hitch, though some of the lawyer’s wedding contract was lost in translation. Diego filmed the ceremony and Neal managed three beautiful and memorable images from the rolls of film he was given. The wedding suited us perfectly, it was small, simple, beautiful, filled with challenges and stress and ended just the way it was meant to. Years later our friends Chris and Jen met Diego who was still working at the same hotel, and through conversation, they learned that Diego still had the video from our wedding ceremony. Apparently the video is beautiful, though we’ve never seen it.

Playa Guiones

One afternoon, Neal and I were surfing the North end of Playa Guiones in unremarkable conditions. As always, the sun was shining brightly, and the water was pleasantly warm. When I turned to look toward the shore, to take in my surroundings. I saw a line of palm trees and the encroaching jungle. Sitting proudly on the headland at the North end of the beach was the Nosara hotel, with its unique and unusual architecture designed by a wealthy Greek investor. The building had a peculiar feature—a hand at the apex, holding the hotel between its forefinger and thumb, as if it were being gently placed by a divine force on the jungle-covered hilltop, overlooking the pristine beach. There were only a few other structures visible from the shore, as a 300-meter green zone protected the coastline. An ideal tropical surf destination if ever there was one. However perfection is an illusion. As I turned to catch a wave, unbeknownst to me, a juvenile crocodile surfaced an arms length behind my dangling feet, trailing me in pursuit as I caught a wave. Meanwhile Neal remained alone out back, with the unsettling knowledge that a prehistoric predator lurked underwater dangerously close to where he sat. 

Despite the crocodiles, the scorpions and snakes, and the remoteness of Nosara, we knew that this was a place that we wanted to set roots and spend more time. There was a virtual goldrush on property and realtors were selling lots left and right, with little to no regulations. In a country that still honored squatters rights, and was full of stories of swindlers and ripoffs, investing was a risk. We befriended a Swiss developer, business owner and longtime resident of Nosara that we trusted, as much as three young and naive travelers can trust an expat that they’ve known for a couple of weeks. He offered to show us a few properties that he thought may be in our budget, which was virtually nil. We found a backwater jungle lot, still less than 1000 meters from the beach and decided to take the risk. Thierry ended up being exceedingly helpful and patient with us and our trust in him was warranted. We actually had to take out a line of credit to purchase our share, and Neal bought the other share. Thierry helped us set up a corporation, file all the necessary documents and basically held our hands through every step. He later confided that he was tired of selling off chunks of paradise to wealthy, speculative investors and was eager to help three young idealists, with whom he felt more aligned, find a way to realize a dream.

The evening after we finalized the purchase of the property, we went to the rodeo to celebrate. The rodeo (Las Fiestas) is a big deal in Guanacaste, the province in which Nosara lies. The Fiestas are usually a four day event, with music and dancing, street food, vendors hawking cheap shit, churros and beer and of course the Tope (a parade of horses) and the Corridas de Toros (bull riding competition). Young, bold men called montadores, ride dangerous bulls in hopes of glory and the prize purse. Just down the road from Nosara in Garza, is a finca that was home to La Malacrianza (Badass, or Assassin Bull) as it was famous for killing riders. The more dangerous a reputation the bull has, the more clout a rider earns. This was our first Costa Rican rodeo, and we had little expectations. It became immediately clear that this wasn’t like the rodeos we’d seen in North America. For one, anyone from the crowd could stand inside the rodeo ring and act as untrained, impromptu rodeo clowns. During bull rides the crowd backs off so as not to interfere with the rider, as soon as a ride ends there’s a group effort to try to touch and dodge furious bulls. Neal and I in our youthful foolishness decided to tempt our fate and join the action. Each round, after every bull we started to feel bolder and more confident. Once a rider was either bucked or had successfully dismounted, the crowd of us would try to help the caballeros roundup the bull by driving it towards the chute. The expert horsemen would lasso the bull, and then guide it back into the chute. The goal of everyone in the ring seemed to be to get close enough to the bull to touch it. In between rounds, vendors would sell beer inside the ring to us fools. 

A few rounds in and Neal and I were brimming with liquid courage. A rider came out of the gates, mounted backwards on the head of a particularly mean looking bull. The crowd went wild. Despite his death grip on the horns the bull lowered his head and rammed the showman repeatedly into the fence. The rider was no longer moving when the dust settled. Neal led the charge, sneaking up swiftly and stealthily on the bull from behind. I watched as Neal touched the bull, turned and ran in triumph passed me as I was on my approach. Feet from the beast, it suddenly turned on me. There was a moment of recognition that passed between the bull and I. Time stood still, until It charged me with bad intentions and I ran for my life towards the fence. There was about a three foot clearing below the bottom rail of the fence, but it was lined with people. Running for my life, imagining the bull’s hot breath breathing down my neck I hit the dirt and slid under the fence, taking out two people at the ankles in my escape. I apologized profusely, “Lo siento!” feeling sheepish for my recklessness and for potentially hurting wiser bystanders. One of the men I took out helped me up “Don’t worry about it man! That was close!” He assured me in English. 

The Caribbean Coast

It was on one of these early trips to Costa Rica we ventured away from the known comfort and familiarity that we had grown accustomed to in Nosara. We ventured across the country to the Caribbean coast. In retrospect, this was one of the trips that I regret in which I had absolute horse blinders on for surf. Christine, unfortunately was outnumbered by Neal and I and we selfishly overrode and bypassed any sights, attractions and activities that led us away from the ocean. Today, in the relative wisdom that comes with age and twenty years of marriage, I recognise both the opportunities lost and my selfishness on this cross country tour. We bypassed coffee farms, the capital city of San Jose, active volcanoes, cloud forests and hot springs, all in a desperate race to get to Puerto Viejo, home of Salsa Brava which was touted as the most intense wave in Costa Rica. Twenty years ago Puerto Viejo had a rough reputation, as portrayed in Allan Wiesbecker’s inspirational road trip novel, In Search of Captain Zero. As described in the book, crack cocaine was becoming an epidemic in the once sleepy little surf town. True to the tale, when we arrived in the town just past dusk, in search of somewhere to stay, our car was approached and we were offered crack within 5 minutes of arrival. We ended up driving South of town into the neighboring community of Playa Cocles, staying in a beautiful little guesthouse, with a couple of beds with mosquito nets, a hammock on the deck and a lush garden filled with the vibrant flowers and plants of the Caribbean coast. The surf was on the rise, and I was preparing to surf the infamous Salsa Brava in the morning. My intel on the break was that it was a powerful and hollow reefbreak in which almost everyone wears a helmet. It's accessed through a narrow winding keyhole in the reef and it's best to follow a local. After a nervous night of fitful sleep I was awake before dawn. We packed up our gear and drove ten minutes into Puerto Viejo, in front of which Salsa Brava breaks for the entertainment of spectators and onlookers in the town. I spot the wave, it’s overhead, clean and strangely completely empty. I did not expect this. I have no helmet and now no one to follow through the access keyhole in the reef. After 15 minutes of sitting in the car, debating what the hell to do, another surfer finally shows up. Without a word I hopped out of the car and followed him to the water’s edge. I shadowed him through the reef and gave him a bit of space in the lineup. The sets poured through, empty. He wasn’t paddling for any waves and I can’t discern why. They looked surfable to me and I wondered if he knew something that I didn’t. Eventually I lost patience and decided to go for one. It’s a relatively uneventful ride, though I survival surfed it with caution and kicked out. The rest of my short session goes well, though strangely the other surfer doesn’t paddle for a single wave the entire time. I head back to shore through the keyhole with a sense of accomplishment in overcoming a fear. 

Panama

After the Salsa Brava session we decided to continue south to Panama and the Bocas Del Toro Islands. We drove to the border, where we were required to leave our rental car and walk a footbridge into Panama. After clearing customs we caught a taxi to a riverside boat launch. The trip through the rivers, mangroves and estuaries past subsistence fishing families living in wooden shacks on stilts is sobering. Yet again I’m confronted with the fact that I’m traipsing through people’s lives seeking peak experiences while these families struggle to survive. My privilege is not lost on me.

Our boat pulls up to a dock fronting a small town built on more docks. It’s charming and in a sense otherworldly. The majority of transportation is by water taxi, as the rest of the archipelago and their communities sprawl out into the Caribbean Sea from Bocas town. We found a little hostel within walking distance of the main water taxi docks. At dawn Neal and I are off to get a water taxi to one of the offshore reef breaks. For a few dollars, the boat will drop you off at the reef of your choice, and hopefully return to pick you up at an agreed upon time. What happens between drop off and pick up is entirely up to fate. If injury, dehydration, heat stroke, or shark sightings occur, you’re on your own until the boat returns. We boarded the boat with some locals who were clearly commuting to and from home. The lady beside us, who must’ve taken this boat her whole life, white knuckles the gunwale as the captain navigates towards the reef we want to surf. We don’t understand why until the propeller strikes the reef and kicks the outboard up out of the water as it screams in protest. The captain drops the motor back down and cranks down on the throttle. 

We pull up to a beautiful, head high left breaking in crystalline water. There is no one else out. Neal and I sit and try to figure out the wave before one of us takes an exploratory ride. The water is so clear you can see the reef in all of its splendor racing beneath you. It feels as though you're flying over the reef. It’s both mesmerizing and distracting. Another boat pulls up and a crew of really good, and aggressive young American surfers flood the line up. Waves become more hotly contested. Surfing is weird that way. Here we are, all clearly foreigners, sitting amongst immense beauty alone in the middle of the ocean in a remote archipelago of islands. All of us with a singular objective and clearly a shared passion. Yet not a word is spoken between us. We ignore one another, and have a mild disdain that someone else is spoiling our respective solitudes. It’s bullshit really. We’re just a bunch of grown adults playing in the ocean. Despite the mild tone of intrusion, the surf session is not ruined. The beauty is not lost on Neal and I and we relish the opportunity to surf quality waves in warm water until the boat returns. 

On the ride back to the dock, the rain hits. With tropical rain storms it's hard to convey the intensity unless you’ve experienced one. The rain falls in steady sheets, with unrelenting force. When we arrive back at the hostel we find Christine, reading. She ventured out into the town when the sun was out. It took her a couple of seconds after stepping out of our front door to learn that across the street was a prison. There was a barred window about 6 feet high. The prisoners would pull their heads up to peek outside between the bars and cat call and whistle at the pretty blonde walking alone down the street. She handled it well. It was the next few days that tested her. The rain never let up. The nice thing about surfing is rain has little effect other than occasionally bringing polluted water from runoff. While Neal and I happily explored various surf breaks in the rain for the next four days, Christine was confined indoors. All this after the cross country b-line. Not my proudest relationship moment.

Tofino BC, Canada

Tofino is hard for me to write about. I had some of the most amazing years of my life there, but also some of the most challenging. By the time I departed, 15 years after moving there, I couldn’t leave fast enough. 

After years of living in the small capital city of Victoria with Christine, which involved a two hour drive to surf a handful of decent points and reefs, I moved alone to Tofino. 

It’s a small and remote coastal village on a peninsula that is part of the expansive and incredibly wild and beautiful Clayoqout Sound. It sits on a finger of land, isolated from the rest of Vancouver Island by a mountain range accessed by the treacherous and winding highway that snakes through the guts of Sutton Pass. 

Christine and I had just separated, and I was in need of a change. The village of Tofino lies in the heart of Tla-o-qui-aht territory and was originally a trading outpost on the postal route for homesteaders and fur traders, then a fishing and logging port and finally as it stands now, an exploding tourist destination. For the 3,000 or so locals that endure the influx of a million visitors a year, life at the end of the road is both a challenge and dream. Blanketed in one of the only remaining stands of old growth Coastal Temperate Rainforest left on the planet, steeped in a rich Indigenous history that dates back thousands of years, laying at the foot of the Glacial Mariner Range of mountains and fronting the raw energy of the North Eastern Pacific, it is truly one of the most beautiful, ecologically intact and dramatic landscapes on earth. I fell in love with Tofino immediately. And though I was alone, with my dog, I started to fall in love with life again. I worked as an Marine Adventure Tour Guide, sharing the beauty and diversity of the coastline with visitors from around the world. As a lifelong environmentalist, I mostly felt pessimistic about the direction the world was heading. But inspiring tourists to see and recognize the importance of saving at least these stunning refuges of nature, became the drive and purpose that had been missing in my life.

Within a year and a half of my relocation, Christine and I were back together. We were bound by an inextinguishable love and respect and our shared custody of Kuma, the best dog that ever lived. Over the two years of our separation, we would trade weeks or months with Kuma, both in need of his comfort and companionship. One weekend Christine came to pick up Kuma and never left. The following years, with a newfound appreciation for my relationship, an exciting and meaningful job on the sea, and of course daily surfs at one of the local beaches, were some of the best of my life.

The following are four essays I wrote during those years, on surfing through the seasons on Vancouver Island..

Summer

We’re on the dock by first light. The sky over Lone Cone Mountain is a glorious orange and there are wisps of fog blanketing the old growth cedars, and spruces that grow all the way down to the high tide line. The loading of all of our surf boards, wetsuits, fishing and camping gear has disrupted a noisy pair of black oystercatchers, their bright red bills squawking as they fly by. The outboard roars to life, it’s the only noise in the small town at this hour, apart from the two oystercatchers. The bow and stern lines are thrown off, and we slowly putter away from the dock. As soon as we clear the harbor, I ‘pin it and trim it’ as they say, and we’re off weaving through the sand bars, kelp beds and rocks that litter the inner waters of the sound. I’m thankful for the seasons of guiding whale watching tours on this coast, if for nothing else than the familiarity that working daily on these waters breeds. We cruise past one of the longest continuously inhabited First Nations (aboriginal) villages on the west coast of Canada. A pair of Bald Eagles circles the waters fronting the village, eyeing the emerald waters below for salmon. Their nest, and the two new eaglets in it, is at the top of an old tree on Dead man’s Island, where the Opitsaht villagers used to place their dead at low tide, waiting for the high tide to carry the deceased back to sea to join their spiritual brothers, the Killer whales.

I turn on the VHF radio, and switch channels to hear the latest marine forecast. Last night, the buoys were showing a significant, long period swell, with the winds predicted to blow offshore at a somewhat secret reef break up the coast. But things change fast on this coast, with big tides, unpredictable wind shifts, and quick swell changes, you just never know. The first couple hours of the boat trip are through sheltered waters, but the last third is a completely exposed, open ocean sprint and it’s very, very isolated. The forecast is still looking good.

The sun peeks out over the snow covered Mariner Mountain range as we weave our way around the commercial crab traps spread over every sandbar in the sound. I navigate between a barely submerged rock on my portside, and 2 feet of water over a sandbar on the starboard side. There’s just enough room to squeeze through, and I have to trust the landmarks I use to line up rather than the GPS that can be up to 3 meters off. Even after hundreds of times through this narrow shortcut, I still hold my breath at the crucial moment. I wouldn’t be the first, or the last to hit the rock that’s claimed more propellers than I care to count. I crack open my thermos of coffee, and try to warm myself up in the cold, humid morning air. The tide is low, and the algae covered rocks along the shoreline are a smorgasbord for the black bears that live somewhere in those dark, impenetrable forests that are passing by at 25knts. I keep my eyes peeled along the shore, looking for the big black rocks that move, and sure enough I spot a mother and her cubs flipping over intertidal rocks and crunching the crabs that are hiding below. We slow to an idle and creep closer to shore. She’s oblivious to our presence. I cut the engine entirely, and we drift silently closer. She and her eager cubs are only twenty feet in front of our bow. We can see their breath and hear the mother crunch each little rock crab. After a few moments, they casually amble along the shore flipping more rocks, and we fire up the engine and are back on our way. It’s a stunning cruise, and I never tire of the scenery. Coming out of the channel and back to the open Pacific Ocean we spot a Humpback whale lunge feeding on pilchards. 

The humpback whales on the coast are making huge strides in population recovery. So much so that at certain times during the summer months the amount of whales can become a navigational hazard. A season ago, I was guiding a tour of Italians on a whale watching tour. We were cruising through the coastal islands in a 28 ft Rigid Hull Inflatable. The group of 12 passengers were seated in 3 person benches toward the bow of the boat, and I, the captain at the helm, was in a small open sided but covered console at the stern. The console was about the size of a phone booth, with all of my instruments, radios, helm and throttle contained in the small space.  It was early dawn and there was a low hanging fog sitting on the surface. But the visibility was decent. I was cruising around 25 knots an 1/8th of a mile from the shoreline of an island that until this day, I had never seen a humpback whale anywhere near. They were usually found feeding on krill, baitfish and plankton on the offshore banks. Today was different. In a moment, there was suddenly an entire 40 tonne whale in the air in front of us. I cranked the helm full over and pulled back on the throttles. Time slowed. The whale was spinning in full rotation off our port bow, its 1 tonne, 10 foot long pectoral fin on a collision course with the passengers in front of me. I swerved the helm again and slammed the throttles to swing the stern away from the descending fin of death. There was a moment just before impact where I ducked and closed my eyes in anticipation of a fatal impact. The fin missed the passengers but slammed into the console. It must have missed my head by mere inches. It knocked us off course and I stopped the boat entirely. I looked around to assess the damage and there above my head inside the console, was a 6 inch gouge out of the aluminum ceiling. The 2 inch thick steel bar that made up the radar arch beside me was bent inwards a foot. I had barnacles from the whale in my lap. The pectoral fin had somehow slammed inside the console and missed killing me. I still don’t understand how.  I leaned out of the console, amazed to still be alive and asked “is everyone ok?” A barrage of unintelligible Italian came back at me. No one was hurt. The whale swam a slow circle around us trying to assess what the hell had just happened. It appeared okay as well. I radioed in the incident to Strawberry Island Research Group and the headquarters of my company, and then proceeded to finish the day’s tour. Navigating this coastline is challenging enough without having to avoid a breaching leviathan.

As we round Sharp point we’re met head on with gale force winds. It’s going to be a rough ride from here on out, but we’re happy as the wind is directly offshore at the reef break we’re heading to. We stop to put on our cruiser suits that serve as life preservers and element protectors. I slog into the 4 foot chop, with a rolling swell underneath for the next 45 minutes. We pound our way up the coast, rattling every bone in our bodies the whole way and just when our kidneys have had enough, we spot big white plumes of spray blowing off the tops of perfectly shaped overhead waves. There’s already another boat anchored in the channel as we slowly cruise up to the break. We watch as a surfer strokes into a rising peak, it pitches just as he drops. He bottom turns and hooks up into the pocket as the lip throws out and ahead of him. He disappears momentarily and then is spit out. He cuts back, and the wave bends towards him as it rifles down the line. His friend is in the boat, setting up a rod to fish for salmon. I set the anchor and tie the stern line on to a strong piece of bull kelp. I wait for a couple of sets, with long, long lulls between, to ensure the anchor is holding. You lose your boat out here and you are in serious trouble. As I wait, I pull on my 5mm wetsuit, boots, and gloves. Finally, I leap overboard and paddle towards another perfect set unloading on the reef. This is wilderness surfing in Canada.

The boat-in mission isn’t the only option for surfing on this coast, but other than being dropped off by a sea plane, camping and waiting for the weather to be clear enough for a pick up, it’s the only way to access the high quality remote surf breaks up island. Unlike the user-friendly beach breaks of town, these wilderness waves are of serious consequence. One mistake could be your last. The combination of isolation, wild pacific weather and hypothermia inducing cold, make surfing here a balance between calculated risk, and outright luck. There are many stories of close calls; overturned boats, engine failure, anchors dislodging and boats drifting out to sea. The few surfers who have the skill, knowledge, resources to surf up here are a relatively close-knit crew who, on occasion, have saved each others’ lives. Finding the gems; the high quality, surfable waves on a coast this jagged, is next to impossible without someone in the know, passing along the coveted coordinates and landmarks. These secrets are held close, even in a small community where most know one another. A few Lucky Beers at the pub won’t unlock the vault. Without intimate knowledge of the coast, these waves will elude even the most persistent searches. Even with the exact locales highlighted on the chart, and flagged on the GPS, the conditions needed to produce both good surf and safe enough boating conditions are rare. Once you find good waves and a safe anchorage, there’s still the surf to contend with. These are serious, unhindered, powerful waves that usually rise abruptly from deep water and explode on shallow rock shelves. As you jump over the gunwale and start paddling towards the peak, the racing thoughts of how far you are from help are inevitable. You start to calculate the time it would take to get within VHF radio range, never mind the distance to the nearest hospital. Wave selection becomes critical. Each drop is a heart in throat, leap of faith. There are few surfers on this coast that have the skill to ride these waves, and fewer still that have the wherewithal and means to get to them. Those that do are a dedicated, experienced and hardcore bunch. Unknown faces showing up to spoil the party are not welcomed. This isn’t Long beach.

There really is no way to describe what it’s like to be sitting 20 yards off a reef, miles and miles from even the remotest civilization, turning around and in every direction you look is absolute wilderness. No evidence that the world has been touched by the hand of man. No tourists, no towns, no traffic, no houses, no power lines, hell you’re lucky if you can even spot a fishing trawler miles offshore, puttering back to the shelter, warmth and safety of Town. With just you and your friends sharing perfect waves alone, in the ocean, surfing becomes something else entirely. It becomes a legitimate adventure, with real consequences. It’s as far removed from the Waikiki and Southern California scene as you can possibly get. Self reliance becomes a necessity. Knowledge, skill and experience have a payoff far more valuable than just getting more set waves at the local beach break. . The thousands of hours, the years spent bobbing in the sea, the money spent on gear, the jobs and relationships sacrificed, they all seem worthwhile, even necessary to enjoy the fleeting moments spent out there in the wilderness, in the surf.

With a nod towards the channel, we both start the long paddle back to the boat. As we near the anchorage, the kelp beds thicken, making paddling all the more difficult. The bull kelp grabs at your legs and leash and it feels like you’re paddling in porridge. We’re exhausted, cold and hungry. While we surfed, every few minutes I’d glance at the boat to see if it was in the same place. Out here, dipping up and down between swells, your mind can play tricks on you. Thankfully the anchor held, despite the strong ebb tide over the last couple of hours. I undo my leash, and gently place my board in the boat. I barely have enough energy to haul myself back over the gunwale. We de-suit and pull on dry, warm clothes and our cruiser suits. My hands are numb even with the 5mm wetsuit gloves I’d been wearing. I manage to turn the key and the outboard comes to life. We breathe a small sigh of relief. I let the engine warm up as we stow away any and all loose gear. Our campsite and protected anchorage is still half an hour away and the seas are building and the wind is rising. If all goes well, we should be able to get there and be set up before dark.

We cruise without speaking; with only the repetitive drone of the outboard and the boat falling into each wave’s trough to disrupt the silence. Shivering occasionally, my thoughts turn towards dry sleeping bags and warm campfires. After what feels like an eternity, we pull up to a small, sheltered bay, with a rocky cobblestone beach that drops off abruptly. The unloading of camping gear is a tedious process. Cold, wet wetsuits get put back on; dry bags are packed and unloaded, as all of our camping gear needs to be paddled to shore. After a brief scouting of the campsite, we pitch tents and hang our food in a nearby spruce. We will probably have a few late night visits from black bears, but we don’t want them eating our only supplies. Bears aren’t the only concern. It’s not uncommon to wake up and find wolf prints around your tent. A little discomforting to imagine what’s happening outside that paper thin barrier of nylon that gives the illusion of safety while you sleep. Thankfully, when you’re out here, you’re usually too exhausted to lose too much sleep over it.

I hang my wetsuit over some driftwood, there’s not enough light left in the day for it to dry, but with any luck it won’t be frosty in the morning. I quickly turn on the handheld VHF radio to check the battery and listen to the marine forecast. It sounds like tomorrow should be as good as today was. I am sure to double check that I turn it off. The radio is our only connection to safety and help should we need it. We get a good fire going, even in this wet, coastal rainforest environment, the driftwood burns well. We heat up some salmon that I’d caught earlier in the week, and wash it down with cold beer. We’re warm now, and deeply satisfied. We reminisce over good waves and bad wipeouts. We watch the sun dip below the horizon, somewhere out over the vast Pacific. We watch for the green flash with no luck. Darkness falls quickly and the stars slowly emerge. There are more stars out here than I can ever remember seeing. We sit facing the fire and the ocean behind it, with our backs to the woods. I step away for a bathroom break. A couple of steps into the forest and I’m surrounded by absolute darkness. This is a vast and primordial wilderness, and it’s very much alive. There is more biomass here per square foot than anywhere else on earth. Gigantic old growth Sitka Spruce, Coastal Hemlocks and Western Red cedars grow with reckless abandon. The ground is spongy, green and alive, not an inch without something growing or decomposing. Being immersed in such unfettered wild is humbling and it’s not difficult to imagine you’ve stepped back in time a couple of thousand years. I sit back down by the fire, and notice the smoke is blowing offshore, if it keeps up the waves will be perfect tomorrow. Conversation flows easily, as the night grows older. We talk like many surfers do; of travel, waves, love and adventure. Not much is said about the day, not much is needed. We share a mutual understanding and contentment, a satisfaction that comes with time well spent and being alive in the moment. And these moments, as brief and as rare as they are, as difficult as they are to obtain, are what it’s all about. They are the moments of your life, the ones you’ll reflect on for the rest of your years.  

Fall

I’m heading west out of Victoria passing the daily commuters heading east into town.  Outbound traffic is light this time of day as most people are heading in the opposite direction on their way to work.  I pass row after row of headlights, all starting and stopping in the pouring morning rain, “Suckers”, I laugh to myself.  Today, I’m going against the grain.  I’m going surfing.  Fall may be the best time of year to be a surfer on this coast.  The Northeastern Pacific begins to stir, big low pressure systems develop, sending large swells our way with good conditions and relatively pleasant weather and water temperatures.  Once past Sooke, the highway follows along the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, offering fleeting glimpses of the glassy sea and the magnificent Olympic Mountains of Washington State directly South.  The majority of the Straight is sheltered with a fairly limited swell window but as the southern hemisphere systems of summer start to dwindle, the waters off of Japan and Alaska brew massive and successive systems that slam right into Vancouver Island and after laying dormant for the summer, the South Island reefs and points begin to light up. Today is one of those classic fall days.  The buoys are reading 14 to 18 feet at 17 seconds.  The swell angle is perfect, funneling right into the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  

As the highway winds through the rural outskirts of Sooke all the yellows, reds and oranges of Big Leaf Maples shedding their leaves for the long, cold winter ahead are a stark reminder of the changing season. The road winds down a hill and comes right to the water’s edge at Jordan River.  There are a few spots to surf here, but the Point is the main draw.  It’s a fickle spot, but when the conditions are right, it’s easily one of the best waves in the Pacific Northwest.  So much so that it has developed a following, and incidents of localism (fights, arguments and vandalism), are common.  I pull into the parking lot that fronts the wave, the windshield wipers clear my view of head high waves peeling flawlessly along the cobblestone point.  There are already 15 guys out, battling each other and the current that’s running down the point.  Although I’ve surfed the Straight for 15 years, I still only know a handful of the regulars.  I recognize many of the more dedicated surfers that surf the South Island, and they me, but we tend to keep to ourselves.  Surfing is primarily a solitary pursuit, each of us looking for our own solitude and isolation.  There is much less of a sense of community here than exists in Tofino, and most seem to like it that way.  With conditions like this, there are numerous options today and I opt not to overcrowd an already crowded lineup. 

The road winds up the hill, away from the coast and passes through clear cuts, and oddly uniform second growth forests.  I pull the car over a fair distance from the salal obscured trailhead that leads down to the coast and to a relatively secret spot.  I try not to make it too obvious that I’m parking along the side of the highway to surf so I hurry to get my gear together and get out of sight of the highway.  The last thing I want is a car full of surfers following me.  Most who surf on this coast know the general whereabouts of the less obvious spots, but I’m not interested in holding anyone’s hand or drawing maps.  I found this place on my own, and searching and finding waves off the beaten path is reward in itself.  The hike is difficult and breathtaking in more ways than one.  The mossy, cedar laden ground is spongy beneath my feet as I scramble over logs and through muddy creeks for nearly an hour. There are a few remaining giant old growth cedars spread throughout the second growth.  Passing silently through the dark, dripping rainforest my thoughts turn to the evening I was returning home from a sunset surf at a spot only a few miles up the coast.  I remember pulling onto the log bridge that spanned a swollen creek (it has since been washed out by mudslides and replaced).  There, in the light cast by my headlights, was a mature cougar.  With nowhere to go but straight ahead of me, I had the longest look I ever have at one of these extremely elusive, yet surprisingly common cats as it bounded along the bridge.  When it reached the far side, it disappeared into the dark depths of the forest in the blink of an eye.  I pulled over, excited and stunned and wondered how many times I had passed nearby these magnificent forest stalkers.  Almost every time since, while I hike along this coast, I get the feeling I’m being watched.  

The trail ends in a creek mouth, and it’s a short scramble over the driftwood to the cobblestone beach.  The break is still a good hike along the coast and overhead waves are crashing up the beach and rolling the cobblestones around like bowling balls. I round a bend in the coast and finally get a look at the break after an hour’s worth of difficult hiking with a surfboard and wetsuit.  The waves are perfect and there’s no one out.  I’m certainly not the only surfer skipping out on work today, within a few miles there are more than likely a hundred other lucky and intrepid souls, riding waves in the rain.  But at least for now, I’m alone.  Even the eagles and bears are conspicuously absent, this time of year they’re gorging themselves silly on dead and dying salmon in the river mouths. I work my way past a couple of waterfalls, dipping my head to cool off and take a seat on a log in front of the surf break.  I watch short, hollow waves peel along an eel grass covered shelf.  This spot is a rarity, requiring very specific conditions before it even begins to break.  It’s a long difficult hike, and arriving to waves is a relief.  More than once, I have arrived to lackluster surf, limping across the rocks, with one or more of a thousand variables left out of the equation.  It’s a difficult hike out when you haven’t reaped the rewards.  Fortunately, today the effort has been worthwhile and I will surf.  I change into my wetsuit, balancing one-legged on a log as I pull it on.  I pull my board out of my board bag, and tuck my clothes inside to protect them from the rain.  I’m in no rush today, as the waves will only improve as the tide ebbs.  I sit back down, waiting, watching and meditating.  The sets are frequent, almost every five minutes a set of three or four overhead waves begin to crumble and fold over a shallow rock boil, sending the rest of the wave pitching and lurching down the line in a thick slab, eventually smashing into a rocky outcrop.  I listen to the raindrops pelting against my wetsuit hood, amplified by the rubber.  I ready myself, and decisively stand up and rock hop my way to the water’s edge.  I time my paddle out with a set of waves just breaking across the reef. 

Spring

It’s a sunny spring morning and I have decided to head south, into Pacific Rim National Park. I round the corner past Schooner cove and the First Nations village of Esowista, once an important whaling site.  Each spring, thousands of gray whales migrate up the west coast of North America in a steady stream, making their way to the nutrient rich waters of Clayoquot Sound and points north. It’s not uncommon to see their telltale blows, just beyond the surf, hanging like giant sneezes above the surface.  Occasionally one will venture into the surf zone to scoop up mouthfuls of the sandy, muddy substrate of the shallows, and filter out all the creatures inhabiting it. I try to imagine what it must have been like for the  Nuu-chah-nulth that lived along this coast, what it was like to paddle alongside one of these leviathans of the deep, harpoon in hand, waiting for the moment to strike the initial blow, and the ensuing chaos that followed.  Once struck, more harpoons attached with sea lion bladder floats were driven into the whale, until eventually, it succumbed to the attack.  These epic battles lasted hours upon hours and once the whale had perished, the ordeal of towing forty tons of dead weight to shore, and hauling it up the beach must have been herculean.

I catch glimpses of the surf between the trees alongside the highway and with the sun out it looks clean and inviting.  I pull into the Incinerator Rock parking lot for an unobstructed view of the surf.  There’s a clean little south swell running, the first of the season. The parking lot is almost full. This is Canada paying homage to surf scenes the world over; people are barbequing from the back of campervans; wetsuits hung to dry for a sunset session.  They’re inspecting each other’s boards and catching up on winter surf trips to far flung tropical destinations.  They’re pointing at waves peeling slowly along the outside sandbar.  Kids build sand castles and get their first taste of the Pacific, dogs chase one another, families set up camp among driftwood shelters and lovers walk the tide line.  This beach, the jewel in the crown of Pacific Rim Park, this atmosphere; this is what draws up to a million visitors a year.  And it’s as much a part of the Canadian surfing experience on this coast as are wetsuits and ice cream headaches. 

With so much space, it’s not hard to find a little breathing room. I spot a peak breaking down the beach with no one within 500 meters.  I hurriedly pull on my wetsuit and make my way to it.  The water is still a cool 48 degrees, but it feels much warmer with the sun beating down.  I peel my hood off for the first time this year, and it feels as though I’m emerging from a winter’s cocoon.  Between waves, I watch lines of black specks strung across the sky, bending and warping into uneven V’s.  You can hear their indisputably Canadian honking before you see them; Canada geese, returning north, returning home.

After nearly an hour of fun little waves to myself, a small set approaches and I spot something large in the face of the wave. Suddenly a Steller sea lion bursts into the air and surfs down the face of the wave coming straight at me. This is at least 2000 lbs. of aquatic grizzly bear (they share a common ancestry) bearing down on me.  At the last second, he dives under me, the turbulence from his passing almost knocking me off my board.  In the next wave there are three more charging towards me.  I let the wave pass, and again they narrowly missed me.  I see a flash of darkness pass under me.  Then I hear the distinct blow of an exhale behind me.  There, five feet behind me, is a huge bull Stellar.  I spin around until we’re staring at each other, his head and torso raised to the same height as me on my board.  A moment passes, he assesses whether I’m a threat to his harem, me assessing my chances of surviving an attack from such an imposing beast.  He lets out a guttural growl that would rival any predator on earth in ferocity.  I bluff and let out my most menacing yell… no comparison.   He’s suddenly underwater, and although I’ve surfed with sea lions before, I’m completely intimidated.  I pull up my feet, feeling entirely out of my element.  A nice looking wave approaches; I spin and paddle hard to catch it.  I ride it in and decide that’s enough for today, I’ll leave it to the surly locals.

Winter

The alarm sounds, and right on cue, the CBC time signal indicates its 6 am.  Today’s World Report slowly creeps into my consciousness. I’m out of bed quickly, and getting into an assortment of long underwear and fleece.  I turn on the fireplace, guiltily (pleased) with the ease of propane.  I boil some water for coffee.  It’s still pitch dark out.  I throw on a toque and step outside with the dog.  The cold takes my breath away, and I shiver in spite of my warm clothes.  Even the dog seems reluctant to venture into the yard for a pee.  He glances up at me with a look that can only be disdain, as if to ask “Are you serious?” I nod and he gingerly steps onto the frosted grass.  I look up into the predawn sky, and can see stars; a rarity this time of year, as we’re typically blanketed in rain clouds.  It’s a good sign.  It means the wind has been blowing from the Northwest, clearing the clouds and making things extra cold, but blowing straight offshore at one of the best reef breaks on the coast. The dog trots past me and into the house with determination.  I head back in and switch on the weather radio “…small craft advisory, seas building to six meters at 17 seconds…” I switch it off with the first hint of butterflies in my stomach.  I pour the coffee into a thermos, and grab the lunch I packed last night out of the fridge.  I throw both into the Rubbermaid bin that contains my clammy 6mm wetsuit, gloves, booties, and an assortment of surf fins, wax, an extra leash and about an inch of smelly, detritus filled water sloshing around in the bottom. I grab two surfboards from my rack and load everything into the car.  I pull out of town and start heading south along the winding coastal road.  

I made a brief stop at the world famous Long Beach.  The 10 km stretch of weather exposed sand and driftwood that draws visitors from around the globe to our little village; so much so that they often refer to the whole region as “Long Beach”.  It’s still dark out, but I can make out whitewater lines well beyond Lovekin rock.  The area's number one tourist attraction is looking anything but inviting today. Another good sign, when it's ‘victory at sea’ here, it often translates into good waves in the more sheltered areas down the coast. I pull out of the parking lot with a renewed sense of anticipation.

Bouncing around the ruts, bumps, blast rock and puddles of the logging road, I’m grateful for my beater for putting up with the abuse I constantly put it through.  The sun hasn’t reached the horizon yet, but ambient light from below the horizon is beginning to light up the sky with a pale morning light.  The birds start to sing their morning warnings, flitting about in the salal and blackberry that grow in the clear cut I’m passing through and as the logging road veers towards the coast, I get my first look at the sea in the Sound and I can see solid swell lines marching towards the coast. My pace quickens.  As I make my final descent to the coast, there’s a break in the trees, offering a glimpse of the surf break just beyond.  A double overhead wave rifles across the reef, the lip pitching out towards shore, millions of tiny droplets suspended momentarily and then blown seaward by the strong offshore winds.  The lip explodes in the trough, and the open face of the wave peels out of view behind the trees.  

The car comes to a stop in front of a makeshift driftwood fence. I crank the heater and pour a cup of coffee from the thermos in a last ditch attempt to get my core temperature up.  This is one of the few waves on the coast that breaks intimately close to shore.  It’s a spectators’ wave..  More than likely a little later in the day the beach will be lined with a few dozen people, hooting and groaning with each successful ride or punishing wipeout. But for now, I’m alone.  A set approaches the reef.  The first section of this wave is notoriously heavy.  As the swell feels the rocky reef below, the wave mutates, throwing the top third of itself shoreward and forming a square, box-like barrel.  The water is only a couple of feet deep here, and wipeouts that result in encounters with the reef are commonplace.  As the lip touches down, it sends an explosion of whitewater skyward, and sitting safely onshore, you can almost feel the ground beneath you rumble with the impact.  The sun is rising over the offshore islands, bathing everything in a brilliant orange light.  Mist is heavy in the air from all of the wave action and as the waves rear up they’re backlit into crystalline green walls.  The Coastal Mountains of Vancouver Island are blanketed in a fresh layer of snow, making for a spectacular backdrop. It’s a scene like no other in the surfing world. 

I open the car door and step out into the dawn.  The dog hops out of the car and begins to explore the beach.  I unload my bin and pull out my damp, cold wetsuit.  There is a technique for putting on a cold and wet wetsuit on a freezing winter’s morning; one that ensures minimal bare skin exposure.  But there’s still the inevitable moment of discomfort when you have to pull the wet, wetsuit over your bare torso.  I wince and get it over with, the quicker the better.  I pull out my 6’6 and begin to rub wax on the deck to little effect.  The bar of wax is frozen solid as a hockey puck.  It effectively smears the existing wax around, but not much more.  I don’t worry about it too much, as my 7mm booties have a rubber sole that grips any existing wax on the deck of the board.  I clamber over the broken shells and boulders that make up the narrow strip of ‘beach’ between the forest and the ocean.  The last 50 meters to the water’s edge consist of slippery, algae-covered boulders with occasional 3 foot whitewater waves rushing over them.  I cautiously climb onto a big rock, strap my leash securely to my ankle and wait for lull.  The waves are so close I feel as though they’re going to smash into me, sweeping me into the boulder strewn minefield behind me.  Whitewater surges around my shins as the last wave of the set washes through.  Just before it starts to drain back to sea, I leap forward onto my board and begin to stroke for the outside.

Morocco

Inshallah (God Willing)

Nov. 2

We begin our descent into Casablanca. The name alone conjures up exotic and romantic images in my mind. I really have no idea what to expect. I purposely minimized my research for this trip in order to rid myself of expectations, and just immerse myself in a foreign land, wandering with a surfboard under my arm, a bag on my back and an open mind.

We touch down; my board bag arrives no problem. It’s always difficult arriving in a new country at night. It's so disorienting and overwhelming; yet I inevitably do. Outside the airport it's the usual chaos. Only this time, there are more people than I've ever seen at an arrival terminal. I actually have policemen breaking trail for my 6 foot 7” double surfboard bag and me. I feel like a prizefighter coming into the arena for the main event. Only instead of hip hop declaring my entrance, the air's filled with strange Arabic music.

The taxi routine's the usual, you know you're being overcharged, but really you're just too tired and disoriented to give a shit. The board bag fits inside the 80's model Mercedes, leaving me stuffed in the back to take in the night outside the window. Traffic flows in its efficient chaos, like it usually does in developing nations. Lanes as rough guidelines, traffic flows like a river. Outside the window billboards, McDonalds, car dealerships, mosques and palaces speed by. It's different but the same. It’s a modern cosmopolitan city with an ancient, traditional, Afro-Islamic twist. My first night in a foreign country, I usually like to stay somewhere relatively nice and comfortable, leave the dirt bagging it for once I get acclimated. I find a hotel near the beach. I check in and the porter escorts me to the elevator. With my board bag there's only enough room for me. I'm on my own from here. The Arabic symbols on my room key confound me, but I match it to the symbols on one of the doors. I knock...silence. The key fits and I'm in. It's a basic room, but it has clean sheets and a toilet. I open the balcony and am surprised to find the oily black vastness of the ocean right there. It feels welcoming and familiar. I try to sleep. Music from the bar downstairs is blasting a mix between Arabian nights and techno. What the hell, I'll go for a beer. I make my way downstairs. The room is set up like you'd imagine a Moroccan lounge might be. It's dense with a sweet pungent smell. Hookahs are billowing smoke from each table. I look to be the only non-local here. There are mostly men, well dressed... hell, impeccably dressed. The only females are a handful of young, J-lo look a likes clustered in small groups of two or three. Occasionally one of these girls will put on a slow, seductive dance putting J-lo to shame. A few make eye contact and smile, but I think I'm barking up the wrong tree. I'm pretty sure in a strict Muslim society, these beauties are prostitutes. I finish my beer and head to my room for a long shower.

Nov. 3

I rent a car and take off up the coast in search of a small town that's rumored to pick up more swell. The rest of the day is filled with French/Arabic and American hiphop blaring from my radio, getting lost in crazy towns, trying to take it all in and not hit anything or anyone in the process. As far as I can tell, roadmaps are nonexistent here, so guesswork, asking directions and navigating by the sun (I’m not kidding) are the only way I finally pull up to the tiny little beach town I was looking for. After a short drive along the beach checking the surf, I accidentally stumble straight into a surfer's hostel. It's a friendly crew, with a little English. I drop my bags and run down the alley to the beach for a quick surf and a rinse off in the sea after the sun has already set. It's mostly shoulder high closeouts, but it feels good to rinse the grime of the road off. I absolutely love paddling out and turning around to face shore in a new country. It's honestly one of the highlights of surf travel. Tonight’s view is a little 'Arabian nights' with whitewashed square cement buildings and a bright moon hanging in the cloudless sky. I come in at dark and make my way back to my room.

As I'm heading out to find food, the surfers who run the place invite me to join them for a meal. We all share a tagine, a traditional Moroccan meal cooked in a conical dish of the same name. We eat with our hands (or hand, as the left is used for something else entirely) out of the same dish. The food is rich and full of exotic flavor. Amazing. Conversation is mostly in French, but they include me as much as they can and I appreciate the generous consideration. When I travel, the tribal feel of the surf culture always amazes me. I have more in common with these guys than most of the friends I went to high school with. This sense of community is common, whether in Morocco, the South Pacific, Central America, or anywhere people dedicate their lives tied to the fickleness of the sea and riding its waves. After dinner we watch surf movies, we laugh and joke around. They tell me they watched Free Ride (the iconic 70's surf flick that defined an era) daily in the 90's as a pre surf amp up. It was the only surf movie they could get their hands on. It was dubbed in French, and was a copy of a copy of a copy, so it would pause indiscriminately throughout. I couldn't help but wonder if these guys were influenced enough by the film to adopt a full on 70's retro style in their surfing. I went to bed picturing them dropping into soul arching bottom turns and pulling drop knee cutbacks.

Nov. 4 

I just got out of a lukewarm shower. I tried to rinse all of the grime, sweat and stress off. The day started out peacefully enough. I awoke before dawn waiting for the sun. Eventually some birds started to greet the day. I went to check the surf in the closed up little beach town. The waves looked head high and glassy. I surfed for a few hours, once again by myself. Eventually a local paddled out to join me. We struck up a conversation between sets. He already knew who I was; word travels fast in surf circles in small towns. He was friendly, and we got into a rotation sharing head high right wedges breaking off a rock jetty. Between waves, I watched the fishermen amble along the rocks and do their thing. The tide came up and fattened the wave up a little too much, so I went in.

I packed up and said goodbye to my hosts, and thanked them for their hospitality. I was eager to explore and I was optimistic for the day ahead. I had no idea how my day would change. After eight hours of getting lost, taking the scenic route through shantytowns, ghettos, backcountry townships and city centers, I found myself entering the chaos of Marrakesh just as the sun set. The traffic was insane, everyone weaving, dodging, honking, starting, and stopping. It was excessive, even by third world standards. I was hopelessly searching for a Riad (a traditional guesthouse with a central courtyard). It had only a numbered door, in an alleyway, in a city of 1000000 people, with no real map. I was using a rudimentary map out of my Lonely Planet Guidebook. Good luck! I was getting close; I had just passed a landmark (the Bab Doukkala Mosque) that was apparently only a short distance from my intended destination. Then... the shit hit the fan! Suddenly, I somehow found myself driving in the Souq. Picture a market place, hundreds of years old with all manner of craftsmen, entertainers, hustlers, shopkeepers, livestock, mopeds, motorcycles and any other form of humanity you can imagine, set in an absolutely chaotic maze, with no real rhyme or reason. After following the flow of dwindling vehicle traffic I took a couple of wrong turns and was suddenly driving where no cars should be. Against the flow of pedestrian traffic, in sidewalk like alleys barely big enough to squeeze a donkey cart through let alone a car. I was trying not to kill any pedestrians, mopeds, motorcycles or aforementioned donkey carts, that were all weaving in, out and around me, while trying to squeeze the car through the alleys without removing my side view mirrors, when I hit a dead end. There was a mound of rubble, with just enough of a path for the motorbikes, mopeds and people to squeeze through. I managed a twenty point turn, all the while the flow of human foot traffic spared no consideration to allow my turn. No one was stopping to get out of my way. Life wasn't about to halt for one dumb, lost tourist. A few yells, one punched trunk and I was weaving my way back out the way I had come. I was laughing hysterically as I dodged artisan stands, and goats. Screw this! I'll just find a regular hotel on an actual road tonight. And here I am, in bed; still buzzing exhausted and excited to throw myself into the mix tomorrow.

Nov. 5

Once again I'm awake before dawn. After a few moments laying in the dark, I hear a loudspeaker burst to life throughout the city. It's a call to prayer. "Allah akbar, Allah akbar (God is great)..." repeated over and over along with more Arabic. It's a striking and undeniable reminder of where I am. I eventually found the Riad I had been searching for in vain last night. I have to duck to get through the doorway and the host, a friendly Frenchman, closes and locks the heavy wooden door behind me. Inside is an absolutely stunning courtyard, surrounded by a handful of individually unique rooms. My room is drenched in reds and burgundys with remarkable craftsmanship and attention to detail in every square inch of the room. When I envision Morocco, this is the type of room I imagine. The effort was worth it. I spent the rest of the day wandering through the souqs and the main square DJemaa el_Fna. It's a full on barrage on the senses. Overwhelming and mesmerizing at once. Every step through the labyrinth of a market confronts me with things I've never seen or imagined. I spend hours wandering, completely lost and content. The shopkeepers, artisans and craftsmen range from incredibly aggressive to wonderfully helpful. Most do not allow their photo to be taken, which is disappointing. Each person is more interesting, beautiful, or just plain absurd than the next. The big square Djemaa el-Fna, is truly one of the world's great spectacles. There are thousands of people; snake charmers, acrobats, dancers, ancient storytellers, soothsayers, witchdoctors and potion makers, henna artists, children boxing for spectators, food stalls selling everything under the sun (like stewed sheep’s face), caged animals, hustlers, pickpockets, touts, and beggars. This city is almost a thousand years old and it's a melting pot of mankind. I find one man with a table brimming with human teeth, I suppose to replace any missing ones you may have. He won't allow me to photograph him. The snake charmers chase me down and throw barely conscious snakes over my shoulders and around my neck, all the while shouting "Not scared, not scared" Then they demand 200 dirhams. Nakkatchat henna artists grab my arm and try to begin their work. I free myself from their grip and work my way to the steaming, smoking food stalls. Each stall has a team of hustlers trying to recruit me to sit and taste their wares. I look for one busy with locals, and brave a shish kabob and a beer. Halfway through, I've had all I can stomach. A small boy of six or so is eyeing my plate. I discreetly hand him my shish kabob, as I've already witnessed the chef whack a couple of these hungry beggars upside the head and shoo them away. As soon as his hands wrap around the beef kabob, six or seven other small hands reach through the crowd and snatch my remaining leftovers. I watch as they hungrily scarf the little morsels of beef they could manage to snag from me.

I wander back through the dark and mostly closed souks, still completely lost. I ask a shopkeeper who's closing up for the night for directions, another man gently grabs me by the elbow and leads me out of the souk to my Riad. He and I struggle to communicate, but he doesn't want any money for his help (a good 15-minute walk). He smiles and waves goodbye, just one human helping another.

Nov. 6

I'm awoken by the call to prayer again. Only this time the loudspeaker chanting sounds like it's coming from the end of my bed. It's still pitch black outside. I read for at least an hour until first light. I have a nice breakfast in the Riad's courtyard of coffee, fresh orange juice, crepes, and croissants. I spend a casual morning walking through the souks again, still lively at this early hour. In the square, I take a photo of a man who concocts potions from illegal and endangered animal parts. On a rug in front of him lies jars filled with ostrich eggs, a bowl with Rhinoceros horns, a leopard skin, and an assortment of unidentifiable remains of exotic creatures. I make my way back to my Riad, check out, and get outta dodge with my curiosity sated. It's one of the most incredible cities I've ever been to, but my senses are fried.

I drive all day. I drive across Luke Skywalkers' planet Tatooine. It’s difficult to imagine how some of these settlements survive out here. Small, clay homes in the middle of nowhere with nothing but rocky wasteland as far as the eye can see. Near the coast, I take a turn off the highway. Twelve-km down a single lane track that hugs the bluffs over the Atlantic, and I descend into Imssouane. It's a tiny fishing port that has a very long, sand bottomed, right-hand point break and a beach break. I arrive to no swell and a Belgian surf contest. The beachbreak is tiny and crowded so I give it a miss and try to find a place to sleep. Most places, and there aren't many, are full because of the contest. As soon as I check in to a very simple but clean little place, I have a shower and I'm asleep before dark.

Nov. 7

A rooster who obviously has his internal clock messed up wakes me today. It's at least an hour and a half before first light. I awake in my clothes, hungry and with a headache. I stumble down the road to check the surf, still crusty and half-asleep. It's depressingly flat. I can see the potential here though. There's an immensely long point break, impotently dribbling along today. This dampens my spirits a little more. Such is the blessing and the curse of being a surf traveler. In my opinion, you definitely get a much richer experience from traveling than most other travelers. The exquisite, blissful highs from seeking, finding and experiencing great waves, places and people that frankly, regular travelers are missing out on, are common. Not to mention the regular sense of contentment that surfing daily brings. It gives travel a spine; a sense of rewarding purpose, that just passive travel lacks, at least for me. The flipside is the severely depressing lows; the time, effort, money, energy and anticipation spent to travel around the world in search of an ideal, only to be bitterly disappointed by the infinite number of variables that are required to produce good surf. Flat, surfless days in tiny fishing villages can be painfully tedious to say the least. Here in Maroc, everyone seems to be an optimist. "Tomorrow", "Tomorrow" is the inevitable response. The cynical skeptic in me suspects this is just a carrot to entice me to stay and spend more dirhams in their desperate little village. But as always, the promise of a new swell, however remote, is usually too sweet to ignore. Besides, everyone here seems really friendly. The locals instantly 'bro down' with me, high fives and knuckle shakes all around. The few other surfer's around seem interesting as well. So, I'll stay until tomorrow.

Nov.10

The ocean is still frustratingly placid. Looking at it now, out of my window back in Imsouane, it's hard to imagine the ocean coming alive enough to surf ever again. I spent a couple of days living like a proper tourist in the resorts of Agadir. By day I’d leave my dirtbag digs, take the bus into the tourist district. The bus ride was an interesting journey, as I was the only outsider on the bus. It was filled mostly with Moroccans that lived on the outskirts of Agadir making their way into the city for work. As we pulled up to one of the biggest transport exchanges, I felt something inside my pocket. I looked down, and there was a hand reaching into it. I grabbed the wrist and turned, to see a young teenager, attempting to pick my pocket. The side doors to the bus opened and a group of witnesses started yelling at the boy in Arabic. A man grabbed the boy by the neck and was pushing him towards the open door. The boy pulled his hand out of my pocket in fear and I could see that it was empty. The man then threw the boy out the open door of the bus into the street and hopped off after him. The doors closed and the bus pulled away. I don’t know what happened next.

In the resorts of Agadir, no one paid me the slightest bit of attention. I would stride into a hotel resort like I belonged, grab a book from the free book exchange and post up at the pool with a cool drink. This was my library, my pool and my escape from the dirty little one room hovel that I was staying in Imsouane. One afternoon, a beautiful dark skinned woman sat in the lounge chair next to me at the pool. She proceeded to remove the top of her bikini and lay out in the sun topless. This was a Muslim country and completely offensive, so there was no doubt that she was a foreigner and ignorant or clueless at that. She struck up a conversation. She was a wealthy Londoner, worked to the bone in finance and this was her annual escape from the grind. We had a long conversation that led to dinner and drinks.

The following morning I woke with a vicious hangover. It’s Karma for a night drinking and flirting with an involved British woman. After an evening of conversation and flirting we ended up in her room. When she shared that she was in fact married, and that her husband couldn’t join her pre-planned vacation because he had to attend his mother’s funeral, I got up and left. 

The trip back to Imsouane, a couple hours drive to the north, is torturous. I pile into one of the old Mercedes that serve as public transport, sort of shared taxis. The four other Berber men wait patiently as the driver and I secure my board bag to the roof. I pile into the car, smile and nod at the other passengers crammed together inside. I'm certain the booze I drank last night is emanating from my pores. The Muslim men in the cramped car with me cannot be impressed. After half an hour of speeding down the winding highway, the gentleman next to me begins to get carsick. He pulls a plastic bag from his pocket and proceeds to vomit into it. Nauseous, I roll down the window, and try to breathe the dry desert air. I feel him convulse repeatedly, as our bodies are pressed together. Only another hour and a half of this to go. We stop for a short reprieve in Taghazout. It's an old hippie destination and a focal point on the well-worn surfer's migration from Europe. It looks like a good place, and I'll definitely return if the swell ever arrives as there are four world class point breaks in the area. A few more heaves from the poor man beside me and finally I'm deposited on the side of the highway at the junction to Imsouane. It doesn't take me long to hitch a ride into town. The Belgian surf crew has left town, as the contest finished in knee high dribblers, so there's more rooms available. I find a room overlooking the lackluster surf. I try to sleep off the rest of my hangover, but I'm swarmed with flies. I spend an hour killing flies until only a few remain. Shortly after sunset I'm asleep.

Nov. 11

I wake up and look out my window... still no surf. I walk into the village center looking for breakfast. All I find is a place with the worst cafe au lait and bread on earth. I choke down half of each, start to gag, and give the rest to a hungry looking dog. I'm not exactly in the best mood. Feeling lonely, bored, depressed and uncomfortable. Good surf will change all of that. All I can do is wait. I guess I'll go for a run, swim, stretch and continue to read.

Nov. 12

FLATNESS!! Lake Atlantic. I'm beginning to worry that I won't get any surf this entire trip. I'm almost halfway through my time in Morocco, and I've had two forgettable surfs. I'm going through a book every two days and I don't think there's many more English books left in this town. Between marathon reading sessions, I stretch, run on the beach, do push ups and sand lunges, swim and run in the water and generally try to keep from losing my mind. The food in this tiny village is pretty dodgy. I head down the road to get a tuna sandwich at one of the only cafes in town. The local surfer's who run the joint are cool; they sit down with me and attempt to converse in French and English. One of the guys puts sugar cubes in his coca-cola! I've read Morocco consumes more sugar per capita than any other nation on earth. No tuna sandwiches today so I ordered a Tangine de Poisson. They cook the tagine over an open fire with spices, veggies and supposedly poisson (fish). The tagine arrived like always, covered with its conical clay lid. I removed the lid, let the pungent steam settle, and staring back at me were four fish heads, with no bodies. This is an extremely poor village, in a poor country, but I've watched them feed the fish heads to the stray cats. I politely try to make a dent until I can stomach no more. I've just about had it.

Nov. 13.

I'm trying hard to stay positive. I can understand the obscenity of complaining about something as trivial as surfing and lack of waves in a country where many struggle just to survive. The fact that I have the privilege and luxury to travel across the world to play in the ocean makes me feel embarrassed about complaining. Just writing it makes me feel like an asshole. The waves have sucked and are crowded at that...so what? I don't have to worry about my next meal or a roof over my head. Today's highlight, apart from spending the day in the sun and the sea, is sharing the joy of surfing with a group of local kids. Four boys are sitting on the rocks by the beach looking bored. I notice them staring at me with my surfboard tucked under my arm. I gesture to my board and then the ocean, seeing if they would like to give it a go. They leap up, a little apprehensive but definitely interested. The biggest boy is first. He looks proud carrying my board to the water. Things changed quickly once I got him in the whitewater. His reaction was something between sheer terror and excitement. I pushed him into a few waves and he'd had enough. His friends were anxiously watching from shore. I pointed to them and they raced to be next. I pushed each one of them into three waves each before it was the next boys’ turn. None of them spoke a word of French, let alone English. These were all Berber children, so they may not even have spoken Arabic. All of our communication was with our hands. After a successful ride, I'd raise my hand for a high five and they'd stare at me in bewilderment. The last to go was the smallest. He couldn't have weighed more than forty pounds soaking wet. He was the one with the most heart and courage. He made it to his feet on each of his three attempts, and had a proud grin from ear to ear. I laid on the high fives and whoops a little thick. This was too much for the biggest kid (who had tried and given up first). I gave him another go at it. Eventually all four kids left with huge smiles on their faces, as did I.

Nov. 15

A real swell is on the way. The marine forecast is posted on the wall of a building in the port where the fisherman gather. A solid low-pressure system is tracking across the Atlantic on a collision course with North Africa. The isobars are dimpled across the chart. The swell is building to three to four meters followed by another larger system. I decided to head to the epicenter of Moroccan surf, Taghazoute. I catch a ride to the highway in a taxi that spews radiator fluid on my feet. Once in Taghazout, I found a nice room, had a shower and hopped a bus headed for Agadir, the nearest town with a bank. The local bus is packed with young school children who, much to my amusement, are all singing at the top of their lungs. The man sitting next to me grumbles in Arabic the entire ride, rubbing his temples. He is clearly not pleased. All I can say is "les enfants" with a shrug "c'est la vie." I don't think he shares my feelings.

Nov. 16

The swell hasn't hit the coast here yet. I accept it, knowing that soon the points will light up with the energy of the oceans' pulses. Insha Allah (God willing). After a good breakfast, (there are way more food options here) I decide to walk up the coast to scout the breaks of Killers and Anchor point. A young guy, maybe 18, happened to be walking along the road in the same direction as me. We fell in step and attempted to communicate. He didn't seem like he wanted anything from me, which was a refreshing change. So, when he beckoned me off the road down a cliff to the beach, I reluctantly followed. He took me to his dwelling; I have no better word for the shelter in which he and his father squatted. It was tucked into a crag on a cliff. It was constructed mostly from cardboard and bamboo. In all of my travels, many to developing nations, I had never seen, let alone stepped foot inside such a sad, sorry excuse for a shelter. His father was asleep on a mat, with a dirty, goat skin blanket draped over him. The stench of fish, rotten food, urine and hash smoke was nauseating. The father awoke abruptly. He was startled and apparently glad to have a guest. They offered me the only piece of furniture, a wooden stool. The entire shelter was no more than eight square feet. Flies, garbage, a few utensils, two sleeping mats and a radio were its entire contents. The next hour was confusing, intimidating and fascinating. The father began calmly enough, excusing his sleeping by telling me he'd been up in the night fishing. He showed me his fishing line and inner tube in which he spent the night. Meaning that he actually kicks and drifts out to sea, in the night in a fucking innertube! They offered me some cold fish stew, festering in a fly swarmed pot. They also offer me tea, and a smoke (a strong tobacco, hash combo). I politely declined. I figured they could ill afford to share anyway. The conversation, a one way diatribe from the father, grew intense. He spoke Spanish, and from my little Spanish, all I could gather was that somehow, the Moroccan King (not the current Prince, but his father's father) had this man's parents killed. He wrote on a piece of paper that he was a political refugee and he had been persecuted and imprisoned. He grew angrier and angrier, yelling and slamming his fist, and then staring at me for some sort of reaction. I tried explaining to him that I could only understand "un poco." This enticed him to try harder. He had two pictures of King Muhammad pinned to his cardboard wall. He would spit at them and curse "Puta!" and bare his fingers into a cross against them. He explained to me that the monarchy was like an octopus, and the military, politicians and police were like its tentacles. His final and most crucial point was that in the eyes of Dios, Allah, God we were all equal. "You me, same. Same." he said. I understood him and agreed with him adamantly. I left, with both of us smiling and shaking hands and touching our hearts, a traditional gesture of friendship.

Nov. 25

It's stormy this afternoon. The ocean out my window looks like chocolate milk. A couple of surfers brave the freshly polluted water, but I think I'll leave the hepatitis to them. The surf has been fun this last week. I surfed Anchor point this morning; it was big, lumpy and messy but still fun. I was the only one out at sunrise, and then the crowd slowly started to filter in as the waves cleaned up and got over their morning sickness. I surfed until the first drops of rain fell, and the sky turned cobalt gray. There was a storm approaching.

The last couple of days I've been staying in a dark, cell-like room in Taghazout. I met a couple of local guys, Saharan and Habid. We shared countless cups of mint tea, and great conversation. Eventually they invited me to stay with them. I only stayed a couple of nights, uncomfortable on a cold, hard mat on a cement floor in a pitch-black room. The walls were decorated with boyband pictures and misspelled ink graffiti. "She Guevara, bob marle, 2pac, nike, rip curl, etc." Reading the walls kept me amused and from focusing on how dismal the room was. Yesterday I checked into Mr. Fantastique's place. He (Mr. Fantastiqe) is ultra skinny, a dead ringer for a skeleton and all he says is "Fantastique, wicked, Mr. Fantastique." I haven't figured out what kind of drugs he's on, but he's definitely tripping on something. His place isn't bad though. It's right on the beach, hostel-like; plenty of Euro's and clean rooms.

Just before sunset there was a mad panic to get all the fishing boats high enough up the shoreline to avoid getting smashed by the rising sea. The fishermen know better than anyone what the sea is capable of, and what is coming. During the melee, a fight broke out between Mr. Fantastique and a fisherman over a boat blocking his vehicle. Mr. Fantastique, picked up a stone the size of a football and hurled it at the man, narrowly missing his head.

Nov. 26

The fishermen were right to move their boats last night. This morning I awoke to the rumble of huge surf. The butterflies in my stomach arrive before daylight. In the pre dawn light I can make out massive swell lines approaching, lurching and unloading all up and down the coast. I can just make out Anchor point 1.5 km to the North. I practically ran the whole way to the point. I'm barefoot yet I hardly notice the small pebbles underfoot. Timing the jump off the rocks and into the crashing whitewater is critical today. A mistimed jump could spell disaster, as you'd be smashed into the rocks by massive walls of whitewater. I wait for a huge set to wash through, and make the leap of faith during a lull. Stroking madly for the outside, I notice there's only two other surfers in the water. This is a famous spot, usually packed with 50 or more people. The waves are double overhead and perfect. I catch some absolute freight trains. I surfed for 4 and a half hours, going faster today than I've ever gone on a surfboard. I stopped only for lunch, and then I was back out there. By late afternoon, my arms are cramping and I'm exhausted. Tomorrow looks like more of the same. This is why I came to Morocco.

Nov. 27

Another stellar day. Surfed all morning. At breakfast I met an Aussie and a Hawaiian surfer that were heading up the coast to a more remote wave. We piled in the Aussies’ van. He had driven it down from France, a pretty common road trip for European surfers. We take an anonymous dirt road down to some bluffs, and below us is another great spot called Draculas. Aptly named due to the blood the sharp rocky shoreline often takes from surfers. This spot is infamous for its sketchy entry and exit from shore. The only way out of the water is through a 5-foot crack in the cliff face. You basically have to time a wave into the cave, or you'll be swept down the coast. The next exit is a beach a mile away. We had it all to ourselves.

That evening there was a party that some of the European guests were throwing at Mr Fantastiques'. I spent most the night talking to a pretty Israeli surfer girl with beautiful brown eyes. We talked mostly about Israel and Palestine as I tried to imagine what it must be like to live, date, surf, and go to work in a war zone. I also had an interesting conversation with an Aussie who participates in medical trials to fund his travels. A human guinea pig. An interesting night, but I’m in bed early, as the swell is supposed to peak tomorrow.

Nov. 28

Today I awoke to the biggest, most perfect waves I’ve seen in 15 years of surf travel. I rented a car and drove all the way up the coast nearly running off the road or into oncoming traffic every ten minutes. The huge waves were that distracting. I would frantically pull over to watch huge gray walls of water explode. Draculas’ was unbelievable. Like a 500-meter long version of Mavericks (the notorious big wave spot in California). Boiler Point was off the scale. As a surfer, it was impossible to watch waves on such a grand scale without getting a rush of adrenaline. I raced up the coast like a madman; envisioning the long and sheltered point break at Immsouane being epic. As I came down the mountain that overlooked the port, the swell lines dwarfed the village. The waves at the exposed headland of Cathedral were exploding into the cliff face, sending whitewater hundreds of feet into the air. The reef in front of town was an ornery beast. The waves wrapping around into the bay turned out to be somewhat average. There was a huge current running down the point like a river. I got lucky on a few, managing to snag a good wave in front of the jetty before being swept down the point and out of the take-off zone. This was an exhausting surf. Long, leg burning waves, and long walks back up to the point (it was impossible to paddle against the current). By sunset, I barely had anything left in the tank, but I’m glad to have witnessed such an incredible display of power by the ocean.

Nov. 29

Today was probably the best day of surf I’ve ever had. The swell dropped from the madness of yesterday, leaving beautiful, mortal waves in its wake. I drive back down the coast, determined to explore. I take every dirt road heading towards the coast that I see. Eventually I find a wave that looks good… really good. There is no one in sight. I rush to get my wetsuit on, scramble down the cliff and pause for a moment at the water’s edge. I’m alone. No one knows I’m here. There’s no one around for miles and these are waves of consequence; hollow and powerful and breaking on a shallow rock reef and I’m in Africa! Surfers travel the world in hopes of one day, finding perfect waves with no one else around. This is it, this is the culmination of hundreds of thousands of miles of hard travel, dirty and dangerous nights, broken boards, diarrhea, flat tires, hustles and shakedowns, and I don’t even want to think of how much money. I swallow my doubt, and jump in.

I surfed for hours, catching really fast, head-high grinders. Barrel after barrel. They are the longest barrels I’ve ever had, but eventually, all of them closeout and punish me with intense wipeouts; the price to pay for the ride. Between sets, I sit on my board and soak it all in; the hot desert sun, the aqua green water, the dry dusty hills and the waves, the perfect waves. This is a moment I’ll keep with me for life.

Indonesia 2008

July 25, 2008: Siakup Village, Mentawai Islands, Western Sumatra

“You’re gonna wanna take a look at this.” I say to expedition leader Matt, who is dressing the cut of a young Indonesian boy across the cramped and sweaty room. An older Mentawai teenager has just discarded a filthy, blood-caked tourniquet to reveal a gaping, gangrenous wound festering on his shin. I clench my jaw, fighting back the wave of nausea that burns in the back of my throat. The odor of rotting flesh hangs heavy in the air. This might be more than we bargained for.

We initially came to this remote Mentawai village to deliver much needed school supplies and a few soccer balls to the children of the school as part of the humanitarian component of our Last Mile Expedition. The expedition was a unique surf journalism course designed to introduce university student surfers to a career path that suits their passion as well as challenges their character through humanitarian outreach. The expedition was originally conceptualized in the aftermath of the destructive tsunami that devastated Western Sumatra in 2006. Fortunately, the remote villages of these surf rich islands have more or less recovered to ‘life as usual.’ Unfortunately ‘life as usual’ means dilapidated and overcrowded classrooms, a desperate need for school supplies and little to no medical resources.

After a cautious, lukewarm reception, the group of children eventually warmed up to us. It was evident that these villagers rarely saw outside visitors, despite living just inshore of some of the world’s most coveted surfing reefs. Our arrival drew the attention of all the residents of the village who weren’t already out fishing. Admittedly we were a pretty odd crew; six members of the Cal Poly surf team, one female surfboard shaper from Rhode Island, two surf journalists, two angelic Muslim women acting as interpreters and cultural ambassadors and myself. We were a week into our surf, educational and humanitarian boat trip and were thrilled to be sharing the gift of education and some laughs with the local children.

After noticing the first boys’ open wound, Matt went back to the D’bora ,an 80 ft. An Indonesian built Panisi style boat, to get the bigger first aid kit, while I waited in the nervous boy’s family home. The windows were packed with curious onlookers by the time Matt returned; the word had spread that we were administering first aid.

July 15, 2008: 4:35 a.m. Padang, Western Sumatera

The torrential rain has finally stopped. I crawl out of my bunk. The ancient teak floorboards of the D’bora creek and groan under my feet as I climb out of the fore cabin and step onto the deck. The chocolate milk waters of the Padang River have subsided to a peaceful meander. Only a few hours ago, this same river was a swollen, raging torrent, making our departure an impossibility. Two other vessels had attempted to navigate the river and cross the Mentawai straight overnight and were turned back with their tails between their legs. We had traveled halfway across the world to surf and explore the Mentawai Islands only to be held back by the equatorial rains.

Finally, in the predawn darkness, the call was made. The time had come. The D’bora’s lines were cast off and with all hands on deck, we slipped silently through Padang. No one spoke as we drifted past the fishing boats, mosques and homes of Padang. The low drumming of the D’bora’s diesel engine echoing off the riverbanks was suddenly drowned out by a melodic and heady call to prayer blaring from the Mosques’ loudspeakers. We sat in reverential awe, as life in the port city began to stir, the devout prostrating themselves towards Mecca.

D'bora's bow rose and then fell abruptly, as she felt the first touches of the sea.

July 20, 2008 Underway Mentawai Island Chain

My body heaves as last nights’ dinner splashes into the bucket beside my new makeshift bunk in the salon. I’ve been quarantined from the rest of the group, so that the gastrointestinitis that’s wreaking havoc on my digestive system hopefully remains my burden alone. It’s still dark, but I haven’t slept more than a few fitful minutes all night. I’ve been rushing back and forth to the head, concentrating on not falling overboard despite my wooziness.

I’m shivering under two blankets now, even though it’s a warm, tropical morning. I hear the door to Mega and Patra’s cabin open, and the gentle creak of light footsteps padding across the salon floor. It must be nearing Adzan; the Morning Prayer. Both devout Muslim women must wash their hands, feet and faces, to purify themselves before praying. They find a secluded place on the boat, usually our fore cabin, and offer their gratitude to Allah. On more than one occasion, I’ve stumbled in from surfing, dripping wet, animated and obnoxiously intrusive, only to find one of these women kneeling in mid prayer. Such is life aboard our floating community.

When I was first introduced to Patra, I ignorantly extended my hand to shake hers. She smiled knowingly, clasped her hands in front of her in a prayer pose, and bowed her head. I sheepishly mimicked her, remembering that she, as an unmarried woman, cannot be within 24 inches of a man. This was one of the most challenging rules of sailing with these amazing women, as I constantly found myself wanting to help them in and out of the dingy or give them a big hug.

After praying, the ironically named Megha who couldn’t weigh a 100 pounds dripping wet in her full body Jubal, sits down to check on me. I assure her that I’m feeling better.

She grins, “Good, I want to see your smiling face again”

I wonder what they think of us, a crew of mostly young, Western surfers. So I ask.

“I think it’s great. I love to see how happy you all are when you come back from surfing.”

Megha is a schoolteacher in Padang. Most of her students are of the Minangkabau ethnicity, as is she. We discuss how important it is for these children to preserve their language and culture, which are under extreme pressure from both the larger Indonesian culture, and the ever growing wave of Western influence, brought to Padang and the Mentawai by surfers like me.

July 31, 2008 Lance’s Left, Mentawai Islands, Sumatera

In my bunk, the anchor chain rattles above my head, acting as an alarm clock. Each morning, we leave our safe anchorage in the dark, and sail to another perfect break before first light. This morning, the last of our trip, we pulled up to empty, fifteen foot Lances left. The sun isn’t quite up yet as I dive overboard, alone. I paddle to where I hope the peak is and sit up on my board. Long lulls are typical here so I have time to take in my surroundings. Looking down, I can clearly see the reef below. Parrot fish, Trevally and a whole underwater ecosystem of mysterious sea creatures drift in and out with the constant push and pull of the swell.

I turn and look towards shore where a riotous jungle fronts the beach. The sun is peeking through the palm fronds, bathing them in golden light. I see a man in a dugout canoe, expertly battling through the whitewater. He’s heading towards the D’bora. The locals have capitalized on the thriving surf tourism, peddling their wares, mostly indigenous carvings and local seashells, to the obscenely rich aliens who seem to only care about playing in the waves. I wonder about our influence on what were once isolated people, and the cultural ramifications of our presence.

I sense something behind me, and I turn back to sea to see a school of baitfish break the surface and scatter like a handful of pebbles. Just behind them, knifing back and forth through the silky water, is the dorsal fin of a reef shark. I watch the dance of predator and prey act itself out in front of me. I am not scared, only honored to be the sole witness. Both the shark and his fleeing school of prey, disappear into the blue depths. I dip my head underwater to watch them, but I’m met with only blurry, monochromatic shapes, and the muted clicking of coral polyps.

A set looms, and I realize I’m caught way inside. I stroke hard for the horizon, slightly panicked. The first wave of the set feels the reef and rears up. I gulp a massive breath of air, and press my knee into the deck of my surfboard, sinking it as deep as I can in a valiant but hopeless duck dive. My effort is in vain. The wave explodes above me, tearing me from my board and driving me deep. Stay calm. I’m pushed deeper still. I feel the fury and violence of whitewater above me. Finally the wave subsides and I break through the foamy surface. I see lush tropical green, and realize I’m facing shoreward. I turn to see another wave bearing down. I grab my leash and reel in my board. I’m on it and duck diving in a breath. More chaos.I surface again, and realize I’ve been swept through the entire impact zone. I laugh hysterically. I feel so alive.

July 31, 2008 Telescopes, Mentawai Islands, Sumatra

Her bare toes creep towards the edge of the D'bora top deck. The knuckles on her feet are white with tension. Her feet, along with her hands and face are the only exposed skin by religious necessity. She wears the traditional Muslim Jubal to cover her feminine form. A bright orange life jacket is secured tightly around her torso. Her hands have a death grip on the railing. She peers down into the deep blue sea that up until a week ago, she had never set foot in, despite living on the Sumatran coast her entire life. Her new friends are beckoning her to jump and join them in the water 20 feet below. She leans out over the water, her body twitches and her nerve fails her. She pulls herself back towards the safety of the deck. The defeat doesn’t sit well within her, and once again her determination drives her outwards, towards the sea. She lurches, this time her jump seems imminent, yet at the last moment her hands refuse to let go of the security of the boat. In many ways, this leap of faith is symbolic of the journey she’s already taken.

Megha Prima was offered the opportunity to join the crew of the D’bora to share her local knowledge, culture, and religion with the students from across the world. She’s accompanied and mentored by Patra Rina Dewi an exceptionally independent Muslim woman who heads up Kogami, an earthquake preparedness nonprofit organization. Patra assisted the Last Mile Operations crew in their 2006 mission delivering supplies and First Aid in the tsunami ravaged Islands of Northern Sumatra. Since then, she has developed a tsunami evacuation route plan and implemented a successful test run for the residents of Padang who have more people living in a tsunami danger zone than anywhere else on earth. This year she traveled to the U.S. to speak at the National Earthquake Conference in Seattle. A remarkable woman by any measure and here she was, floating in her own life jacket and Jubal, moments after jumping off the second deck herself, coaxing and encouraging her friend to overcome her fears.

Megha shakes her head in defiance, deciding that her fear is too great. She steps away from the edge. The group of students and friends in the water beckon her with encouragement and outstretched arms. This time, her resolve is set as she climbs back through the railing to the edge. Once again she leans out, only this time she lets go. Her arms rise above her head as she falls, surrendering to her fate. She hits the water, briefly submerges and is gasping at the surface in a moment. Even with her eyes bulging and her lips pursed tight, her radiant pride is evident.

July 25, 2008 Siakup Village, Mentawai Islands, Sumatera

Back in the village with the wounded boy. I could see the look in Matt’s eye, as he stifled his own gag reflex. Yet, something had to be done, or this kid would likely lose his leg. He sat the young man down in a chair, and explained clearly and concisely through Patra, our Islamic translator, that this was going to hurt like hell. He looked the boy in the eyes, nodded and began to clean the wound, rotting flesh and all. The boy sat stoically, unperturbed by the scrubbing of peroxide into his raw wound. Blood tinged soap bubbles pooled on the bare concrete floor as locals pressed their faces against the windows in an attempt to get a better view. After the wound was cleaned and dressed, and the boy and his family had been given clear instructions on keeping it dry and taking the amoxicillin we had provided, we decided something more had to be done in order to save his leg. A cleaning, some bandages and a small dose of pills just weren’t going to cut it. He needed serious medical attention and in this remote village, that meant an expensive boat ride.

“Who here cares about this boy? I want to talk to that person.”

Matt directed his question to the group of onlookers.

“Who can take this boy to a hospital right now and how much will it cost?”

After the translation, a man stepped forward. It would cost $40,000 rupiah, roughly $40 bucks, to potentially save this kid’s leg. It was a fortune to the subsistence farming and fishing villagers. Matt nodded to me and spoke to me in English. He suggested that if we gave the boat driver the full amount, there was a good chance it would just end up in his pocket, and the injured boy would be no better off. We decided to give them $30,000 rupiah, and have the village raise the remaining $10,000 ensuring communal investment in the well being of one of their own. I reached into my board shorts and grabbed the money I had been saving for souvenirs and a few beers in Padang, purely trivial shit, and handed it over. I’ll never know whether he made it to the hospital, whether he had his wound treated and stitched, I sincerely hope so. But in that moment, something in me shifted. My perspective on travel was forever set on a new course. I had found my direction. I wanted to make a difference in somebody’s life, however small. I wanted to be proud of my life and the repercussions of my travel. I didn’t want to be the ugly tourist, who demands a rewarding experience whatever the cost. Too many times I had stumbled into some remote surf ghetto, repulsed by what I saw, recognizing my own contribution to that ugliness. Like it or not, our presence in these remote locales has an impact. It’s up to us to decide whether it’s positive or negative. A week later, in another village, I found myself once again in a similar situation, another boy, another raw and open wound. Only this time, I alone was administering first aid.

Throughout the years, as a traveling surfer, I had focused on finding and surfing the best waves, eating the most exotic meals, experiencing unique and foreign cultures and taking the memories and lessons home with me. It wasn’t until that day, when I had witnessed the difference a simple act of humanitarianism can potentially and directly have, that I realized a far more rewarding travel experience exists. One in which the traveler gives back as much as he takes. 

Mainland Mexico

Carcass Fest

“I can’t see!  Hay demasiado lluvia!  Too much Rain!” Rodgrigo, my taxi driver cackles to me while he passes a bus going uphill and rounding a corner on one of Mexico’s most dangerous stretches of highway.  The rain is coming down in sheets. I make an effort to stop counting the roadside crosses that mark fatal accidents.  We come sliding around a corner and between swipes of the rusty windshield wipers I can see rocks and mud strewn across the two lane highway ahead of us.  Rodrigo spots the mudslide at the same time. He screams “Aye!” slams on the brakes and fishtails back into our lane, laughing hysterically the whole time.  He tells me his Padre died drinking and driving last April on this very stretch of road.  It doesn’t seem to have slowed him down.  

We finally pull off the highway and start winding our way down to the coast.  We come to a swollen river flooding a dip in the road.  A four wheel drive Toyota truck is hesitating on the far side.  Rodrigo just laughs and charges his 89 Corsica into the muddy river.  Water pours through the rotting floorboards soaking my feet. I steal a glance at Rodrigo and he’s laughing his ass off. The main street in the Pueblo is a raging torrent. Up ahead I see two gringos; shirts off, soda and junk food in hand strolling through the puddles in the torrential rain. I know who it is before I can see them clearly; two of Canada’s best young surfers, Janek Peladeau and Frazer Mayor.  It’s no coincidence that we’ve crossed paths. I’m here to meet up with the surf stoked group of Tofino and Ucluelet kids known collectively in our little surf community as the ‘The Groms.’  I’m on assignment as a photographer to document their time in Mexico. The boys range in age from 14 to 17 and their parents have signed off on letting them go to Mexico for a month on their own. They had asked me to document the trip. I accepted under the condition that it was clear that I was not responsible for this ill advised trip. Of course I’d keep an eye out for them while I was there, but no fucking way was I babysitting or chaperoning such madness.

They boys led me down to their riverside palapa. I get completely drenched unloading my gear and walk up to their camp. The palapa is a one bedroom and bathroom affair. The toilet has long since clogged and overflowed. The room is flooded with unspeakable detritus and the smell is nauseating. On the concrete slab patio, they’ve strung up a spider web of hammocks. There are eight of them in total. This is where they eat, sleep, smoke weed and drink tequila and cervezas, not one of them legal age. The ground beneath the hammocks is strewn with surfboards, wet trunks, bottles and garbage to the point where the ground is no longer visible. Ryan is about to rub Tiger Balm on his balls ``the whole kit and caboodle” for $70. He smiles at me, “Welcome to Carcass fest!” The boys coined the term meaning apart from surfing, all they do is lay around like carcasses in the tropical, midday heat.

Dawn Day 2

A rooster crows outside.  I wake up disoriented in the dark concrete room. I can already hear laughter and boards being waxed from the groms next door.  I poke my head out of my Palapa and can see the hammocks swinging and a few of the crew getting ready to surf. I look down the river. Overhead, hollow A-framing waves are breaking in the river mouth. We stroll down the dirt road to the beach, and a chocolate brown wave heaves and spits. The groms are frothing. They surf in a pack and seem to feed off of each other and push one another.  They watch every move, every wave; critiquing and supporting equally.  Ryan pulls into a heavy left barrel, and gets crushed.  He pops up with his board in two pieces. The next wave Isaac pulls in and ends up going over the falls.  His board breaks in half. Ryan doubles over in the impact zone laughing.  Three waves later Janek charges into a closeout barrel and comes up with another 

broken board.  The waves are heavy, thumping over sand and cobblestone and none of the boys are holding back.  They’ve broken twelve boards in just over a week!

Evening Day 4:

We stroll into the Cantina, pretty much the only restaurant open in town, and tonight it’s packed with locals.  All eyes are peeled to the big screen T.V. in the corner broadcasting a soccer match.  The nine of us take a seat at a table in the center of the restaurant; it’s the only one left.  Every pair of eyes in the joint follows us to our seats.  I look up at the big screen, see the match up and think to myself…”Oh shit.”  Canada versus Mexico World Cup Qualifier.  It doesn’t take long for our group to catch on to the implications.  We all shrink meekly into our seats.  A quiet discussion follows; should we order or should we get up and walk out? A Russian surfer we’ve befriended pulls up a chair and shouts to the restaurant “Dees are Canadians! Woooo!”  Thanks, comrade.  I notice a table full of Federales in the corner, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, and not so conspicuous beers in plastic cups in their hands. I can’t decide whether or not it’s better that they’re here, even if they’re drunk, or if they are another potential threat.

Canada scores the first goal.  Daggers from every eye in the room.  We couldn’t possibly shrink into our seats any lower.  More drinks are ordered as the tension in the room mounts. There’s a brutal (well for soccer at least) head on head collision between a Mexican player and a Canadian. Yells of anger fill the small room.  Finally the Mexicans score an equalizer and the restaurant erupts in yells, shouts and taunts in our general direction.  We breathe a little easier.  Halfway through our meals and the match we're secretly hoping the score stays tied.  If we win, we’ll be public enemy number one.  If they win, well who knows how far the drunken taunting will go.  Canada scores again to take the lead, and the goal scorer rips off his jersey and poses arrogantly at the corner post rubbing salt in the wounded Mexican pride.  The Russian yells “Go Canada!!”  This is getting serious. This small town has a history of violence, Narco wars, and murder. Not the type of place you want to make any enemies.  The match is almost over when the Mexicans score a tying goal.  This time the celebration is directed right at our table and we just smile and nod.  Thankfully, the game ends in a tie.  We pay our bill and get outta dodge before things get worse.

The boys decide it’s time to head to Pascuales. A notoriously heavy beach break. The plan is to catch the bus and spend the remainder of the time pushing our boundaries in the ocean. Boards are thrown in boardbags, clothes shoved in backpacks and bags of weed stashed away. This seems way too risky to me, so in spite of my reluctance to babysit I gather the boys up for talk. I inform them that if they get caught with weed, the consequences will be dire. This isn’t BC. I tell them to smoke it all or give it away. They don’t fully believe me but I’m adamant.

Hours later, we sit on the side of the highway in the heart of Narco country with all of our bags, boards and gear strewn about. I’m feeling vulnerable, like a shakedown waiting to happen, but the hour passes without incident and we get on the bus North. A half hour into the bus journey, we abruptly pull over. The doors open and Federales board the bus. Oh shit. They ignore the rest of the passengers and head straight to us. They start searching us. Thoroughly. I’m sweating bullets. If just one of these teenagers didn’t listen to the old man on the trip, we’re in deep shit. Every bag is searched, every pocket. Nothing. They disembark the bus without a word and the boys look at me and crack up laughing. I exhale.

Dawn Day 7

Pascuales is no joke. In fact, it rivals Puerto Escondido for the heaviest beach break wave in the world.  The boys have been amping up all week to charge some of the biggest waves of their lives. This morning might be more than they bargained for.  Massive, triple overhead closeouts pound relentlessly into the sandbar in front of our hammocks.  A couple of pro surfers are buzzing around the outside on jet skis, attempting to do step offs ( where the surfer literally steps off the back of the jet ski and into the wave in order to have enough speed to make it down the face of the wave).  My taxi to the airport honks out front.  I snap a couple of frames of big empty waves and watch as the boys wax their biggest boards.  The mood is a little somber, each surfer facing their own fears.  I wish them well, and give them the sagest piece of travel advice I can think of, “Remember, almost everything bad that happens traveling, happens after 10pm.”   Some handshakes and well wishes and I am in the taxi and heading to the airport leaving the boys to their fate.

This crew of boys are truly unique as there really aren’t many young surfers in Canada.  I spent six months that winter teaching a violence prevention program in the local schools and I could count the kids that surfed on one hand.  This was in Tofino and Ucluelet, supposedly Canada’s surf capital.  Chalk it up to cold water, expensive rubber or sheer difficulty.  It takes a level of commitment and dedication to learn to surf in Canada’s frigid, inhospitable waves, and these boys are as passionate and dedicated as they come.  Because of this perseverance, they’ve gained a valuable education and priceless life experiences that cannot be taught in the classroom.  Even if these boys never catch another wave, unlikely given their stoke, they’ve gained a perspective on life and the world that can only come from firsthand experience.  They’ve traveled on their own through a relatively dangerous, struggling nation.  They’ve seen boys their own age in fatigues with assault rifles, witnessed packs of feral dogs sifting through garbage, watched families grow and raise their own food just to get by.  Their eyes have been opened to a life outside of our insular little community and the safety, comfort and luxury of home.  The richest gift of surfing is travel.  Riding waves is simply an excuse to explore new places, unfamiliar cultures and be exposed to new experiences and people.  They will come home with tales of great waves and wild nights, but ultimately they’ll have come away with much more.

El Salvador

After handing the officer back his own 9mm and opening my Pilsen beer on the steps of the Police Station, I started to wonder if this day could get any more surreal.

The first couple of weeks in El Salvador had gone smoothly. I was there on a photo assignment to complement a surf story on surfing in El Salvador. We had scored epic waves, often to ourselves, had eaten and partied like kings in the sanctuary of our host’s El Dorado surf camp, made a bunch of new friends and traveled the length of the country with nothing more than friendly smiles and helpful advice from locals.  Even the hype surrounding the sketchy characters hiding in the cemetery at Punta Roca had proven to be exactly that, hype.  No one paid us the slightest bit of attention and I breathed a sigh of relief as we all piled into the van and returned to camp after yet another successful surf mission. Even after a two-day journey, crossing the entire country, mostly at night, I remember thinking to myself that we had made it unscathed. One more day to go.  No problema.  As it turned out, I was wrong.

The Sangria Challenge: A few days earlier 

A biblical storm had set in on the coastline, confining us to the main hall of the El Zonte Surf Camp. We played pool, shared feasts, had wild dance parties and stared in vain at the surf in front of our bungalows, willing it to transform from wild, brown storm surf into the fun, punchy beach and point break that we had been surfing for the last couple of weeks. Finally the rain subsided and we ventured out to explore. The river was impossibly swollen, and absolutely disgusting, choked with garbage and pollution. Hepatitis waiting to happen. We watched a bloated and dead goat float past us and out into the surf. It eventually washed ashore on the beach in front of our place. The next morning dawned sunny and beautiful. The waves had cleaned up and looked inviting. As the day progressed, someone made a huge punch bowl of Sangria. Two of our new friends, Quebecois women and talented tattoo artists, were painting spectacular murals on a few of our surfboards. The mood was festive, when someone suggested a surf contest. The only criteria was entertainment. We dubbed it the Sangria Challenge, and the more outrageous the ride, the higher the scores. Neil surfed in jeans and sombrero. Reid styled on a thick old broken surfboard from the 70’s. I successfully attempted a headstand. Marc whipped down his boardshorts mid wave and rode butt ass naked to shore. The results are hard to remember, but I think I had the high score and it wasn't for wave riding. As I ran up the beach after my heat, my foot sunk in soft sand up to my knee. I felt something odd, squishy and bony. I pulled my leg out only to discover I had stepped into the dead goat. I keeled over and gagged, much to the entertainment of our crew.

The next morning, after a glassy, head high, solo surf out front of the camp, I ate breakfast and packed all of my camera gear into a day pack, ready for our final photo shoot.  The whole camp decided to join us on a trip to some Mayan temples, followed by a cool off in some mountain waterfalls.  The mood was festive as we traveled in a two-van convoy, Olivier in his Panelito van leading the way.  The temples were less than spectacular, apparently the ruins had been damaged in a recent earthquake and were being restored, effectively covering up the authentic ruins in concrete.  Not to worry, we still had the waterfalls to look forward to.

After a spectacular drive through the mountainous rainforest, we pulled into the small town of Juarau.  We made a pit stop and loaded up on cold drinks and ate some street meat from a matronly old vendor.  The picturesque little town was bathed in afternoon sunlight, bringing life to the yellow walls of a tiny iglesia, with a Virgin Mary statuette out front.  I shot some photos, some of my favorites of the trip, and we all piled into the vans to make our way into the jungle and to the falls.

The road down to the falls was rough, and at times we all had to pile out as Marc negotiated the rental van through the type of ruts, holes and bumps you’d only drive a rental through.  We finally made it to the trailhead, where we wondered how we were going to get back up the road on our way out.  There were a group of kids between 8 and 18 years old, waiting to guide us to the falls.  For a few dollars, we now had an entourage of local kids to show us the way and watch our stuff as we swam.  The trail down to the falls snaked its way through the jungle along the side of a mountain.  The drop off the edge of the trail fell away to a leafy green abyss two hundred feet below.

We arrived at the first set of falls.  There were a few locals cliff jumping into the shallow pool below.  We decided to press on to the next set of falls.  We rounded the next bend in the trail and came upon our little Shangri-La.  A twenty-foot fall of clean, rainforest water, dumping into a cool jungle enshrouded pool.  I stayed with the gear (most importantly my backpack containing three camera bodies, lenses and our wallets), while the rest of our group got wet.  Eventually I got someone to take over security while I swam.  We had been shown a small, pitch-black cave by one of the local kids.  The water flowed into this tunnel and disappeared into the mountainside.  We all ended up swimming through the cave, blind and claustrophobic, until it spat us out the other end of the mountainside, a good forty yards away.

After a couple of cliff jumps and a few moments spent savoring our last adventure in El Salvador, we decided to leave before dark.  Our group worked its way back up the muddy jungle track.  I was helping Marc carry the cooler, so our progress was a little slow.  While the rest of the group pulled out of sight, only six of us remained.  As we rounded a corner, there were five men standing at the junction of our path with another.  As I went to pass the guy in our path, he grabbed my arm.  Suddenly things happened really quickly.  I looked into his face and noticed for the first time that he had a bandana pulled up just below his eyes.  The four other men were all masked as well.  He held up a machete, inches from my throat, while still grasping my arm.  “La Bolsa!” he demanded.  ‘This isn’t happening’ I thought.  “La Bolsa!” he yelled again.  My travel Spanish was rudimentary at best and I had only learned the word for ‘bag’ a few days prior.  I stood stunned and confused staring at the machete blade pointed at my neck.  I tried to offer him our cooler, “Las cervezas!  Las cervezas!”  I gestured to the cooler.  “La Bolsa!” he demanded.  The second masked man lunged at me stabbing down with his machete.  Marc, who was behind me, yelled, “ Give him your bag!”  I jumped back, and handed over the backpack containing thousands of dollars in camera gear.  Not satisfied with only my pack, they started to yell at JP (a French Canadian) who, with his girlfriend Roxanne, was bringing up the rear of our small group.  JP made a break for it, running back down the trail.  The rest of us followed, not sure if the armed assailants were in pursuit.  We stopped around a corner and regrouped.  One of the original guides, a young boy about 10 years old, appeared from the waterfall direction of the trail and handed me his machete while he picked up our cooler.  At this point, we had no choice but to head back up the trail, as the light was fading fast.  We were unsure if the bandidos were still waiting to ambush us around the corner.

I took a deep breath, held the machete out in front of me and rounded the corner.  The men were nowhere in sight, so we all broke out into a run up the remainder of the trail.  The rest of our group was casually waiting at the vans, completely unaware of what had just happened.  We quickly filled them in and suddenly realized that we were stranded, the keys to the rental van were in my stolen bag!  As darkness set in, anger, confusion and fear spread throughout our group while Olivier called the police on his cell phone.  We grouped together, picked up big sticks and machetes and waited.

After a half-hour of tense waiting like sitting ducks in the dark, the Salvadorian police finally arrived armed to the teeth with shotguns, automatic rifles and handguns.  Our entire group left en masse, with a few officers left behind to guard the rental van and search the dark endless jungle for the banditos.  We piled into the Police truck and Olivier’s van and worked our way out of the jungle.  After snaking through the small town’s back streets, we arrived at the concrete, whitewashed Police Station.

Eventually the majority of our group left in taxis to make their way back to the comfort and security of the surf camp a couple of hours away.   Those of us who had been robbed, and Olivier (our guide and translator) stayed behind to file our police reports.  Over the course of the next six hours armed and bulletproof vested officers would charge out of the police station, pile into a truck and head back out into the darkness.  We’d hear distant gunshots, completely unaware of what was happening and eventually the Police would return, marching a suspect in front of us to identify.  There was no way I was going to finger a suspect whom I couldn’t positively identify with absolute certainty.  I didn’t want to wrongly condemn someone to whatever unknown fate the police had in mind.  I didn’t want that weighing on my conscience.  Each time I would inevitably shake my head and reply, “No se, si tenian mascaras' ' Rather than letting the suspects go, they were all locked up anyway.

Olivier was invaluable, translating our statements to the Police and calling and yelling at the Rental car agency when they originally refused to cooperate by driving us out a new set of keys.  It took him handing the phone to the Chief of Police to convince the rental agency that if they didn’t get a set of keys here soon, there would be no van.

So, while we waited for the new set of keys, and for the police to march a new lineup of suspects past us, we befriended the remaining officers, all the while drinking beers, joking to lighten the tension and inspecting their weapons.  At one point, JP locked himself up with borrowed handcuffs while the officer pretended to have lost the keys.  

As more and more of the small town’s boys were being locked up, a crowd started to gather outside the police station. From what we were told they were demanding to know what was happening and why their boys were being detained. Tension hung thick in the air as the crowd started to grow, and frustrations started to mount. A couple of angry shouts and a thrown beer bottle signaled that things were going from bad to worse and were about to ignite. The police told us it was getting Peligroso, and that we had to get out of there. Only we were stranded without the rental van’s keys. After what felt like an eternity a vehicle split the mob gathered outside and what must have been the rental car company’s lowest ranking employee jumped out, was let into the police station where he handed us the keys. We were briskly rushed out the back of the police station into a truck and we snuck out of town and back down the waterfall track to our locked van. The police assured us that we would need a police escort at least until the highway or we might be pursued and overtaken by angry parents seeking justice. Not until we pulled onto the highway an hour later and the police truck turned back into the dark night did we start to relax and debrief the crazy events of the last few hours. Adrenaline and exhaustion overwhelmed us and we felt lucky to be alive.

 What we didn’t know was that our friend Pete, who had decided to stay on the coast and not join us, was at that very moment, grieving our deaths. At some point in the chaos he had received a phone call from Mojo (RIP). Mojo had shared in broken English that “Your friends, robbed, banditos, All gone.” Click. And he was left to process that  bomb. He had interpreted “all gone” as we were all dead, all gone. The weight of the grief consumed him as he started to imagine himself not only losing all of his friends, but having to share the news with our families. When we pulled into the driveway at 4:00 in the morning, Pete broke down crying and hugged us all with the deepest gratitude.

Australia Round 3

The third time I returned to Australia was a mistake. It had been almost six years, and Christine and I had just separated. While our love was still deep, we had some challenges that despite our efforts, we couldn’t overcome. At least not at the time. I was devastated, and depressed. Once again I had set plans to travel to Indonesia, to find myself through surfing and override my heartbreak and depression that a failed marriage had wrought. A couple of weeks before my departure, a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami wreaked unfathomable devastation throughout the nations bordering the Indian Ocean. Thousands were dead, whole communities wiped away. It was a humanitarian crisis. Much less importantly, my flights to the region were all canceled. Yet, I had nothing keeping me home, and was in desperate need of a distraction. Here was an opportunity to immerse myself in service. To find purpose. I reached out to the Red Cross among other aid organizations asking to volunteer in person, wherever I could help. I didn’t care if it was Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, anywhere but home, where reminders of my relationship were painful reminders of what I had lost. I was met by each aid organization with rejection as my lack of aid experience was seen as a hindrance rather than a help, understandably. So, instead I decided to return to Australia where so many positive memories were formed.

The thing is, trying to revisit the past and revive something that just isn’t there anymore is just plain sad. I stayed in hostels and felt like the ‘way too old guy’ at the nightclub. I was at a stage in my life that just wasn’t aligned with the young travelers experiencing the world for the first time.

I returned to Noosa and stayed with Errol in his old dark and lonely beach home. Seeing myself reflected in Errol’s lonely existence depressed me even further. He had long since sold the hostel. It had been torn down and replaced by luxury condos, of which Errol owned two. He had accomplished his goal and accumulated unbelievable wealth and yet his life remained unchanged. He still hadn’t been on the beach, still ate steamed vegetables alone for dinner every night and spent his time reading the newspaper and watching the news with little else happening in his life.

It didn’t help that the surf was non-existent. Flat for the duration of my stay. On one of my last days in what was a failed mission to Australia, I sat down with Errol and asked him what he planned to do with his money, the wealth he had coveted for so long? He said that he had always wanted to travel to Europe. I made him write down three things, including the trip to Europe, that he wanted to accomplish by the end of the year.

I left Errol and Australia feeling optimistic that I had helped him consider at least a change, that I had repaid his generosity in some small way. I received an email from him out of the blue about a year later that started with “G’day Brady, I’m writing to you from a cafe on the island of Santorini in Greece…” I was thrilled, until I read further “just kidding, still in Noosa.”

Samoa

I awoke to yelling and hollering coming from outside of my palm-thatched, open air fale. Startled, I reached for my headlamp under my pillow, and kicked my mosquito netting aside as I stumbled out into the warm, humid darkness. Under a bright, full moon, I could make out hundreds of local Samoans wading, bending and hooting out on the reef. I had been camped out for a month on the island of Savaii with a handful of other surfers. Together, we had laughed, told stories, spear fished, held an unofficial and alcohol fueled Olympics on the beach, hikes to waterfalls and blowholes, and traded hollow waves in front of our small camp on the very same reef that was now mysteriously swarmed with locals. As a few fellow campmates emerged from their fales and began to congregate, we asked our host, the owner of the land and fales, just what the hell was happening. “Coral Spawn'' he said with a grin. A local delicacy and a potent aphrodisiac by most accounts, the locals collect the coral spawn at night during a full moon. With collectors coming from all over both islands, it was an event to behold. After watching with fascination, I returned to my humid little fale and crawled back under the mosquito netting and drifted off to sleep. Little did I know how this seemingly innocuous little happening would affect me the following day.

I awoke to the same vision of perfection that had greeted me every day for the last 30. A beautiful, palm enclosed bay, white sand beach, fronted by a toothy, hollow right and around the bend in the bay a left that closed out on dry reef. Both were groomed by the daily offshore winds. Paradise. Yet, we were yearning for something different; a change of scene to break up the monotony of perfect surf, fresh fish, and good company. In a word, we became greedy. And we were about to pay for our greed.

The conditions seemed perfect for a wave on the neighboring island of Upolu, a three hour ferry ride across the open channel. No big deal, we had all found our way here in relative comfort on the quaint old workhorse of a ferry. This day would be different. 

We arrived at the ferry terminal to be greeted by absolute chaos. It seems the draw of the coral spawn had attracted what seemed like the entire island of Upolu to Savaii, and now they were all pushing, shoving and hassling to get back on the ferry to Upolu. So much for the tranquil, slow paced life of Gauguin’s South Pacific. We decided to throw ourselves into the mix. Paul managed to push his way to the ticket counter as I lugged our board bags towards the dock. There was a mad rush of the mob, as well as a maximum capacity load of vehicle traffic all jostling for a spot on the ferry. By the time we had boarded the boat, the passenger area, as well as all passageways and topside deck space, was dangerously overloaded. The only space left for us, and the remaining hundred or so spawn collectors, was the vehicle deck. Only the vehicle deck was loaded to the gunwales with its intended load; vehicles. We threw our boards on top of a van full of accommodating tourists and crammed ourselves onto the only available space on the deck. There were people wedged in every possible nook and cranny. I had a van tire against my back, one person pressed against each shoulder, and my knees pulled up to my chest with a 300 pound Samoan resting against them. There were people lying on top of one another, and even some underneath the vehicles and trucks with higher clearance. As the boat backed out of her berth, creaking, groaning and grumbling under her exceeded capacity, I took a deep breath of the humid, sweaty and diesel drenched air, closed my eyes and prayed. I’m not religious, but surrounded by devout Christians, I figured it couldn’t hurt. The swarming mass of humanity accepted their lot, seemingly satisfied to place their lives in the hands of the captain, god and fate.

An hour into the crossing things went from bad to worse. The boat pitched and heaved in an exaggerated sway. The tropical heat was nearly unbearable in the cramped, enclosed vehicle deck. Although I knew it was inevitable, I almost couldn’t believe it when the first person started desperately clambering over bodies trying to make his way to the porthole that was 10 feet off the deck. He had the distinct green, pale look that only comes with seasickness. Sure enough, before he got his head up to the porthole, he puked into his cupped hands. There was a communal groan, and instantly a waft of vomit scented air drifted through the enclosed berth. A man boosted him up to the open air, but the damage was done. As expected, this set off a chain reaction straight out of the pie eating contest in “Stand by me”. One after another, desperate, panicked passengers scrambled their way to the only porthole. 

Breathing through my mouth to avoid the now pungent stench, and closing my eyes, I tucked my head between my knees and tried in vain to imagine myself somewhere else, anywhere else but this overloaded, cramped, vomit soaked mass of humanity.

I tried to remind myself that each roll and pitch of the boat was in response to the large groundswell passing underneath, and that it would translate into good surf on the south coast of Upolu. But my nostrils, my stomach and my inner ears betrayed me. The only thought in my head was of vomit. I could feel it rolling in my stomach, splashing up my esophagus, tickling my tonsils. “Hold it together” was my mantra, repeated over and over in my head. I had sailed across the Caribbean in a 32 foot sailboat, I had worked as a whale watching guide on the wild, swell and storm-lashed coast of Vancouver Island and I had never been seasick other than one close call on Lucifero. I knew that wedged in the way I was, there was no way I’d make it to the now crowded porthole. What followed was a grueling  battle of mind over matter. I willed my throat closed, as numerous times vomit breached the base of my throat and burned in the back of my mouth. Tears streamed from the corner of my eyes as my body involuntarily convulsed. The woman beside me leaned against the person beside her, as she tried to create as much distance between us as she could. I buried my head deeper and squeezed my eyes tighter.

After what felt like an eternity, the old boat’s diesel engines settled into a slowing growl. We were approaching the port on the Upolu side of the channel, although I couldn’t see anything other than people and cars. Finally I felt the boat gently nudge the pilings of the dock. I looked for the first time across the crowd to my traveling companion Paul. He looked pale, green and monumentally relieved. I could tell by the way he looked at me, that he had fared no better. We had endured the worst crossing of our lives, but we were about to surf a new break, in a new land.

But life has a way of punishing greed. Call it Karma, fate or just bad luck, but by the time we arrived at the coast, the side-onshore winds were gale force, tearing the swell, and the wave to unsurfable shreds. We spent the afternoon diving off the dock into the cleansing tropical water in an attempt to wash the boat ride from our memories. The next day, I boarded the same ferry, back across to Savaii, this time comfortably seated on the passenger deck. I rolled back into the camp, with my tail between my legs only to hear how I’d missed the best waves of the month. Lesson learned, always appreciate what you have, and never leave perfect surf in an attempt to find something better.

Cuba

Christine and I decided on a trip to Cuba to escape the cold Canadian winter. Cuba marked a shift in my travel perspective. It was the first trip that I ever took where surfing wasn’t my primary focus. In many ways, all my previous travels around the world had a singular goal, to find and surf good waves. While it’s definitely true that my search for waves led me down paths and into places that many travelers would never have otherwise ventured, myself included, in this singular pursuit I definitely missed out on so many rich, cultural experiences. Cities, museums, tourist attractions, even landlocked countries were all way down on my priority list. Christine had also fallen in love with surfing, though she had a much healthier relationship with it, more a passionate outlet rather than compulsive obsession. She had patiently and generously followed along on my surf focused missions, without complaint. So, when she proposed that we visit Cuba, before its embargo-induced time capsule crumbles and America-influenced capitalism erodes the culture of what was one of the truly unique countries on earth, I capitulated. Though, I still brought my surfboard.

Canadians, not part of the Embargo, have long since flooded the all inclusive resorts of Verado, Cuba. There are steady stream flights unloading and shuttling Canadian sunseekers to the resorts to drink rum, eat at buffets, play afternoon beach volleyball, and watch performances over evening cocktails at an entire beachfront strip of all inclusive resorts. We had never stayed in an all inclusive hotel, but to have a place near the airport to bookend our trip into Cuba, we reserved a couple of nights. It was a totally different travel experience than we were accustomed to, and I could understand the appeal. Everything was easy, relaxing and for us, eventually boring. We rented a car, and planned to drive across the country. We were unaware how unconventional, and difficult this would be. 

Cuba is a trip. In many ways it seems frozen in time. Of course there’s the old cars that resourceful Cubanos have figured out how to maintain without access to parts and materials. At the entrance to each town, communist propaganda billboards, murals and monuments are stark reminders of the government's anti-American sentiment and anti-bloqueo messaging. Like much of Latin America, the towns are built around a central square, with residents socializing, smoking cigars and playing songs on ancient acoustic guitars with layers of dirt as evidence of thousands of songs played. There are no restaurants and very few shops. Residents are offered monthly food rations, along with free education and healthcare. It seemed to Christine and I that to live in poverty in Cuba, is probably better than living in poverty anywhere else in the world, as one’s basic needs are met. However, beyond poverty the lack of freedom, independence and opportunity to improve your lot in life is staggering. We came across this jarring societal difference a number of times. 

One evening early in our trip near our resort we found a restaurant. We had a table by the sea, the view was 5 star, and with an awareness that it sounds incredibly entitled, the food was almost inedible, as it was almost everywhere in Cuba. The sun had long since set, we had finished our meal and were leaving the restaurant when a Cuban man sitting at a table with some hand carved art pieces called us over. His carvings were beautiful and Christine was interested. She chose a piece that spoke to her and paid the artisan. He then invited us to sit and join him for a drink. Sitting quietly at the table was a foreign man, a Russian as it turned out. He ordered us a round of vodka shots and we started sharing stories of our respective countries. The round’s kept coming and the conversation turned more political. The Cuban shared the story of his imprisonment. He had been a professor and had access to books. Somehow he had accumulated a library full of books and they had obviously opened his mind to the world outside of Cuba and the possibility that Fidel’s reign, and the oppression that his people endured, might not be everything that it was cracked up to be. In most cases, at least publicly, Castro was hailed as a savior and a warrior against the empirical tyranny of the American government. We noticed this one evening in our rented room. The television had two channels, one an educational station that literally had blackboard math lessons and the other switched between highly curated news and dramatic ‘hero's journey’ soaps in which Fidel was inevitably portrayed as the heroic savior. 

The Cuban carver, now drunk after too many vodka shots, told us that he had grown disenfranchised with his government. At this point in the conversation the waitstaff, clearly nervous and uncomfortable, started to back away from our table, not wanting to be implicated with his dissension (or so he told us). It didn’t take long for the security guard in the restaurant to edge closer, eavesdropping on our conversation. I was legitimately concerned with how open our new friend was being with us, in public no less. His term as a political prisoner clearly had not cured him of his anger and anti government sentiment.

After a couple nights in the all inclusive, we hit the road in our rental car with a destination on the North coast that according to our map and our guide book, had beautiful colonial buildings, a charming square and some home stay options. These were essentially Airbnb’s before there was such a thing as Airbnb. With no capitalism and the resulting entrepreneurship, we found it strange that some homes were able to host travelers. Apparently they either had government connections or they had been grandfathered operating licenses. Either way they were amazing. We’d be invited into local homes, introduced to the family members, cooked a meal and given a room in the house. Considering on our first morning of road tripping we discovered that there were no food options at all (no restaurants, shops, even gas stations had empty shelves) we were entirely unprepared and famished by the time we arrived at a home stay. We’d drive into a town, look for the little homestay sign in a window and then knock on the door and ask if we could stay. We worked our way across the country with the home stays as our only source of meals and nightly refuge.

One of the oddest parts of driving across Cuba was the strange sense of desolation and abandonment. We’d been cruising down a significant trans-island highway and the pavement would suddenly just end. There would be no further road ahead. No signage, no warnings, just the end of the road. We would have to backtrack and navigate an alternate route as best we could. One afternoon in search of surf (old habits die hard) we drove into an abandoned beach resort town. It had a post-apocalyptic feel. It was as if investors or more likely the government had constructed a massive resort project, nearly completed it and then never invited anyone to the party. Taking advantage of the ghost town and an empty beach, we set up on the sand to enjoy the solitude. Within twenty minutes, a solitary figure appeared about a kilometer down the beach. At first we didn’t pay much attention until it became clear that he was heading directly towards us. It was a long slow progression and as the minutes passed our curiosity grew. Eventually he approached us and after greeting us he asked if we were interested in lunch. Given the lack of available food and a sense of uncertainty as to when we might eat again we accepted. The three of us piled in our rental car and drove following his directions. There was a small community of about a dozen homes hidden behind the sprawling expanse of empty and unfinished resort buildings. Rather than parking at his place. He asked us to hide the car behind some buildings and walk the rest of the way. He was fearful that one of his neighbors might report him for his commercial venture of making and selling us lunch. He cooked us a basic meal and left us in his one room concrete home. It was hard to wrap our minds around the fact that this meal could cost him his freedom.

Tofino

The Decline

The years passed, full of overseas trips, career changes and adventures, none bigger than the birth of our two kids, Kieran and Macy. While surfing took a backseat to parenting, the life lessons of travel were something that we wanted to gift to our children. 

For their early childhood, I couldn’t fathom a more idealistic place to raise young children. The community was small and the kids were embraced by it. For those early years, it really was a village raising our kids. Rather than warning our kids about ‘stranger danger’ they were given lessons on how to react in the presence of predators like bears, wolves and cougars. We lived on a dead end street backing on to complete wilderness, with about twenty kids under the age of 10 all living on the same little street. Their childhood was a throwback to the days of dusk-to-dawn neighborhood adventures. There was almost always a roaming pack of half feral children within yelling distance of the house. My kids felt comfortable with pretty much every adult on the street. Family time was spent either at the beach, in the forest or on a boat fishing, exploring and watching wildlife.

For work I spent time as an Outdoor Educator and as a Teacher in the local school. It was rewarding, challenging work but I felt that I was contributing to the type of community and education that I wanted for my children and their peers. During my years in Tofino, the school had progressive administrators, and excellent teachers. Though, when visitors thought of Tofino, they often neglected to understand the whole story. Pre-contact, the Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, part of the indigenous Nuu Chah Nulth language group, thrived on the lands and waters of Clayoquot Sound. Upwards of 10,000 inhabitants lived in this rich ecosystem. With the arrival of Europeans, came the introduction of smallpox and other communicable diseases, which devastated the population, followed by the Indian Act and the Residential School system. These powerful and disruptive forces ripped apart families, decimated culture and inflicted untold trauma, the ramifications of which are still heavily present within the community. The Tla-o-qui-aht children make up 50% of the student population in the local elementary school. While incredible efforts are made to include cultural education (the school has Nuu Chah Nulth Elders, and Cultural Educators), there is an undercurrent of distrust and hostility.

The diversity of the student population is unique, in that in addition to the First Nations population, you have kids from multi-million dollar beach homes, children from working class fishing and logging families, parents that are staunch environmentalists, a fair share of societal dropouts and a new generation of surfers’ children. While receiving the standard curriculum, students are also taught Nuu Chah Nulth language and culture.  I was grateful that my kids were exposed to such a diverse range of perspectives in their formative years, though teaching to this group was no small challenge. While my students felt like nieces and nephews to me, I burned out within six years and returned with new found enthusiasm to Marine Adventure Guiding.

During these years, the town experienced immense growing pains. Suddenly the tourism industry’s darling, Tofino experienced a massive uptick in both visitors, outside investors and new residents that dramatically changed the landscape and the fabric of the community. It began to feel like a bedroom community to Vancouver, and many of the local families seemingly became more concerned with accumulating wealth and status, than with maintaining the integrity of the once beautiful sense of counter culturists striving to live a better life. Traffic jams (despite having only one traffic light), packed beaches, social media influencers, and crowded lineups started to reach further and further into the shoulder seasons. While Christine and I both felt well liked and respected within the community, real authentic friendships were fewer and further between. When we sold our home and I needed to pack up and move, I was saddened to acknowledge that I didn’t really feel comfortable asking anyone for help. After 15 years of pouring my blood, sweat and tears into the community, sharing amazing experiences with an entire generation of their kids, I had no deep, authentic friendships to speak of. It was time to move on. Leaving was difficult. Not in the way moving to a new place can be scary, but in the fact that it felt like we were abandoning an ideal. Only, that ideal, the place that we fell in love with, was no longer there.

We had dreamed of living in Costa Rica, having purchased a small jungle lot 18 years ago in Nosara, that was walking distance to the beach. The benefit of all the growth and popularity of Tofino was that our home was now much more valuable. We listed and sold our home, and found a builder in Costa Rica online. With a leap of faith, we contracted him to build us a container home and transferred a significant deposit. With the build underway, and the skyrocketing rents in both Tofino and in Nosara, we figured we could travel through Southeast Asia on a shoestring budget and still come out ahead. We booked our flights for a three month trip, which we thought would put us right on time for the final stages of completion of our new home in Costa Rica. We were wrong.

Southeast Asia

Thailand

Our first night in Bangkok and after days of travel all four of us passed out hard in the undersized bunk beds. The kids in the upper bunks and Christine and I cramped up in the lower beds. We’re in a tiny room. The septic smell emanating from the bathroom fills our living space and nostrils and is so bad that Kieran is in tears over the pungent stench. Welcome to our version of Southeast Asia son. Our intention with this three month journey is to explore the well trodden Backpacker trail through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and finally a month of surf exploration in Bali. This is no luxury family vacation, we’ll be staying in hostels, bussing across borders and living on a shoestring, with a 6 and 8 year old in tow. 

Morning dawns in Bangkok to the sound of tuk tuk horns and diesel engines. We head out into the streets with no destination or goal in mind. Within half a block, we encountered a street vendor cooking banana pancakes. We watch as the woman and her daughter expertly toss the paper thin dough, slice the bananas, crack and cook the egg in the wok and fold it all together, drizzling it with icing with the efficiency that comes with a lifetime of practice. First bite and the kid’s minds are blown. Unfortunately for me, I’m recovering from an upper respiratory virus that has robbed me of my sense of smell and therefore taste. In retrospect it seems suspiciously like Covid, though this is months before the Pandemic spread. I’m devastated that I can’t taste the food in one of the world’s most renowned cuisine regions. 

Shortly after the banana pancakes we wander into a wet market. There are stalls with buckets splashing water from live catfish, eels, baby turtles, frogs, crab and a myriad of other live creatures all for sale for consumption. The kids run from stall to stall, peering into the buckets in awe. Again, this was months before the Covid 19 outbreak and the rumored wet market origination of the virus. What in retrospect seems slightly risky, at the time was a fascinating, mind opening experience for our family and an amazing introduction to cultural immersion in Asia. 

Bangkok kept Christine and I on our toes. Our kids having been raised in a small town of 3000 people had little to no street smarts, and traffic awareness. They had usually been given free reign, or at least a long lead.They had never been immersed in such crowds, with the constant barrage on their senses. Horns honking a constant chorus, throngs of people hustling by, vendors selling strange and exotic wares, animals and smells of all sorts hanging from shop fronts, garbage and rats and street dogs spilling out into the sidewalks. It was a lot for all of us to take in. On more than one occasion we had to grab our son by the arm as he stepped off the curb and into the impending path of rushing traffic.

We decided to go all in and take a bus to visit the world’s largest weekend market. Chatuchak Market has over 15,000 stalls spread across 35 acres. Taking two kids who have rarely visited a mall before, and giving them an opportunity to buy some small items in the world’s largest market was no small undertaking. I swear we visited nearly all 15000 stalls, inspecting every piece of shit trinket, and deciding on its worth over the course of what turned into two days. The kids were thrilled to be shopping, a rarity in our family. Though, even with everything competing for their interest and attention, it was the food stalls that became the most memorable. We came across a vendor selling fried crickets, cockroaches and grubs. Ever the adventurous eater, Kieran begged us to let him try. Without hesitation he crunched a cricket in half and immediately wanted more. The gauntlet had been laid, and the rest of us bit into our own insects. They were as disgusting as you might imagine. Though Kieran had sparked a taste for anything exotic. Next on the menu for him were Tarantula and Scorpion. We cut him off at half a tarantula that was the size of his face, at least before dinner. We wanted to see how it settled and if we were as foolish and reckless as we felt. Later that evening, sitting down at a street stall in Chinatown, Kieran begged for the rest of his tarantula. Christine pulled it out of her bag and he happily and casually crunched away on it at the dinner table while we waited for our meals.

After searching online for events, we found a Muay Thai Promotion that was supposed to take place near the Chatuchak Market. Again we bussed out to the area and found the modern Bazaar Hotel. The information online said that fights take place Sunday afternoon around 1:00 pm on the eighth floor of the hotel. I was truly excited, though as a parent a little nervous to introduce bloodsport to my children. We arrived on the eighth floor to an empty gym, with a lonely boxing ring overlooking the vastness of Bangkok. We wandered around the floor, confused whether we had mixed up the date and time of the fight. A woman was cleaning the mats and responded that there was nothing happening in that space today. Dejected, we were heading back to the elevator when a young foreigner, clearly a fighter, entered the gym. I asked him about the fights and he laughed, the stadium was strangely in between the 8th and 9th floors up a ramp. He led the way and opened the door to a packed arena, with lights, cameras, gamblers yelling bets, blaring music and raucous spectators. We were led to a front row seat, and almost instantly a TV camera on a boom swung into our faces, presumably foreign children were a novelty to the fight production. In the first fight, an Algerian had his ribs broken and a bloodied nose. My daughter roared in excitement. After each successful fight, the victors would pose with my kids for the cameras. It was thrilling, entertaining and a little concerning to see the instinctive bloodthirst in my kid’s eyes. 

Cambodia

Holiday in Cambodia

Somewhat naively we booked an overnight bus to Cambodia from Bangkok. We had no idea of the track record of these dangerous bus trips.Thailand has one of the worst road fatality rates in the world. Drivers are not required to take mandatory rest breaks, and drug and alcohol use among operators is rampant. Bus maintenance is substandard at best and opportunistic thieves thrive on ripping off travelers. The news is rife with bus accidents and fatalities. Though our cross country trip was uneventful, until we got to the Cambodian border, when my 6 year old daughter told the Cambodian Border agent to fuck off. Well not exactly, but that’s how it appeared. We were all hot, sweaty and tired. We’d been cramped up parenting bored children on the bus all day. We’d  just walked across the Thai/Cambodian border over a river of rotting garbage, passed dozens of surly soldiers armed with automatic rifles and a desperate group of half clothed children (all younger than my own 6 and 8 year old) begging for any change we may be carrying. My arms are tied up carrying my tired and cranky daughter Macy, while Christine navigates the difficult and inevitable questions about the group of begging children from our son Kieran. So here we are, after waiting in a crowded cramped customs office with dozens of other travelers when our turn arrives. My wife slides our four passports through a slot in the reflective plexiglass window behind which sits a customs officer who is less than impressed to see yet another tourist ready to traipse through his war torn, land mine riddled and impoverished country in some voyeuristic orgy of visits to historical sites of atrocities.

That’s when I see the look of horror on my wife’s face. I follow her awestruck gaze to my daughter, more specifically her hand. She has raised her middle finger and is scowling at her own reflection in the plexiglass, behind which sits the customs officer with our passports and fates literally in his hands. My wife swats Macy’s hand away and pulls her close to admonish her. I put my daughter down and take Christine’s place at the customs window praying that the officer missed the offensive gesture. After painfully tense moments he stamps our passports and we’re out of there as fast as possible. Neither my wife or I have any idea where she learned the gesture nor why she chose this particular moment to debut it. Not our proudest parenting moment. My son thinks it’s hilarious.

Monkey’s on Redbull

Like most visitors to Cambodia, we spent a couple of days exploring Angkor Wat, the 12th century temple complex and the largest religious site in the world. Originally constructed as a Hindu Temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire, it then was transformed into a buddhist temple. In simple terms, it's a vast ancient city of ancient stone temples. My first sight of the central temple complex was at sunset. Stunning in both its grandeur, architecture, vastness and gravitas. I stood next to a buddhist monk, with a shaved head and adorned in his burgundy robes. He held up his iphone and fired off a burst of shots and spent the next few minutes scrolling through them or posting them to his socials. The absurdity of the contradiction struck me. The kids were thrilled to be able to enter the temples without the restrictions typically placed on such magnificent historical sites. They were able to explore the labyrinth of temple chambers, ancient shrines, climb structures and run their hands along the weather-worn temple stones. Though the most memorable moment came from the macaque monkeys that litter the temple grounds. They are everywhere, and clearly accustomed to a different breed of tourist. We watched as countless visitors threw the monkeys candy and junk food. The monkey’s would clamber and grab at any items held too close within reach. Sadly, at the foot of one giant statue of the Buddha, we watched in shock as a mature male macaque downed a can of redbull. My 8 year old son, inspired by this moment, later wrote a story of an Island of Monkey’s hopped up on Redbull terrorizing the stranded survivors of a plane crash. On that first evening, while watching the Macaques interact with a group of tourists, my son squatted down to get a look at a group of smaller monkeys and one jumped on his back and climbed up to his head. Luckily it jumped off when I charged towards it. The kids were thrilled with the encounter.

That night at dinner we found a restaurant where you fry your own assortment of meats in a wok at your table, with crocodile being the most interesting meat on the menu, at least for my son. This turned out to be a mistake. The next day we chartered a shuttle to Laos, and a couple hours into the drive Kieran’s guts started to rumble. My wife quickly handed him a plastic bag, which he promptly filled with vomit. The driver pulled over before the contents spilled over the lip of the bag and Kieran proceeded to puke into the ditch. Apparently the crocodile meat didn’t agree with his ironclad stomach. Then came a moment of indecision. We had spent the children’s whole lives enforcing rules about littering, recycling and proper waste disposal, raising them with a strong undercurrent of environmental ethics. Looking up from the ditch, as far as I could see, was a sea of litter, filling the ditches and spreading back away from the highway. The question was: Do I stick to our anti littering policy and carry a full-to-the-brim bag of vomit with us in the hot cramped car until we reach another rest stop, or do I leave the bag of vomit in the ditch with the countless other detritus. I am sad to say that on that day, at that moment, the bag of vomit stayed in the ditch.

Laos

The limestone karst mountains and lagoons of Laos were impossibly and dramatically beautiful. Laos was at once both awe inspiring, adventurous and heartbreaking. We sat in the back of a truck that took us across a rickety old bridge spanning the Nam Song river and through dirt roads and dusty little homes to a trailhead leading to a series of caves. We were both saddened and fascinated to learn that the Lao people, during the Indo China war, would live in the vast cave networks of Laos to avoid bombardment from the Americans. They would work the agricultural fields by night to avoid detection and spend the rest of the time cave dwelling. The series of over 400 caves housed hospitals, schools and even shops. It felt surreal to explore the caves in peace (although with a touch of claustrophobia) with my family. To try to explain to a 6 year old that people used to live in these cave systems out of necessity of survival broke my heart. 

Again I was confronted with the dissonance of traveling and novelty seeking in the midst of other’s suffering. One morning we rented a dune buggy, a common tourist attraction in Vang Vieng, to explore the dirt roads and swimming lagoons that lay at the foothills of the karst mountains. At first we were thrilled with the excitement of tearing around dusty little roads adventuring. However, as we passed more and more families, subsistence living in tin shacks, choking on the dust of tourists’ ripping by at 60k an hour, we all were impacted. Most sobering was passing two children about Kieran and Macy’s age, washing pots in a puddle on the side of the road, with a dead fly-ridden dog hanging from the barbed wire fence in their yard. 

Later that evening we met some men at our hotel that were part of an NGO that were an advisory group tasked with removing landmines from the countryside. They shared the harsh reality that there are still playgrounds and schoolyards throughout the country that are littered with unexploded land mines. Our kids decided to donate some of their Christmas money and write a report on the group for their homeschool.

Travel, if done consciously and with awareness, is often confronting. How can such vast disparity and privilege exist in the world, and how are we so fortunate to have been gifted the lives that we have? Even more challenging, with this immense privilege, I still find myself at times complaining about such trivial shit, at least when put in such stark contrast and perspective. I believe this forced awareness is a positive thing for my own kid’s to experience and think about, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions and some deep seated unease with the injustice of this world.

Vietnam 

After spending a couple of nights in Ho Chi Minh City eating amazing foods, and a few days marveling at the traffic and how millions of motorists on scooters, mostly on their phones, navigate the organized chaos of the city’s streets, we took a ferry to the coastline.

We stayed in a cheap home-stay a few kilometers from the beach, so we rented a scooter and piled the 4 us onboard to get our first look at the South China Sea. As a surfer, the coastline, especially one occasionally exposed to swell, always has a magnetic pull. We made our way through a little fish market and out onto the beach. A brown sea awash with floating garbage and a tideline strewn with endless plastic debris was a disheartening introduction. The kids made the most of it and made sand castle creations decorated with refuse. 

A Vietnamese man picked up Macy, took a selfie with her, kissed her cheek and carried her to his nearby family, all without any warning or communication with us, her parents. I quickly but politely recovered her. Macy was too shocked to be really upset and eventually found it funny if not a bit embarrassing. This became a relatively common occurrence throughout South East Asia. The kids were big attractions. 

Just up the coast from where we were staying there was a Casino and Luxury Resort. The primary clientele seemed to be wealthy Chinese and Vietnamese holidaymakers. The resort was well out of our budget but it was a good opportunity to teach my kids one of my favorite travel hacks from my younger days. We wore our best clothes, which left us still pathetically underdressed, and strode into the lobby of the resort like we belonged. We made our way to the pool, ordered some drinks and pulled up some lounge chairs. We spent the next couple of days poolside by day, and in our homestay at night and no one paid us the slightest bit of attention. 

Thailand Revisited

 The Island of the Pit Vipers

After our journey through Bangkok, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam we were desperate to slow down, and find some solitude, peace and quiet. We had heard about a beautiful island in the Andaman Sea close to Burma that had no real roads or vehicles, small and simple beach huts and the very rare and slight potential for surf. Of course, this sounded appealing so we booked a ferry to the island. To this day, it is one of my favorite, non-surfing destinations in the world. There are paved single tracks designed for mopeds and bicycles that spider web across the island, with numerous stunning and mostly empty beaches to explore. The electricity from the island is derived from solar power and there are about 500 residents living ashore. Despite the small population and peaceful vibe, there’s a decent selection of restaurants offering a wide variety of foods. That said, we had a memorable breakfast experience at a little family owned restaurant located in the center of the island. We were just finishing up our pancakes, served by the daughter of a lovely family. Meanwhile, a naked toddler strolled out of the kitchen, which doubled as the family home, squatted and promptly and efficiently defecated on the path beside the kitchen and then continued on exploring the gardens beside the restaurant.

We found a beachfront resort with a small, one room bamboo hut steps from a spectacular sugar sand beach fronted by a warm tranquil sea. Our days were spent walking the beach, swimming and kayaking in the placid sea, reading books and letting the kids explore and play in the trees fronting the beach. That is until one morning, an Italian woman, who was also a guest in the small resort, approached us and told us to keep our kids away from their favorite tree, as she had spotted a pit viper there. We had been completely naive to the risks, having no idea that the island was home to some of the world’s deadliest snakes. Two of the hotel staff approached the tree cautiously with a long pole with a fork duct taped to the end. Apparently another hotel staff had been killed trying to capture a pit viper. A crowd formed to watch the tense capture, and I struggled to keep the kids at a safe viewing distance. They successfully trapped it with the fork, stabbed it to death and put it in a clear plastic water jug. The kids were fascinated, I was in shock that I had been so reckless with their safety. We steered clear of the trees after that.

We heard about a village of sea gypsy’s living just down the beach, across a lagoon on an island that was joined by low tide. To get to the island we had to pull ourselves with a rope across the lagoon on a rickety bamboo raft. The ‘Sea Gypsies’ as they were commonly called are actually a Nomadic group of seafarers that originally migrated from the South of China known as the Moken. They have traditionally lived off the sea, fishing and freediving, living in their Kabang boats and only coming ashore to sell their catch. They would occasionally settle in remote coastal villages to wait out the monsoon season and to repair gear. The village we wandered through had started to become a more permanent home to the Moken, with their children attending school on the main island. With that said, it was still one of the most basic and primitive communities that I had ever seen, one of nomads deeply entrenched in poverty and my kid’s eyes were opened to the reality of true subsistence living. 

Bali

Much has been written about the incredible surf on the island of Bali and nowadays it’s not a particularly adventurous destination. Once a remote escape for hardcore Australians, the streets of Kuta are now packed with international tourists from across the globe and the lineups are jammed with Russians, Japanese, Europeans, Indonesians and Aussies and a whole host of other nationalities all vying for a set wave at one of the perfect reef breaks. After a handful of surfs on the south coast, we decided to head North to Balian. Balian has a rivermouth point that breaks both left and right and is usually far less crowded than its southern counterparts, it’s also less perfect. What probably keeps the lineup from overcrowding primarily, is the bull shark population. The river spews out debris and food for the sharks, right into the lineup. Plenty of surfers have had non-fatal attacks in the murky waters and sightings are a regular occurrence. In spite of this reputation, we booked a house nearby for three weeks and surfed nearly every morning. I would often wait until mid-morning, when the sun was gaining in intensity and the crowd thinned out before I’d walk down the beach to surf. The waves were incredibly fun, and I felt I was surfing at the peak of my abilities. This was immensely gratifying as it had happened so rarely in my lifetime of surfing. Usually my surfing doesn’t equal my expectations. I did feel a nagging disappointment that I had finally traveled to Bali, the surf destination I had been longing to explore for decades and I didn’t once surf the premier, high quality waves of the Bukit Peninsula. I don’t really know what changed in my surf outlook, or exactly when. In my twenties and thirties I was determined to challenge myself, prove my capability in heavy barreling waves and in truth feed my ego. At some point, the idea of battling crowds, trying to pick off a a set wave, pushing the limits of my skill set became less appealing, replaced by the joy of surfing lesser known, playful waves and just enjoying the time spent.

I definitely had a handful of creepy moments in the water in Balian. Surfing alone and watching the water splash and boil about me, I'd pull my feet up out of the water and wait anxiously for the next set wave. Though what scared me more than the sharks was the short sprint on the moped on the highway between our homestay and the village of Balian. The highway is the main thoroughfare between Denpasar and Java, so Transport Trucks scream past sleepy Balian at full speed. Once again, our family of four would pile onto the moped and chance the five minutes on the busy, winding highway with the transport trucks bearing down on us. Every trip was a white knuckle ride, and I honestly breathed a sigh of relief when we safely returned the moped on the final day. 

A week before our departure back to Canada, a handful of surfers in the lineup were joking about a Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan China. Each day, the conversation became more involved as information out of China became more available. Two Australians that I met in the surf had their teaching contracts in China canceled that morning and it started to become apparent that this was likely going to affect us as we were scheduled to fly through Shanghai. The following day the Canadian Embassy banned travel to China for Canadian Citizens. We spent the next three days on the phone with airlines and travel insurance agencies to no avail. We were forced to rebook flights through the Philippines, with no financial reimbursement. We ended up racing the virus home and like most everyone, we had no idea what the next two years would entail.

Return to Canada

Locked Down in Canada

We had returned from Southeast Asia in order for me to fulfill a contract I had accepted to develop and implement a training program for new Marine Adventure Guides, which was no small task. Operating small vessels with passengers on the treacherous West Coast of Vancouver Island dubbed “the graveyard of the Pacific” is a heavy responsibility, fraught with risk and unpredictability. I relished the opportunity to train new guides and prepare them for the role in a way that I had always wished had existed.  For a few short weeks before the world changed, I was living out a fantasy. As we had sold our home in anticipation of our Costa Rican relocation, my employer put us up in a small, no-bedroom cabin on an isolated island just off town. We shared a dock and the island with him but were otherwise isolated in our remote little wilderness oasis. We were provided a small vessel to commute back and forth to town for groceries and work. The kids bunked in a loft bed and Christine and I slept on a mattress in the center of the cabin. The space was heated with a woodstove, and was completely off grid. 

Those first few weeks, my days were spent sharing the vast hidden secrets of the labyrinth of Clayoquot sound with three new guides, practicing emergency drills, sharing my local knowledge, watching wildlife like bears, wolves, orcas, otters, sea lions, humpback and fin whales and even testing the upper limits of the vessels we were operating. One particularly harrowing day, we left the harbor and nosed out of Brabant Channel to face 7 meter seas and 40 knot winds. While it was only a brief exposure, the new recruits nearly shit their pants. 

Three weeks into our training program, our work was suddenly and abruptly shut down. Covid had started to spread throughout Canada and the world and travel restrictions were being implemented. With work on an indefinite hold and the kids home from school we were left to wonder what the hell was going to happen. We asked ourselves, like everyone else “Just how deadly was this virus? How was it transmitted and were we at risk?” “How would our loved ones fare?” Further we questioned “What would happen with the contract I was counting on to fund our move to Costa Rica?” “What about border closures, could we even move into our new home?” 

With a healthy dose of fear and uncertainty and a lot of free time, we settled into remote island life. Our days were spent adventuring with the kids in our little skiff, harvesting oysters, fishing for salmon and crab, exploring remote islands. At night we’d build campfires and cook crab, roast marshmallows, stare at the stars and try not to allow our doubts and fears to impact our kids. In many ways it was an amazing experience with the opportunity to connect as a family, though it was tainted with fear and doubt about what was happening in the world.

It all changed one day a couple of months in, when out of fear for his partner’s safety, we were asked by the owner of the company our island cohabitant, to leave the island cabin and move into a staff accommodation in town. We were a family of four, during the height of covid’s uncertainty, faced with the possibility of sharing our living space with some random young staff. To add to our stress, we were asked to sign a tenancy contract that expired in three months. This was too much to handle. Tensions flared and emotions erupted. We spent a miserable and stressed month in the staff accommodation. We were in an extreme state of limbo and fear, with no jobs, no secure housing, a global pandemic unfolding, and we were unable to travel to live in our new home in Costa Rica. It began to become apparent that something needed to change, and that this crisis was far from over. We began desperately applying for work around the province and were ultimately successful finding jobs and a place to live in a small mountain community in the Kootenay Mountains of BC, which would become our new home for the next year.

Pandemic Surfing

Surfing in Tofino during the Covid lockdowns felt surreal. There was a constant underlying unease, like we were getting away with something, with the looming fear that the government might suddenly prohibit surfing. As Canadian surfers, we found ourselves in a regulatory gray area that seemed forgotten. Across the globe, governments were shutting down beaches and banning surfing out of concern for the virus's potential rapid spread, which seemed highly unlikely in the frigid ocean waters and open air of the Pacific. Around the world however, surfers in various coastal towns faced fines and even imprisonment. Shockingly, a surfer in Costa Rica was shot at by local authorities when attempting to escape detention for violating the beach prohibition and surfing. Fortunately, we had a stroke of luck in Canada. Our policymakers seemed to overlook the few small communities where surfing was possible, keeping us off their radar. Our local representatives recognized the vital role surfing played in our community’s mental well-being, and as a result, we were fortunate to enjoy empty waves and wide open schedules. Despite this saving grace, tensions in the small town were palpable. The local hospital had four beds, not exactly the capacity to handle any type of outbreak. Additionally, with the communal nature and underlying endemic health challenges of the five surrounding First Nations reserves, fear of an outbreak among the vulnerable population were warranted. The tourism based community is used to being inundated with visitors from around the world and there were very real concerns that outsiders would seek refuge in the small coastal outpost to ride out any lockdowns and outbreaks. Community driven roadblocks were established on the only public highway over the mountain pass and into town. Vehicles were being turned back after the harrowing hour and a half trip through the mountains. The federal police force, the RCMP looked the other way, allowing the citizens to keep their town isolated and for the most part, at least for that first wave of Covid, virus free. With the lack of visitors, I reveled in the opportunity provided to surf alone, however it almost cost me my life.    

Tofino is blessed with a number of beaches and bays, each facing different directions. Swell coming from almost any compass angle finds its way into one or another of the peninsula’s beaches. While the wind may be sideshore or even onshore at one beach, another can be sheltered entirely. The biggest swell magnet in the region is Cox Bay. Often picking up more swell than the surrounding beaches, it can be a long, endurance paddle out to the lineup. On these bigger days, most surfer’s will wisely head to Chesterman’s Beach, where the swell is broken up by barrier islands and reefs and the paddle out is a short sprint. These however, were my favorite Cox bay days. Often I’d find myself out alone or with one or two other intrepid souls (masochists). On this particular day, I arrived to find an empty beach parking lot. I made the short walk down to the beach through the coastal spruces and ferns, already suited up in my 5mm wetsuit, hood, gloves and booties. Arriving at the beach I was greeted with the familiar sight of big, empty waves breaking a quarter of a mile offshore. An onerous paddle, especially enveloped in thick rubber. Luckily there is a rocky headland at the West end of the bay. A short and simple hike with spectacular ocean vistas, it also provides easy access to the deeper offshore water for surfers adept at jumping off slippery, sharp cliffs awash in waves. It’s a risky scramble over mussel and barnacle encrusted rocks, a well timed leap of faith into the sea and a short sprint paddle into the lineup. It can be an excellent way to conserve energy, and avoid the ice cream headaches and sore shoulders of the paddle marathon from the beach. I had jumped off these very same rocks countless times, without incident. Today would be different. 

It was a stormy day, with strong South East winds and rain buffeting the coast, keeping all but surfers in their homes. There wasn’t a sole on the beach, and no one knew that I was intending to surf Cox bay. I had simply told Christine I was going for a surf, and I’d be back in a couple of hours. In retrospect this was irresponsible, though not out of the ordinary. I scrambled down the rocks, waited for a wave to smash and wash over the jump-off cliff and then lept. As soon as I was in the air I knew something was wrong. I felt my leashed leg being yanked, and the moment I was in the air I was suddenly abruptly stopped. Rather than continuing my outward and downward trajectory, I was pulled rapidly downward and against the cliff. My leash had snagged around a rocky crag, and I was now hanging upside down by my right leg. To make matters much worse, the next wave was bearing down on the cliff. I took a quick gulp of air, covered my head and hoped for the best. The wave smashed into me, and I was submerged underwater, upside down. I was swung into the rock wall, though luckily it wasn’t a violent impact. The wave passed and I was still hanging, upside down as the water drained and pulled back out to meet the next oncoming wave. I grabbed at my leash and tried to unhook it. Before I made any progress, the next wave was upon me. Again I covered my head and held my breath. This time, underwater I started to process what was happening. I’d need to unstrap my velcro leash strap in order to escape. I mentally prepared myself. As soon as the wave passed and I was dangling free in the air again, I reached up for my ankle strap. I missed the tiny tab on the first pull, and it was too late. A third wave crashed into me and swung me into the rock wall again. I was ready this time and determined to free myself. I reached up, grabbed the leash tab and yanked. I free fell five or six feet into the water and dove under the next wave. When I surfaced I was clear of the rocks and turned to see my board, now also free being washed into the craggy rocks. It eventually washed into a small surge channel. I was able to swim in and recover it and scramble back up the rocks. After inspecting the board I was amazed to find it free of any dings. It just had a few small cosmetic scratches from barnacles and mussels. I was even more surprised to feel that I was uninjured, though deeply shaken by the whole ordeal. I was also embarrassed, though there were no witnesses, and felt sheepish that after all of my years of experience I had been so foolish and reckless and nearly gotten myself killed. It was a bit of gut check as to how many risks I carelessly take. 

Costa Rica Relocation 2021

Expat Living: Pura Vida

I’m awoken by our dog Mara’s barking. It’s way more intense than usual. There's a menace in it. I bolt out of bed in my underwear and into our living room. The sliding door is open. It’s typically locked. In the dark I see a figure on our deck. A man. Confusion, followed by anger and then action. I yell “Hey! What the fuck are you doing!?” My voice is alien. Guttural with pure anger. I don’t even recognize my own voice. He approaches me, hands concealed in his hoodie pocket. Without thinking I move toward him. He spins and runs away and my instinct overtakes me and I’m running after him. Our home and second floor living quarters have a spiral staircase and we’re both descending at full speed. I’m a step behind him and I know without a doubt that I’ll be on him in seconds. Christine screams “Brady Stop!” and her plea breaks through my rage. The moment I back off Mara bolts by me in pursuit and they disappear into the jungle in full flight. Christine yells “Fucker!”in anger. My heart is pounding through my chest, my adrenaline coursing through my body. I’m vibrating with unspent anger. The kids. I race into my daughter's room and she’s crying but otherwise unharmed. My son is desperate for answers but I can’t deal with his questions at this moment. Eventually we gather together to help process what has just happened. 

I’m unreasonably angry with Christine for stopping me. I feel so pent up with aggression and I don’t have any outlet. Though when the tide of anger and fear recedes I know that she was right. We had no idea who or what this intruder was capable of. Was he armed? Were the kids going to watch me engage in violence in the middle of the night in our own home? How would that impact them?

I don’t sleep the rest of the night. We discover the only thing missing from our property is my daughter’s $5 flip flops. Imagine the desperation one must be in to steal a little girl’s flip flops. And yet again I’m confronted with the dissonance of being a foreigner, wealthy by relative comparison, both gentrifying and changing this community. This in no way excuses the violation of trespass and theft, wrong under almost any circumstances but the unrelenting assessment of our lives here is only fueled by this event. 

In the following days the online community chats are blowing up with incidents of more theft and break ins. Photos of a skinny man spark recognition in my mind. It’s him. He’s a well known addict in the community who has been on a spree of late. Raul. He lives in the little barrio down the road by the beach known as las bocas. My wife and I head to the delegation (police station) to file a denunciation (police report), I have little doubt that it’s a waste of time, but do so anyway. 

The week goes on with more reports of theft. I’m not sleeping well, every time Mara barks at a passing dog, late night partier or passing moto I bolt out of bed and head out onto our deck in the night, flashlight scanning the yard and surrounding jungle.

Eventually Raul the thief pushes things too far. He breaks into the local beach bar Olga’s. A Tico establishment that’s been owned by a local family for generations. Retribution comes in the form of two hired thugs, who pull Raul out of his home and beat the shit out of him. He’s warned if he returns to the community, his home since birth, he will be executed. Theft, at least in our neighborhood, subsides to a low trickle of incidents. I still don’t sleep well. One night, I awakened to the sound footsteps in the jungle behind our house. I bolt upright in bed listening intently. There it is again. There’s multiple steps. They start and stop. There is silence then a branch breaking. My mind is racing with possibilities of potential threats. I grab the machete from under my bed and sneak out onto the deck, hopefully undetected. This time I want the advantage of surprise. I scan the jungle with my flashlight. Then to my surprise, the beam of light flashes on a cow. There in the dark, is half a dozen cattle, looking for a passage through the barbed wire fence surrounding our yard. My adrenaline ebbs, and I spend another sleepless night thinking about leaving Costa Rica.

For twenty years Christine and I had dreamed of spending at least part of our lives here. Nosara is in the process of undergoing a dramatic transformation, as are most places with such magnetic beauty and the draw of paradise. In the time we have spent here, especially since our first visit, the change has been dramatic. It was slow and gradual to begin with, but since the Covid Pandemic it’s been rapid and exponential. People with the means and wherewithal to escape the cultural, political and even actual wars of their homelands arrive with containers full of their life’s belongings and carry with them an idealism that they can become part of an international community in paradise. One that is part of a greater movement of spirituality (some may say spiritual bypassing), with a daily connection to nature (though with ac and no bugs please), sunrise surfing and a looser interpretation of the rule of law and government imposed restrictions. With the growth of the Expat community, some of these changes make it a more livable community for families like ours. There are now a few schooling options available for international students (though at what for us amounted to a prohibitive cost). There are even a couple of medical and dental clinics that provide basic triage and treatments, though by the local doctor’s own admission “if it’s serious fly directly to San Jose.” However, even with this warning of his own limitations he did a beautiful job with the sixteen stitches to Christine’s forehead after she suffered a nasty New Year’s Day fin slice from her slingshotting surfboard. Despite these signs of growth, it still feels like this remote community is still on its own in the ‘Wild West’. There’s an undercurrent of lawlessness and a sense that one must rely on your own competence and resourcefulness.

One of the distinctions between us and many of the expat families we encounter living here is that we didn’t have to leave our home in search of something better. We’ve come across Israelis who are tired of living in fear of bombings, attacks, and the ongoing conflict with Palestine. We meet Colombians who are fleeing violent uprisings in their neighborhoods with roadblocks, and street killings in Cali. Even most of our American acquaintances left due to escalating cultural, and political tension, division, and rising crime that is encroaching on their once peaceful neighborhoods. A significant number of these Americans departed their country during the chaos and uncertainty of Covid lockdowns, vaccine  mandates, and the ever-growing political and social divides. They had had enough and viewed Costa Rica as a refuge, and Nosara as a paradise offering a simpler, more beautiful, and peaceful existence. In contrast, our decision to leave our home in the mountains of British Columbia had none of these pressures pushing us out. We had found a welcome and safe home there, connected to nature, with a strong sense of community, and a life that was simple and fulfilling. Yet, we still chose to leave. Why? I’m not entirely sure, to live out a lifelong dream. To expose our kids to the world outside of their insular little community and different way of living. And, if I’m being honest, to surf regularly in nothing but boardshorts, as trivial as that may sound.

There are more and more multimillion dollar homes ever encroaching and consuming the once dense jungle. As a result, Tico and especially Nicaraguan immigrants are moving into the surrounding communities for the work opportunities that are exploding. There’s a growing tension mounting between Tico and Nica laborers as contractors trying to keep building costs low and profits high tend to favor the cheaper illegal foreign laborers. Work safety standards are some of the worst in the world. As an example, our neighbor needed an overhanging tree trimmed. I awoke one morning to the metallic thwacking sound of a machete and branches crashing to the ground. Looking out the back deck, I noticed a man had climbed 40 feet up a tree, without any safety equipment and was straddling the same branch he was hacking away at with a machete. This practice is common in the little jungle outpost. It’s commonplace to come around a corner on the highway and to have to slam on the brakes to avoid an electrical worker standing on a ladder straddling the center lane to repair a power line. Laborers are risking their lives for $3 dollars an hour.

At the same time billionaires are flying into the local airstrip (once part of Noriega’s trafficking network) and partaking in Yoga retreats, sound healings, ayahuasca ceremonies and hiring surf coaches to push them into set waves. The surf lineups at dawn and dusk are packed, though the crowds are still surprisingly calm and mostly peaceful. While it’s clear that this rapid influx of people, wealth and influence is problematic and can’t possibly continue unchecked without spoiling paradise, I say this without judgment. I get it. It is paradise, and there is an opportunity for something truly special here. A global community of like-minded, health-orientated spiritual seekers and healers doing something different than the mainstream culture that seems to be veering off in a disastrous direction. Though this version of Eden is tenuous, with the outcome far from certain. The Expat community is teetering on the brink of total gentrification and the beautiful ideal is in deep jeopardy. The writing is on the wall that there is a strong possibility of Nosara simply becoming another playground for the ultra wealthy, if it hasn’t already. The irony is not lost on me, that we too are a part of this gentrification. By simply being here, driving up property values and the cost of living, we are adding fuel to the fire. We have spent countless nights out under the stars sitting on our deck discussing this exact thing. Truly it’s a mind fuck that doesn’t sit easily with us and has in no small part contributed to our decision to leave. I know that I’m not directly responsible for this stark disparity. We have made concerted efforts for our kids to have both a sense of gratitude, empathy and responsibility to whatever community they’re a part of including this one. In our time here together with our kids we’ve made some small gestures, fundraising and donating to the local Bomberos which in this community are a catch-all emergency response team, we’ve volunteered to teach English to local Tico children at the community library, which is the surest path to employment and a chance to break out of poverty. The kids have happily donated their belongings to the local food bank. Though all of these add up to very little in alleviating the growing pains, poverty and disparity of Nosareños.

In addition to the dramatic disparity, there is a vast cultural divide between the beaches of Nosara where the majority of Expats reside in what is called The American Project and the surrounding town of Nosara and its barrios. They seem like two separate islands with very little intermixing. Those living in the beautiful homes along the beaches or in the ocean view hills are living lives of unbelievable luxury while those in the barrios with once simple, beautiful lives are facing increasing pricing of housing, food staples and rapid population growth. The once sleepy village of farmers and fisherman has been overrun by foreigners and even Ticos moving in from across the country to find construction jobs. Along with the increased labor population comes more friction, drugs and crime. In the last month before we departed, there had been five drug-related murders, something once unheard of in Nosara. The simple, family-oriented, slow paced life is being overrun. Those that were born and raised here clearly have had something special that sets them apart, as evidenced by the famous Blue Zone longevity distinction (the Nicoya Peninsula in which Nosara is centrally located, is one of the five identified regions in the world known for its healthy, long lived citizens). There traditionally has been a strong sense of community, with an inherent kindness, and a contentment built from these strong family connections. The Nosarenos have always lived a life that embodies the Pura Vida philosophy. This too sadly, is hanging by a thread.

Day to Day Life: Pura Vida

Even with all the challenges and the dissonance of living caught between an ever widening cultural divide, our day to day life was mostly the stuff of dreams. This daily life was in many ways what I had envisioned and dreamed of in my twenties, when we bought the property. While our container home was small by local Expat standards (our family of four shared two forty foot containers), it was comfortable for us and most importantly close to the beach. Most days we would wake just after sunrise, sip coffee on our canopy deck in the warm morning light, while watching the birds, squirrels and occasional howler monkey’s flit about in the trees surrounding our deck. We would walk the kids (who were almost always barefoot) to the school bus stop a minute from our property. Then I’d often ride an old rusty beach cruiser bike five minutes down the pothole-ridden dirt road to the beach. I’d walk over the jungled headland to Guiones beach, stroll down the soft sand until I found an empty peak (or at least less crowded peak) and paddle out through the pool-warm water and surf fun, peaky beach break waves until my fatigue or hunger urged me back in. Afternoons were usually spent working online, maintaining our property and our two vacation rental suites and running errands and preparing dinner. When things were running smoothly (which was not all that often), we’d all head down to the beach as a family to watch the sunset. This was a beautiful community ritual, where locals, expats and tourists alike would gather along the beaches, socialize, play soccer (futbal) or swim in the ocean and watch the sun disappear closing out another day. Under the pressure of all the change and tension of a growing community, this singular ritual spoke to a shared value, in which there is a fundamental appreciation for nature and our connection to it. On clear nights at home we’d lay out on the deck in hammocks and our daybed and watch the stars. In short, life could, at times, be idyllic and as close to perfect as I could imagine. 

El Diablo

7:45 am and I’m driving the kids to their little jungle school on the beach. It’s about a 15 minute drive south  from our home along a winding, pothole-ridden road busy with a Mad Max-like assortment of vehicles ranging from scooters and motorcycles, to golf carts, ATV’s, quads, side by sides, backhoes, transport trucks Tuk Tuks and every other transport you can imagine. There’s a good number of drivers that are unlicensed  with unregistered and barely operational vehicles that would never pass even the loosest of inspections. Seeing Motos dragging 20 foot bundles of rebar, or doubling another rider while carrying sheets of gypsum and other unwieldy construction materials is commonplace. The scariest are the families all piled helmetless on top of motos. I’ve watched a family of 5, with toddlers wedged between adults navigate the dangerous roads on an old Moto while bottoming out on each pothole, their mother carrying a toddler under each arm. It’s terrifying to watch their tiny feet dangling in the air above the pavement speeding by at 60 km an hour. While the traffic in south east Asia is the craziest I’ve ever seen, it manages to somehow flow like a river. Here in the dust and jungle of Nosara, the recklessness of the drivers in this little outpost of town is the most concerning. Fatalities are commonplace. There’s WhatsApp chat groups warning unlicensed drivers when traffico is in town which is relatively infrequent. Piles of illegal drivers will pullover, turn around or simply wait out the traffic police until they return to their base in Nicoya more than an hour away. There are also frequent and gruesome posts of graphic traffic accidents on these very same chat groups.

This morning, I made it past the worst of the road and the ongoing bridgework, when I noticed white smoke pouring out of the exhaust pipe of our old beater (a 2000 Mitsubishi Montero, 4x4 manual diesel truck). In an instant the RPMs start increasing rapidly. I have no idea what is happening so I pull over on the side of the road and turn off the ignition. The RPMs continue to redline. I yell at the kids to get out of the truck and away as far away as possible. They jump out  in fear and run into the ditch. By this time the highway behind us is a whiteout in smoke. I pull the keys entirely out and the engine continues to run and scream even higher. I’m out the driver’s side door and blindly making my way through the smoke towards the ditch, I’m hoping that another vehicle isn’t blindly racing through the smoke on a collision course with me and or the Montero. I make it to the ditch and collect the kids. We run further from the truck and sit in awe as it continues to roar in anger. I see flames. For those keeping track, that's two vehicles that have caught on fire. Finally the engine blows and fluids explode into the street. The engine is finally dead. The smoke subsides and the lineup of traffic makes their way past the smoldering wreckage. In a small twist of luck I’m able to wave down the kid’s school bus and they hop on the bus a little shaken but with an exciting story to tell their peers. I came to learn later about the dangerous and relatively rare phenomenon of runaway diesel engines.

The Montero, when we bought it had a Christian themed exhaust sticker that exclaimed, El Diablo me vio con la cabeza gacha y pensó que había ganado hasta que me escuchó decir Amén.

Which translates into The Devil saw me with my head down and thought he had won until he heard me say Amen. 

We kept the sticker hoping that it would insulate us from theft in the largely Catholic country. After this incident Christine peeled most of the sticker off simply and appropriately leaving the name El Diablo (the Devil).

El Dia del Ultima 

On our last day as a family in Costa Rica we decided to rent huge soft top surfboards and head down to the beach with the kids. The stated mission is to have a tandem surf contest, the hidden motive is to leave the salty taste of joy in the kid’s mouths. Neither of them are passionate about surfing and that’s ok. They both have enough experience to feel competent in small surf and each has ridden many waves to the beach. They have plateaued in their progression and could take it or leave it. I’m honestly okay with their indifference to surfing, though it’s taken me some time and learned patience and acceptance to come to terms with it. I did have visions of family surf trips and spending quality time together in the water as they reached the age where spending any time with your parents is hard won. However this afternoon the smiles from the whole family are ear to ear. We’re trying headstands, jumping around 180 degrees on the boards, riding together holding hands and even lifting the kids into the air. The wipeouts are almost as plentiful as the laughs. This is my favorite moment in the last two years of living here. Whether or not they find surfing again later in life, I’m content in having these moments, these collective memories to share with them.

This path I’ve chosen has been an incredible journey. I often wonder how my life would’ve been different without surfing as a through line and driving force? The desire for exploration and experience over comfort and security, chasing unique and exciting experiences, having a sense of comfort in the chaos and no small share of close calls, near misses and misadventures have led me to a life well worth living in my opinion. I’ve been blessed with seeing some of the most beautiful and remote places on earth, I’ve had countless peak experiences and have been exposed to a myriad of different people’s perspectives and worldviews. In reflection, I’ve recognized my foolishness, my naivety and the countless mistakes that I’ve clearly made. Though I wouldn’t change them. While my obsessive passion for chasing waves around the world has been largely satiated, I’m excited to see where the next chapters of my life lead, and how surfing will continue to influence my path.

I’ve tried instilling this sense of adventure, curiosity and open mindedness within my children. I hope that they both find passions that equal or exceed my own and that they have the wisdom to broaden their focus and to make the most of all this world has to offer. That their drive is less myopic and more balanced. I hope that they are blessed with the drive to explore, adventure and to take calculated risks in their lives, that they find ways to take the path less traveled and that their minds are opened wide by meeting new people and having novel experiences. Ultimately, I want them to know deeply that it’s still a big wild world and that if your life is not as you want, you can change it, it only takes courage.