A well-timed trip down to Costa Rica last month delivered a lot of small to medium sized waves to play on, and also helped me avoid shoveling two feet of snow back home. Combo swell from the SSW and WNW offered up plenty of rides, and a solid head start into this year's wave count. The month of January is considered part of the dry season, where it never rains and the easterly winds blow steady at 20 mph+ for days on end.
The tides also lined up nicely during this two-week trip with early morning highs for the first half, making the town where I stay an option for the dawn patrol. It's just a short drive up to Playa Avellanas and a quick walk to the river mouth to surf the lower tides. So when I decided to sleep-in, I really didn't miss out on any surfing opportunities. There was actually a small crowd in town at the north end of the beach, so I mostly avoided it sticking to the south end between the rocks and what was once Bernardo's Restaurante. Overall, it was a fruitful trip from a surf perspective. I snapped pictures of the waves after each session. I posted them in the gallery below, along with the stats from the days I had the apple watch set up with the Dawn Patrol App.
Unfortunately, I lost my Apple Watch 4 in the north end shore pound on my very first surf... so that was frustrating. But I happened to know some folks who were coming down to Costa Rica the next weekend, so they purchased an Apple Watch 7 for me, in the airport, at one of those tech stores near the gates. I would've been bummed to not record any surf data for this trip. I'm glad it ended up working out. Now, I'm back in the cold, ready to charge a small wind swell from the east. I hope you're surfing where you are!
BONUS TRACK
I always listen to Value Hit 104.7 on the radio when I visit Costa Rica. It's an amazing mix of all the alternative music genres from punk and new wave, to alt rock and pop. Take this 5-song shuffle of eclectic artists I recently heard as an example... Linda Lindas > Depeche Mode > Bruno Mars > White Stripes > Coldplay. I'm pretty sure the station is some sort've digital jukebox set on shuffle... as there wasn't much for DJ's and talk. There are usually a couple of current releases in the Value Hit mix, that are on a heavy rotation, but the rest of the songs end up being random and obscure alternative tracks spanning the past four decades. This past trip I kept hearing the song Nothing by Depeche Mode for some reason, AND a whole lot of this tasty R&B disco gem by Bruno Mars. "Got her bad ass kids runnin round my whole crib like it's chuck e cheese. Put me in a jam, with her ex-man in the U-F-C" . This song was stuck in my damn head for nearly every surf session. It's a good jam. Play it loud, and sing along.