[youtube=http://youtu.be/JbzDpbrOkDI]
We think we are awesome.
We’re silly. We like pink, and blue, and stripes.
We like making up stories, doing cutbacks, and going for long walks on the beach.
We ride longboards. We shred on shortboards.
We surf, we do yoga, we laugh, we dance. We encourage back flips and water fights.
You should come surf with us…
Because we are awesome!
Music “I Dunno” by Grapes Courtesy of http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Baby turtles are so freaking cute! The Amigas are partnered with a non-profit called Waves of Hope who are working to protect sea turtles from poachers. After several months of collecting eggs and keeping them safe, the nests are starting to hatch!
Every few evenings between now and mid-December we’ll be having baby sea turtle sunsets. Come down and help baby sea turtles make their way out to sea!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F39nntnkkJo]
Part of surfing is knowing that the waves will not always be overhead and perfect. Sometimes it’s small. Sometimes it’s windy. Sometimes it’s crowded. If you’ve got a longer board and a silly attitude, none of that matters and you’ll always have a good time.
Our first few days in El Salvador this week have been a little bit on the smaller side. There’s a good swell coming in a few days, but we passed the time waiting by getting super silly with friends, and doing yoga!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddoI-6xZUm0]
I rarely post two videos covering the first three days of a retreat, but we’ve been scoring in El Salvador. Thanks to video feedback analyzed after every session, these girls are seriously improving, starting to do deeper bottom turns, cutbacks, and even some top turns. It’s so fun to watch!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJEMuia1lic]
A few times a year we offer super surf focused (with some yoga thrown in) retreats for Amigas who either already came to a womens surf yoga retreat Nicaragua or can prove that they know how to surf, but want to improve. This group is one of the best we’ve ever had, which makes it really fun and easy for me! It feels just like a surf trip with friends! Check out the awesome shredding at the super user-friendly wave called Las Flores in El Salvador! This footage is only from the first day. Wait til you see what happened later in the week after all the video feedback!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O2Dixa907c]
November and December are the beginning of my favorite time of the year in Nicaragua. The rainy season is over, everything is green and beautiful, the waves are cute and groomed by offshore winds, but the best part might be baby turtles! Surf With Amigas is partnered with El Coco Loco Resort and Waves of Hope on their many projects including a sea turtle conservation project. Watch the video to learn more and visit in November and December to watch baby turtles released into the ocean at sunset.
Jackie George is my new best female friend. Last November I got a random email from her saying she was a lifeguard, raft guide, and enthusiastic surfer looking for a couple weeks of work in Central America. She had just graduated from Humboldt State and was planning to take a big trip through Nicaragua and Costa Rica and wanted to pick up some extra money along the way. I happened to be on a road trip through Northern California at the time and met up with her for a few minutes over-looking the Humboldt surf spot called Camel Rock. My boyfriend Kim and I had slept in our truck the night before and showed up around 9am with coffee looking disheveled. Jackie was in her wetsuit, having already surfed, all bubbly smiling happy energy and I knew right away that she would be a perfect addition to our commune in Nicaragua! She started out with two weeks in January and after that I was determined to do whatever I could to not let her leave! Fortunately, it worked and she stayed the whole season and has agreed to come back in Fall. Stoked!
Everyone who meets her absolutely loves her. She is a gorgeous free-spirit with infectious positive energy who can smile through anything. You’ll love hanging out with her. Check out this video and you’ll see what I mean…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg6TEFkuy6Q]
[youtube=http://youtu.be/tIZneuwRFKg]
It’s natural to want to give back and help people. Travel experiences are so much more meaningful when you get a chance to interact with the local community and impact their lives in a positive way. When I was looking for a place to run the women’s surf and yoga retreats I wanted to partner with someone who was making a positive impact on the community. Coco Loco is the perfect place. They run a non-profit called Waves of Hope that is investing in education to teach the people how to help themselves. Those are the sorts of businesses that I want to support and you can feel good about doing the same.
For more information about Waves Of Hope, click here!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1zx98fCMSU]
The only thing I like better than an Amiga getting a great wave is an Amiga getting an awesome wipeout. I blew it and cleared out my hard drive most of the way through the season so this only represents a tiny fraction of the awesome wipeouts that we saw in the 2011/2012 season. I’ve chosen my top 4 favorites and now you get to vote for the best. The winner gets a new Freestyle watch. Vote in the comments here, on facebook, via email ([email protected]) or follow the link to the youtube video and vote in the comments there. I’ll be tallying up the votes on Friday Aug 10!
Coco Loco, Waves of Hope, and Surf With Amigas are all dedicated to improving the lives of the people in the surrounding communities. One project was the Waves of Hope Surf Club which encouraged kids to attend school everyday by offering them a Saturday Surf Club which they could only attend if their teacher signed off that they had attended class every day, turned in assignments, and were generally being good students. Through this program, kids were motivated to stay in school, but they also got a chance to learn about the ocean and learn how to surf. The only problem was that after catching your first wave, you then want your own surfboard that those are expensive and hard to come by for a poor village kid.
Other gringos in other communities have solved this problem by just giving out a bunch of boards. The problem with this strategy is that the kids then don’t appreciate the value of the boards. They also then start asking for more hand-outs. We didn’t have enough boards for all the kids and tried to come up with a way that they could earn a new board.
Enter the Coco Loco Classic – We held a contest for 11 participants on a fun day at the point. A few of them didn’t even have a surfboard to use for the competition so we let them borrow some of ours. The contest ended in a tie so we gave out two boards but everyone had a great day with a fun friendly competitive spirit.
Watch the video below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWw_ZTv_DAw&feature=relmfu]
