This clip from Neil deGrasse Tyson is pretty mind-blowing, especially for all of us that think it’s the moon that powers the tides. When we chat about how the tides affect waves during retreats, we often only hear about the moon’s role. Ok, so the moon is still involved, but did you know the sun is also a major player in the dance of the tides in and out?
Also… have any yogi, spiritual, hippy friends that swear they’re “really feeling this moon!” Yeah, me too. Of course there is something to be said for the extra light produced at night by the full moon, but if we’re thinking about the gravitational pull that a full moon may have on us, Neil easily dismisses that theory. Here’s some ammunition to use the next time a friend gets all heady about the affect of the moon.
Surfing all day, fishing, frothing out, riding horses, eating amazing food, laughing with good friends until you’re so tired you just have a giddy silly smile on your face. It’s a great life! There’s yoga too, but we never seem to capture any footage of it! Gotta work on that…
Need some new reads to get hyped for your next surf adventure? SWA Instructor Coco has shared her favorite surf-centric books!
In Search Of Captain Zero
a surfer’s road trip beyond the end of the road
By Allan C. Weisbecker
My favorite surf book ever. This book really captures the essence of surf travel and it opened up my mind to the wild magic of Mexico.
On his journey from New York to Central America in search of a long lost friend, Allan finds himself in some wild places, surfing empty waves and gathering clues of his dear friend Captain Zero’s whereabouts along the way. This book is hilarious and entertaining from beginning to end and it really inspired me. I still dream of driving through Mexico and Central America! Maybe one day. As far as I know Captain Zero is still living there in Mexico- my sister ran into him a few years ago in Panama and they surfed together.
Bustin’ Down the Door
By Wayne RABBIT Bartholomew
I read this book while living in Hawaii. The author, “Rabbit”, is an Australian surf legend who writes about his adventures in Hawaii in the winter of 1975 where he was almost chased out, first by locals, then by huge waves crashing through his front door in the night.
After reading this book I moved to Australia and eventually met Rabbit at Southern Cross University where I was studying Sports Management “surfing studies”. I remember during his open discussion he asked the students if we could leave our desks and sit in a circle on the floor instead. Legend indeed.
Barbarian DaysA Surfing Life
By William Finnegan
“The particulars of new places grabbed me and held me, the sweep of new coasts, cold, lovely, dawns. The world was incomprehensibly large, and there was still so much to see. Yes, I got sick sometimes of being an expatriate, always ignorant, on the outside of things, but I didn’t feel ready for domestic life, for seeing the same people, the same places, thinking more or less the same thoughts, each day. I liked surrendering to the onrush, the uncertainty, the serendipity of the road.” — Finnegan
This quote taken from Barbarian Days really sums up the excitement of surf travel. Never knowing what is around the next corner, traveling to new places, exposing yourself to new cultures, and embracing the unexpected. I read it in a just a few days! After reading I starting thinking about surfing bigger waves and began training a few weeks later too!
An Amiga who joined us at a recent Southern Costa Rica Jungle Retreat took home the footage and edited it into this awesome video. We usually do the edits ourselves, so it is really cool to see the experience purely from the perspective of one our guests. Here’s what it looked like last week in Costa Rica!
I posted this video to my Instagram account and received many questions. “Why?” “How did you survive that?” “Was your board in one piece afterwards?”
The most common question was, “how did you fall in order to not get hurt?” Well… let me explain.
I grew up in Los Angeles’ South Bay, an area with plenty of surf, but unfortunately mostly beach breaks without a lot of shape.
The waves in that area break close to shore, get hollow, form plenty of tubes, but it’s rare to make it out of the tube. As a teenager, I developed a love for the vision you get from standing inside of a hollow wave, regardless of whether the wave let me out still standing. I got used to the crunchings that inevitably followed sending course sand deep inside my wetsuit, scalp and ears. I learned to survive closeout tubes and actually really enjoy them. Any pain that resulted was all worth that blissful momentary vision.
Since then, I’ve moved to a much more shapely Central American beach break near SWA retreats in Nicaragua where coming out of the tube is a whole lot more common. But, I still haven’t lost my love for a good crunching close out. Sometimes, if I know there’s no chance of making the wave, I actually feel more relaxed. I can just stand there and enjoy the view. This day there were a lot of good waves, but also a lot of really excited local kids scrambling to take every one. I got a little annoyed and paddled further south, deeper than anyone, to wait for my good one. This big lump came in, I saw it doubling up, knew there was little chance of making it, but felt like I needed to prove my point so the kids would back off. Plus…. I really wanted that view!
If you’re going to go for closeouts, or even are just trying to learn how to get tubed, knowing how to fall definitely helps.
First let me say, the safest place is inside the tube. If you takeoff on a bigger hollow wave, and decide to straighten out towards shore (instead of pulling in), there’s a good chance the lip will land on your head, on the back of board, etc. The power from the lip landing on you as it falls is something you want to avoid. Alternatively, if you take off and try to pull out through the face, the wave will likely suck you up and “over the falls” which again can be more dangerous.
The key to falling as safely as possible is to jump off from inside the tube.
If it’s a small wave, I typically won’t jump off at all, but just ride as long as possible and let it knock me off as it will. If it’s a bigger one however, I will jump. There are two options:
1. Kick the board out in front of you and kinda just sit back, falling off behind the board. In theory I think this is a good idea, but in practice it’s not what I typically do.
2. Jump forward. Usually most of my momentum is going forward, hoping to make the tube, so I find my body wants to go forward as well. Therefore, I usually jump off forward and slightly to the falling lip side of my board, trying to fall as flat as possible (to not have an elbow or leg sticking out that will slam into the shallow bottom). Imagine diving forward into a body surf position. Typically I’ll do a little twist as I dive so that I land more on my back. That way if you do bounce off the bottom, it’s your shoulder or back that hits, instead of your face/elbow. That’s what I remember doing on this wave and while I did bounce off the shallow sandbar on my back, I wasn’t hurt. My board was miraculously also in one piece and I happily paddled out for more!
If you want to get coached to surf hollow waves, join me on one of our advanced tube riding retreats. More info here.
To see the best waves (including plenty I came out of) from the swell, click Play below.
Continuing to add new retreat locations to our offerings, this is a highlight video of our first ever Surf With Amigas Retreat in Morocco. The ladies scored really fun user-friendly waves at a long right point break and explored Moroccan culture.
We are gearing up for one of our favorite retreats of the season, the Advanced Tube Riding Clinic in North Nicaragua! Here’s a highlight from Holly surfing the beach break from our most recent tube riding clinic.
At these retreats our goal will be to help you develop the skills needed to get your first tube ride. We’ll be getting up early and paddling out at sunrise, then coming in for breakfast, and paddling out again! If the tide and wind are good, we’ll surf four or five hours per day. This retreat is about surfing our brains out!
We hosted an advanced shortboard retreat in North Nicaragua with the goal of teaching our guests how to get tubed. You will see a couple of long boarders as well who wanted to come and join in the fun without the pressure of getting tubed. This is the highlight video of the week with everyone included. There are waves for everyone in North Nicaragua and we scored an awesome swell and conditions all week.
If you’ve been on one of our retreats in Southern Costa Rica, you’ll recognize these awesome ladies as the ones who make your delicious meals, greet you with a smile at cocktail hour, and keep your room tidy. After watching all our awesome guests with big smiles on their faces after a great surf session, these ladies wanted to try it for themselves. We took them down to the beach and did a surf lesson as if they were guests, complete with a pre-session stretch and post-session video analysis. They loved it! It felt so good to share the stoke of surfing with our entire team.
Surf With Amigas has been sponsoring the Waves of Hope sea turtle conservation program since 2012. We just committed to another year doing our part to give back by supporting the program that buys baby sea turtle eggs from poachers turned conservationists to ensure there will be turtles in the lineup for years to come!
See below for the video we made way back in 2012 in our first year of the project. All the info is the same! If you’d like to participate in the release of baby turtles, join us for a retreat in Nicaragua.
