Ah….barrels. Photo: Malibu Popoyo
He was going to be born soon, and I knew surfing — as well as just about everything else — was going on hold. She and I were looking for a place to get away, but somewhere we could confidently quell our usual itinerancy and cool our jets with some sterling, honest-to-goodness rest for once.
So help us both, we were beginning to look into the kind of vacation designed for precisely the creatures we loathed, or at least loathed to be, but would come to understand in short order. We’d settled on the kind of vacation designed to offend our very beings to the marrow. A do-nothing, see-nothing, eat-everything, all-inclusive affair replete with fruity, frozen drinks, chaise lounges, serpentining pools, confined in and amongst the escapees of suburban sprawl, beaching and broiling themselves and their concerns into oblivion on some nondescript spit of sand – who cares where.
City living can be taxing, and while most former versions of myself would scoff at anything other than a far-flung, shoestring-budgeted leap into something promptly unplanned and definitively uncomfortable, even discussing that sort of thing led me to exhaustion in the face of impending parenthood and in the wake of a seemingly endless slough of home renovations.
A chance at relief was sounding better and better. Visions of umbrella-bedazzled drinks and pool decks began oscillating before me, and for the first time in all my days, so help me, it bore some appeal.
But lo and behold, before losing what was left of my good senses and embarking upon a hastily-booked trip to some sterile Club Med on some sterile island devoid of everything but white sand, chlorine-saturated pools, and dismal, banquet-style table fare, Nicaragua came calling.
In this line of work, press invitations are a dime a dozen. I’m usually quick and often obligated to politely decline for this reason or that, and my response to Malibu Popoyo was a virtual carbon-copy of the dozen or so other invitations I’d received over the past year or so. After all, what, really, could there be to say about another surf retreat in Central America? I, for one, certainly wouldn’t be reading that, and by and large, neither would you or anyone else with enough time on their hands.
Further, even if I were to accept, I’d have a very-soon-to-be mother in tow, and I wasn’t about to leave her between some dingy, poorly ventilated shack and the pool on some buggy, poorly tended patio reeking of stale beer and strewn with the remnants of whatever havoc a gaggle of spring breakers had wrought the night before. I may be overly cynical, but just the same I needed to be critically sensitive to an exhausted mother-to-be who might appreciate a break from the commonplace noises and smells found all too readily at home in New York City.
If it seems like I have a lowly view of dime-a-dozen surf resorts, it’s because I do. More often than not, they are derelict hovels designed to serve one purpose and one agenda, hospitality be damned. And that’s all well and good, just not for us, or me. Not anymore. On the other hand, I’m every bit as glad that surf tourism isn’t reserved for those who can afford $6,000-a-night Tavarua.
But as the PR agency pressed on, I began to acquiesce and took a look into their packages. This was a female-founded and owned resort geared toward the more timid surfer, with longboards, soft-tops, and yoga, and markedly devoid of the testosterone one almost invariably finds amidst a sea of big-wave chasers and thruster enthusiasts. Intriguing for her, but where did I fit in? And again, while no doubt a wonderful thing, how many articles have run in surf publications covering this very intersection of cultures? Pass.
View this post on Instagram
Then I got to thinking: all-inclusive, all-you-can-eat, all the yoga you can do, a daily surf guide, any board of my choice from the hotel’s surprisingly diverse quiver, and a clean room for under $300? That’s enough to keep the riffraff out, but not so much that a lowly scribe like me can’t scratch out enough to cover a week. This might just be some version of our Shangri-La. It might even be a place that, someday, I’d take my son to learn to surf.
Finding a surf destination with reasonable accommodations for a partner (or family of three) when surfing isn’t the prerogative for all can be tricky. The four- and five-star approach is an option for those with the means, but that’s out of the question for most households, and, it goes without saying, this one.
As I considered my impending fatherhood and what it might mean for my surfing — which I figured would be all but dead for a couple of years — what better way, I thought, to sort out a proper answer than having one last dance before descending into diaper land? Chloé would be covered with all the peace and quiet, fresh juice, and snacks she could want, and I’d be free to frolic (or flounder) in the surf without much worry. With six weeks to go before her due date, we jumped a plane to Costa Rica and shuttled into Nicaragua the following day.
It was just at the beginning of swell season. Reports were calling for 3-5 feet at 16 seconds — dream conditions for a pedestrian surfer such as I. Great, I thought. I’ll have these little chest-to-shoulder-high peelers all to my lonesome.
Upon arrival, we piled into a 1970s-vintage Toyota Land Rover and crept along a beach and up a hill before arriving at a restaurant perched above the main break, complete with shade and all the smoothie variations a non-drinking person’s heart could desire. I could feel even less guilty for indulging my inner child ahead of the arrival of our incoming one. She’d have a perfect view to watch me squabble in the lineup for whatever scraps and shoulders I could muster, offering her further solace in knowing I wasn’t plying the outer reef for neck-breaking meat grinders.
Not a terrible view when you’re just there to relax. Photo: Owen James Burke
I’m long past trying to impress her, for the record, and whatever part of me did chance to make an impression, there’s not even an outside chance it was my surfing, in which she takes less than zero interest. Thanks be to every last one of the gods for that. She was already carrying my child, for whatever that’s worth.
Looking out at the variety of rights and lefts below the cliffs, I mused. Someday, he’ll be here, paddling circles around me and taking — and making — drops that will leave my heart in my mouth. I’d love nothing more.
I’ve never built up much of an ego around surfing or anything else I’ve done — I used to want to somehow get by making a living around surfing, but I gave that up long ago among other aspirations in baseball, cinematography, oceanography, racketeering, and the adult entertainment business, among sundry other pursuits. Isn’t it funny how our egos crumble as we age, and still yet, as we face parenthood? Frankly, I’m damned glad of it, too. Likewise, I’ve never conformed or subscribed to any culture or subculture. Flying under the radar has always been my MO, and I like to stay well away from the melée of groms, big mouths, and surly old-timers.
I find myself easily deterred by this energy, even on my more agile days when I’m holding my own. Rarely is there much else to turn to, save for a pricy and often fruitless fishing excursion. But Popoyo offered farm tours with tortilla and cheese making, horseback riding, and fresh-as-can-be, all-you-can-eat grub all day long. If any one of those things can’t nurse wounded spirits, all bets are off.
As all this crossed my mind, it also came into focus that the surf was big. Especially for someone who hadn’t paddled in so much as a pool for going on a year. Rolling paint and assembling baby furniture is surely an exercise in something, but it’s hardly what the doctors order for maintaining some semblance of surfing physique.
I passed up on the first day of double-overhead-plus, but pitch-perfect, almost-nobody-out slabs with a degree of shame. But when things were slightly overhead and surely manageable the next day and I came to find myself feeling like a drowning swine caught in the wash, the little shred of confidence I had held began to fray.
Arriving back at the lodge, my head and shoulders slung low, a procession of tuna tartare from a yellowfin brought in that day and a cheery yoga instructor promising us a private, merciful lesson, beachside, was enough to stir if not entirely console my morale.
And did it ever need it. The entire week was shaping up to be a veritable groundhog day, and I was going to have to come to terms with it. Much as Chloé needed all the yoga, freshly pressed jugo de maracuya, and resplendent pool time, I may well have needed it more. She was continuing to carry on through her final term valiantly.
As my determination and confidence crumbled, so too did the waves abate. The main peak became the only surfable one, and as soon as everyone in the area became relegated to it, the lineup descended into the mayhem I’m always trying to flee, be it in the water or at the subway station. There are some people who surf through crowds without batting an eye. I’m not one of them. If I can boil down my surfing endeavors to one singular thing, it is the pursuit of solitude. Strip that away, and I may as well be scrapping for a seat or a handlebar on a subway car. A thrill? Maybe, but not a pleasurable one.
And so I found myself reflecting more and more. There are platitudes galore for the precipice at which I now stand. “You’re embarking upon a whole new adventure,” has been one of the more common ones I’ve heard lately. “You’re about to ride the biggest wave of your life,” someone said. While those trite clichés may hold truth, I prefer to talk myself through these sorts of things longwindedly. “You’ve already fallen out of the surfing life you once knew and loved, what difference does it make,” I’ve told myself. “Your priorities are shifting. There’s nothing wrong with that, and a new chapter will unfold down the line,” goes another incantation of mine.
Sweet Nicaraguan nights. Photo: Owen James Burke
“Your son will take up surfing,” I convince myself, knowing full well that the way things go, he’ll probably take to football or soccer and express indifference if not deep hatred or fear of the sea. Suddenly you’ll have all the time in the world to pick it up again, and better yet, with him, I continue, however hopeful.
You can always come here, I reasoned, after one last pathetic sunset grovel amongst the hoards. And however bruised your ego may be when he or some other grom is taking wave after wave and you’re frothing over a fumbled barrel, a missed set, a pinched nerve, a receding hairline, or the requirement of an ever-elongating hull due to decrepitude, there will always be consolation in spades about this place. A gracious surf guide, an all-you-can-eat feast, an umbrella-garnished tropical beverage, a poolside chaise lounge, a tattered old pulp-crime novel, and an impossibly optimistic yoga teacher. If only fleetingly before my son reminds me of my umteenth atrocity during a less-than-fruitful morning session.
Over the course of the three or so hours of jostling through s-turn after s-turn between Costa Rica’s national parks — part of what makes and keeps this more remote stretch of coastline precisely that — Chloé grew more and more nauseous. The chatty van driver didn’t help. I began to muse to myself that I might after all be ready, and moreover looking forward to staying put for a little while. A few months, at least.
And so be it. Eventually, I’ll get back to surfing one way or another, even if it means being the worst of the worst out there. And you’d better make way. I’ll be the bleary-eyed new dad atop a Wavestorm, whom you can be almost sure has forgotten his leash, and whom you can be even surer has had far too much caffeine, trying to chase down his offspring amongst the melée of groms, big mouths, and surly old-timers.
