Why get a tiny hotel room when you can get an entire condo for the same price? Club del Sol Luxury Condominiums are the perfect getaway for a romantic interlude, a business retreat, or a family vacation. Their sixteen spacious one and two bedroom residences are located at the south end of Jaco, only a block from the ocean and just across from Carton Surf Shop.  At night it is far enough away from the center of town to enjoy a tranquil evening and during the day you can relax by the pool and look up into the mountainous rainforest, catching glimpses of scarlet macaws and toucans in the trees while deciding which of the many adventures to do in the area.

It was remarkable to see the high level to customer service that the staff showed throughout my stay. When I arrived the security guard helped me with my bags and the manager gave me a tour of the condominium. I was shown the new washer and dryer and the spare bedroom with two twin beds, taught how to work the LCD screen TV and DVD players, and how to access the free wireless internet. The manager explained they offer daily maid service and during the day can help arrange any tours or transfers needed. Some options they gave were guided visits to Manuel Antonio National Park, surf lessons, ATV tours, and zipline canopy tours.

As for the inside, it was designed for a corporate CEO – with his or her friends and family in mind as well. The beds were enormous and the rooms almost soundproof, making for ideal sleeping conditions. Each room was appointed with custom made furniture designed for comfort and relaxation. In the living room they had an extensive DVD collection with many recent hit features and comedy classics, and a small selection of books as well. The kitchen was fully equipped with a full size fridge and freezer, gas stove, microwave, and tastefully decorated with wood cabinets, ceramic backsplashes, and marble counters. All of the rooms had ceiling fans and air conditioners, and the living room and master bedroom had beautiful wooden French doors which opened on to a private patio and tropical garden.

Beyond the garden in the main courtyard was a free form pool with two mini-waterfalls in the center. The falling rivulets gave just the right amount of pressure for massaging my shoulders and neck after a long day in the water surfing.  The staff provided oversized plush cotton towels for the pool and the deck furniture allowed for sunbathing and socializing in the shade. If I wanted a little extra treatment for sore limbs, I could have asked for one of their healing spa treatments, the therapist coming right to my residence.

Overall, it was the service and serenity that made Club del Sol so special. Their rates were affordable too, starting at $85 for a one bedroom condo in the Green Season  or  $130 for a two bedroom. To make your own reservations, just visit – www.clubdelsoljaco.com or call 1-877-679-7134. Check back to their website often since they are promoting some Spring Break and Easter holiday specials.

 By Greg Gordon – travel@crsurf.com

Measuring 3.51 kilometers or 2.18 miles, the white sand beach has many beach breaks with sandy bottom and well as a reef break at the northern end.  Due to its orientation, the beach picks up most Pacific swells and is one of Costa Rica’s most consistent breaks.   The main break at Hotel Las Tortugas has rights and lefts and often barrels.  Breaks on either side are generally smaller and some are ideal for learning to surf.   Casitas is another nice break at the southern end of Playa Grande.  The area gets good offshore winds most days during the dry season. 

There is a great deal of variety in accommodations.  On the high end is Casa Muy Grande, a private resort for up to ten people that has a private pool, bar, barbecue, and paddle tennis court and comes with surf boards, boogie boards and sea kayaks for guest use as well as full time staff.     Other great beachfront homes include Villa Siempre and Villa de la Roca.  Villas Costa Grande is a group of five vacation villas that were finished this year and can be rented individually or in groups to accommodate more people.  These are a short walk from Playa Grande.  There are also other options available for budget travelers including Arenas de Playa Grande condos.

Playa Grande has a number of excellent restaurants.  Kike’s Place, named after the owner, is a local favorite and serves typical Costa Rican food including casados.  Mar Bar is a boutique restaurant with excellent burritos, mini-burgers, calamari, and salads.  The Great Waltini’s, found in the Palm Beach area of Playa Grande, serves a more upscale, fusion menu.  Other options include fine dining at Cantarana.

Most restaurants have bars that stay open until midnight, and for night owls, Tamarindo is only 20 minutes away.  There you can find bars and clubs open late.

Transportation to Playa Grande is easy.  It is on a paved road only an hour away from Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia, Costa Rica.  Flights from all over the world arrive there as well as Costa Rica’s other international airport in San Jose.  If you want to check out all that Costa Rica has to offer, we recommend renting a car so you can check out the nearby volcano at Rincon de la Vieja as well as the canopy tour in Cartagena.  You can also travel to the more remote beaches of Avellanas and Playa Negra to ride the waves there.

Area activities other than surfing include deep sea fishing, scuba diving, snorkeling, horseback riding, ATV tours, canopy tours, watching the leatherback turtles nesting at Playa Grande, bird watching, spas, yoga, and national park tours. 

To see all that Playa Grande has to offer, please check out www.SurfingPlayaGrande.com!

Imagine what could be to wake up in the morning, prepare a delicious coffee and sit at the door of the rented house, watching the horizon, and the browsing the map to find a new beach you can discover today.

Traveling using vacation rentals has a special charm that you can not get in a hotel. It is the freedom you have to feel for a moment, a home in an exotic place, where everything is about to be discovered. And best, prices are often very affordable!

Using SurfersWithoutBorders.com you can start planning your next surf trip to see what rentals you can find for the place in the worlkd you want to visit. It is very simple to find a rental for use by the number of people who accompany you.

It can be a vacation rental for surfers on the beaches of Brazil, a small beach house on a Greek island, or a hut in Indonesia. Sure you can find it in our listings!

Start browsing now!

When I turned fifty my present to myself, and perhaps to my family (ie: they got rid of me for a couple of weeks) was a surfing trip to the islands off northern Sumatra.

I kidded myself that I would partly finance this with a spot of travel journalism, and on my return promptly penned this little story for the travel section of The Age, the main Melbourne broadsheet. It was accepted, but unhappily the section in which it was to be included was canned shortly before it was to be published.

Now that I control my own publishing destiny, here 'tis. If you recognize the young man it features, please share it with me. I'd love to know more of his story.



MR TIM, MR TIM..

“Micko, when we’re 50 we’ve gotta come out of a big barrel”
So said one of my surfing buddies in a Kombi in France way back in 1978. It seemed a lifetime away then. The thought of a geriatric fifty year-old even getting out in the water was to us, at twenty-three, bordering on science fiction. Still, it was something to aim for and as the years flew by, the barriers to achieving dreams such as this came, and were happily embraced. Marriage, two beautiful boys and a feisty but understanding wife who allowed me my passion for the sea.

What was once surfing all weekend became 3 hours on a Saturday or Sunday morning. I grew immune to the 3-hour round trip for three hours in the water. Seasons were irrelevant, but the round trip remained. I stayed fit by running, or staring at the bottom of a swimming pool, the black line drifting by, 40 minutes a day, 3 days a week.

Suddenly, I was nearing fifty.

The dream started looking like it might come true, but to make sure, I needed to go somewhere where there were consistent, big (so I didn’t have to stoop) barrels. A barrel is the hollow formed by a breaking wave. Otherwise known as the tube, it holds a special place in all surfer’s hearts. There are quite a few spots where these “ big barrels” might be found.

Bali was an obvious choice, but it lacked the uncharted territory feel that surfing in France had all those years ago. Hawaii has the size, and places like Tahiti’s Teeahupoo certainly have the goods when the search is for sheer, mind-numbing power, but I wanted to come back alive.

Indonesia, however, is still, and probably will always remain, the home of the world’s best surfing, if perfect waves are the measure of such things. In the northwest, off the Sumatran coast, lie the Mentawais, an island chain home to some of the world’s great waves, and nearby the island of Nias, and it’s legendary wave at Lagundri.
I put out the word to a few of my friends, all a little younger but all sharing the same passion. To get to these places, the preferred access is the ‘boat trip’, a chartered vessel island hopping perfect wave after perfect wave.

Some friends dropped out, citing fear of sea sickness, timing or lack of funds, but we finally assembled our seven, and courtesy of Chris Scurrah and Sumatran Surfariis, we departed the old Sumatran Dutch Colonial port of Padang, aboard the Southern Cross.

Chris, or Scuzz as he puzzlingly prefers to be called, had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the waters and reefs of the island chain. He decided we needed to head north, bypassing the Mentawais (too many boats) and heading to a less well-known group of islands for our first taste of surf. This was the beginning of surfing perfect or near perfect waves, 7 hours a day for 13 days. Aches and pains appeared. Others we’d had for years disappeared. That desk in front of you causes more grief to the body than any coral reef I’ve been dragged across.

We began naming breaks after prominent Indonesian politicians. We loved Megawatis, we survived Bam Bams and at General Wiranto’s, we lost a bit of skin. Every night we looked at the video of the day’s action, and I slipped momentarily into a deep depression. Surely I don’t surf THAT bad. It’s amazing the difference between sensory and visual feedback if you don’t have a constant point of reference. Then, I reverted to, well... not too bad, for fifty.
It made it that much easier.

The highlight of the trip? Strangely, it had little to do with the surf.

One of the best waves we surfed was near a village on a small island. Surfers call the break Rockstars, a wave comparable, some say, to the more famous waves in the Mentawais. It named itself when the first surfers to surf there were greeted like rockstars when they came ashore. The villagers had never seen surfing, but had heard of it, and were overjoyed to have a good surfing spot in their village.

A young American, named Tim, from San Diego, visited one day in August 2002 . He returned again the next day and by then the villagers would have come to know him, and greeted him with the same warmth and friendliness they greeted us.

Tim’s surf that day ended abruptly when he was stabbed in the femoral artery by a fin of his board.

Tim bled to death in the village as his friends and the villagers frantically tried to help.
I visited the village in early September 2004. As we entered the village from the ocean we encountered a near completed memorial. The top half was shrouded in sackcloth, screening it before it’s official unveiling. We were aware of the story of Tim, and asked if we could see it. The villagers agreed, and the kids crowded about, saying it’s for “Mr Tim, Mr Tim”.

On one side of the memorial is a clipping from the Los Angeles Times, telling of Tim’s death. On the other side is a picture above the initials, TM. Tim looks full of life, holding aloft a mackerel he’s just caught. Flanking the picture are two children’s ceramic pieces that had been sent to the village by Tim’s family. One was a child’s handprint. The other had a tiny surfer inscribed in the blue glazed clay, and the name Michael.

When I saw this I had to walk away.

I laughed with the kids, had tea with the locals and had to pass on a plate of sate dog. When I left, a couple of hours later, I looked back at the village and the memorial, thinking of the American family who will never forget a lost son and brother. And of the little village on an island off the coast of Sumatra, where there will always be a place for a young man named Tim.

Every surfer has an epic surf story or three. As you get older they gather in the backwaters of your memory and sit, waiting to be trotted out at the odd dinner party.

This blog thing is my opportunity to dig the occasional one out, without the excuse of one too many glasses of red, and today, I'll tell you a story about Hec.

As you've gathered from my earlier post, a couple of years ago I enjoyed a boat trip to the waters off northern Sumatra. One of my shipmates was Hec, and welcome he was, as Hec in his other life is the local GP in the town of Denmark, sitting deep in the southwest corner of Western Australia.

We were all very pleased to hear he was coming on the trip, and amazed at the sight of the major hospital cunningly disguised as a first aid kit he brought with him. How the hell it got through Indonesian and Singaporean customs I'll never know, but it did, and as we ventured out on our little holiday we all secretly hoped it would not be needed.

For the first few days the only time it was opened was to bring out the Betadine, for the odd scrape from the reef, but on, I think day five, I was the first recipient of his ministrations when I had a fight with my fins during a wipeout at that little break called Rockstars. One caught me in the head, just above my right eye, and Hec dutifully gave me 6 of his best stitches. I was back in the water the next morning, albeit with a healthy smearing of antibiotic ointment and a silicon swim hat under my helmet, just to keep everything in place.

A couple of days later, Hec dragged the bag out again to sew up Neil, another of our number, after his fins decided to attack his leg. Not so bad this time, just 3 stitches, and Neil back in the line up, again the next day.

Then, again a couple of days later, we're all sitting in the lineup at a pumping lefthander called Asu, when one of the other boat captains comes into the lineup in a skiff and yells, "Which one of you guys is a doctor?

I was sitting close enough to see Hec roll his eyes as he dutifully put his hand up, and he was whisked away to God knows what.

As it turned out, a young guy surfing the inside section called the Nuke zone (now no longer existent, as the earthquake that occurred a couple of months later caused it to rise 3ft out of the water) had been hit in the leg by a passing surfer exiting the tube as the aforementioned young guy was attempting to duck dive the oncoming wave,

Now this was a cut, and, given that Asu is about 300 miles from the nearest hospital, the kid had just won the lottery to have Hec within yelling distance.

God knows how many sutures later, both internal and external, and we had a very happy camper. His trip was due to end the next day, and the last thing we heard was he was off to enjoy the delights of the Octoberfest in Munich, with a gammy leg.

Now, you might say this is a kinda cool story, but a bit so what. But really the story is about Hec and how hard core he is when it comes to getting a surf.

Earlier this year, unlike the rest of us, he managed to wangle another boat trip, this time to the Maldives.

Day one, and Hec rides a longboard (he's 50) , he wipes out and receives a rather heavy knock to the leg. Hurts a bit but no big deal, and it's the end of the day.

Day two, and after another wipeout and a bit of a drag from the legrope (Hec's a natural, and the leggie is on his right leg, the one that was hit)... and Hec feels an odd sort of clicking going on. Hmmm... the diagnostic brain switches on, he's not liking what he's thinking but on with the show.

Day three, and another wipeout confirms his suspicions... he's busted his fibula, the smaller of the two bones in his lower leg, and not to put a too fine a point on it... the trip's looking fucked.

Not to be deterred, Hec, back on board, gathers together the boats two week supply of sun cure resin and fibreglass, builds himself a cast and surfs out the remaining 8 days, just 2 hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, as he didn't want to overdo it.

The sequence, courtesy of one of his shipmates via our mutual Sumatran shipmate Marky, is of Hec, nicely slotted, on his 50th birthday trip.

Go Hec... you're a bloody legend.

I almost don’t want to write about this last couple of weeks.

You might expect a surf trip to a remote tropical paradise to be just that, paradise, and it was, but the time inside your own head also gives you many moments to reflect, but more of that later.

The Banyaks are a small group of islands tucked in just above Nias, off northern Sumatra in Indonesia. To get there from Australia you fly to Kuala Lumpur, get a linking flight to Medan on the Sumatran coast, and then a 12 seater aircraft... with 3 seats removed... 8 surfers and 24 surfboards, all in the one coffin..er... cabin, out to the island of Simeulue.

This flight was punctuated by the pilot giving us a 100 foot fly by of the breaks up the Simeulue coast. He was actually a bit of a gun, and the aircraft brand new, so the picture I paint is more due to my slightly claustrophobic reaction.. I’m just not that good in tiny planes. On landing we were met by our boat captain Marcus, and then on to the port town of Sinebang and our home for the next 12 days, the good ship Gaia.

Simeulue was hit by the tsunami of 04, not a heavy loss of life but everywhere is evidence of rebuilding. New roads, houses and infrastructure, and still evidence of buildings ruined by the quakes.

The people are friendly, curious and modest, as you would expect in a Muslim area, with some of the girls and women covering their faces as we passed.

Sinebang itself is a very poor, but bustling little town. It now has it’s own supermarket which seems to be as source of much joy, though I’m told no one knows how to use the cash registers yet. It has the feeling Bali had in the mid seventies or earlier, but with a different feeling too, as it lacks the Balinese cultural artistry, that being replaced by the mixed influences of Dutch colonial, Acehnese and the local culture. My meeting with it all was very brief, as we were on to the boat immediately.

Some of us jumped straight into the drink, to shake of the travel weariness and rest after, by then 15 hours of travel. The water up there is around 30C, so it’s a bit like jumping into thick warm air, that air occupied now by three lolling old fart surfers, and a green turtle, who decided to rise up and take a look at us. As we did so we listened to the serenade of the Call to Prayer as the mullahs proclaimed the Greatness of God. I had to agree he got the water temp pretty damn right indeed.

The next 12 days were pretty much wake up, eat, surf for 4 hours, eat, surf for 4 hours, eat, have a beer and talk, sleep. Repeat.

The waves in the area are incredible. Critically fast and hollow, glassy, and all on razor sharp coral reefs, with water depths ranging from shallow to near dry reef. It gave us all cause for pause, and tempered the exuberant attack you might apply to a similar wave on a sand bottom.

We all lost bark, to varying degrees, none too bad, with the odd stitch here and there to colour the days. Luckily two of our group were doctors. One, Hec, was a GP while Jamie (a wave magnet) was a gastro intestinal surgeon. This was of intense interest to me as a week before leaving I’d had an unexpected gallstone attack and was pretty concerned about the consequences of same out in the middle of nowhere.

“Don’t worry Mick... I have a plan”

Gulp.

Fortune favours the brave and Jamie’s plan, thank God, never saw the light of day.

Swell size started quite solid, nudging 6 feet, extreme quality, but inconsistent as it was a dying swell and a very long distance one too. Sometimes an hour of near flatness, followed by an intense 10 minutes or so, then another hour. Here and there it’d increase in consistency, but that, if anything, was our only frustration as we were all desperate to get our share.

A tight group of breaks, suiting a variety of wind and swell conditions, meant we had little real traveling to do, once we got there.

Three lefts, two at a place called the Bay of Plenty, and two rights made up our menu, with three breaks in particular serving up the courses that left the biggest impressions.

Cobra Logs was a flogger of a left, at times almost backless, and if you got a good one it was the ride of your life. If you got one with a tail though it could end in pain.

I had a lot of trouble with the under the lip angled take off you need at these places, at first anyway, and the mind game that accompanies this dogged me for most of the trip.

There were days and waves when it all came together, and I swear I had some of the best rides of my life.

I also took a couple of hits at another place called Whistlebird that were so hard they shook me to my core, physically and psychologically, needing sleep and a couple of neurophen to allow an aching frame to regroup for the next day. At 54 you just don’t take it as easily as at 24, and the idea of pulling in to a near dry end section tube at the end of a 200 yard high speed run, not sure you’ll make it out or get scraped across the coral, meant oftimes you’d pull out instead of going hard. it seemed the wiser choice give our remoteness, but eventually you find your moment when it looks the goods and you go.

Surfing great Miki Dora once made the observation that riding a wave can seen as a metaphor for life, the troubles of life being washed away behind you, or thrown onto the reef as you shoot along the wave, to pull out and start all over again.

My take with the tube ride, particularly the one over coral, is perhaps a little different. The light is the goal, sometimes elusive, sometimes clear and bright and other times flickering, closing, or receding, just out of reach.
So many times on this trip I found myself just not quite making it, I’d have to wash away the frustration and fear of consequence, and paddle back out, make another ridiculous takeoff, or not, race along a wall that allowed no cutbacks, no pauses in that speed to the zone where you pulled in, watched the lip fold over you, gurgling over near dry reef and sometimes, sometimes, I made it out the end, into the light.

I have to do more of that.

The pic is a spread from my daily diary. A little painting and a muse everyday. Just between surfs.

Photos later.

Mick, Surfer,
Victoria, Australia
http://safetosea.blogspot.com/