I ponder for you. Always for you.
I am sitting zazen underneath what certainly must be a Bodhi tree festooned with glowing tea candles just past sunset. The sky is a dying ember, smoky black, blood red, flaming orange while the first stars reveal themselves to mortals locked in the Wheel of Dharma and those who can feel its splintering.
Enlightenment is just around the corner, full realization,
Family and surf have become one. Multiple families and surf have become one.
Everyone is happy.
No one is sad.
Todd Kline is fishing somewhere and happy. His wife and son are swimming in Rancho Santana’s other other other pool at Playa Rosada, a lime wedge throw away from where my legs are crossed and hands resting gently in lap, just a stroll around the point on a perfect rock shelf dotted with tide pools featuring colorful minnows and crabs.
My wife is at a sunset yoga session and happy, overlooking the jungle canopy while our child and my best friend Josh’s children are on a horseback monkey spotting mission, happy.
Josh’s wife is getting a massage, happy, Josh is running the jungle trails, happy.
We have all surfed until filled beyond full. We have all laughed, eaten, sipped mojitos and laughed some more.
I didn’t think this was possible. I didn’t think it was remotely possible but Rancho Santana has proven me wrong even though I’ve pressed, pressed again and then dreamed.
This morning, in a state of tanned, surfed-out bliss, I read Dan Dob’s cold, hard disbelief. His atheistic screed decrying transcendence and thought, “He should be here. You should be here. We should all be here together and if we were all here together could certainly tilt the globe off its cruel axis and usher in the Age of Aquarius. The one promised in the musical Hair.”
I am going to make that happen for him, for you, for us. I am going to work a metaphorical family surf trip here and you will come and you will see and we will tilt the globe off its cruel axis but before we do that there is but one last quest.
Can the VAL and pre-VAL be included seamlessly?
There is one in your life. There is one in my life too and in order for this to all work they must be included. Mine is a high-society, blue-blood with exquisitely fussy taste who has always wanted to surf.
If she can come and be happy and make no one sad then all will be one.
Everything will be one and if we have one more surfer in the water we can run true overlapping heats which Todd Kline can call.
I release my pose, lift my phone and punch, “Come here!” to Jody, heir to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Manhattan-ite, wearer of Louboutin wedges, fearless snowboarder, my daughter’s fairy godmother.
“On the next flight out…” she responds before I close my eyes again.
Multiple families, Todd Kline and his and now a fussy pre-VAL who lunches with Harrison Ford after breakfasting with the Dalai Lama after tasting fresh powder.
More as the story develops.
I feel dirty
And the funny thing is that we havent had a single sight in Cape Town in 2019 (now over a year) Normally we see at 1 or 2 a day. In summer, up 20 sights a day. They are gone and noone knows why. People saying that Orcas are chasing them away.
It might be a bit tough to find a spot OK for a VAL to surf in NICA. Maybe try the bay side of Manific Rock, just up the beach from Playa Santana. Drive to the restaurant at the top of the rock and take the trail down the hill and around the point. Great slow(er) waves protected by the point. See pic. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
You can all hit up the restaurant at the hotel after the surf for drinks and food.
Is this neocolonialism for post-capitalism? And Chas, are you the only person over 6 foot in the whole country?
Faaark me.
This becoming Inertia Grit or something?
Hair 2019 …..This is the dawning of Beach Grit’s AGE OF THE HAIRY ARSE ….. ?
Very nice picture.
Straight to the pool room.
BG commenters are … VALS
What the fuck is a pre-VAL? Would Darwin really find an evolutionary link or would caution be thrown to the wind and he simply state that the VAL comes into existence by some spontaneous big bang moment from unintelligent design?
I’m in Byron Bay currently I just saw 8 of them get out of the one van
Sounds like you re about to tip the vibe up mate. Pre Val will be bored first day and spend the rest of her time berating the staff and comparing everything to somewhere much more expensive she’s been/owns with people more important than you.
$400 per night and that’s only room and board where minimum wage is $5 a day and there is civil unrest.
what a good margin for the hotel owners..killing it..$$$$
I was within that general area last year, no resort needed, just a converted shipping container, ATV with rack for rented board, beer and other staples from the local Super, it was heaven. I love and despise resorts simultaneously.
I feel great for you and yours, the mate’s fam and the Kilnes Chas, but these stories are making me sad. I wish a) I had a family, b) I was in Nicaragua and c) I was friends with the heir to Jackson Hole. Actually, this could all be resolved if I can marry said heir. Surely she’s sick of the Wall St world destroyers and/or Soho soiboi’s is just waiting for a well read Newy blueish collar battler with a shit car to surf and snowboard with?!
What about a certain female surf journo?
You should ask Chas to buy her a ticket to cover next surfest.
Then work your majic and bingo
Free beach grit air freshners
ha! Nice suggestions Bexy.
Good ole Surfest. For me it’s a good excuse to get baked and stay home. In fact, chicken or the egg as to being single on staying home and being baked…? But watch this video and figure out why I stay home. The Newy bit.. my *people.
https://youtu.be/Cf0k72yGfTU
Fukin loose cuntzz !!!
Trying to learn more about the culture of Australia. Thanks
Sold. Email [email protected]…. this is the ending the story really needs!
Man I wish I was one of cool kids, and yes, jealous and bitter.
the cool kids aren’t the ones in the resorts
Just show us the surf.
I can make a mojito sit under a palm tree, laugh at people any damn day of the week
Go to Nicaragua Surf Report. http://www.surfnsr.com
I wanna see what he’s surfing.
That’s Costa Rica. They just promote their shit waves using guanacaste waves every day. Nica gets blocked by Galapagos and gets no north swell. Lots of golf and good volcano tourism. But the surf is a marketing hoax. They need lots of backpackers but no more surfers need apply.
I have been twice and was skunked both times 🙂
Nah, it’s right here in Playa Colorados…granted, they hype the place up. It will close out all day and they show one clip of guy getting toobed.
there is something about Nica.. the good waves are points, reefs and sandbar river mouths.. but their are not enough of them to be honest. the beaches closeout for the most part.. so their truly are not enough waves to go around when you get a pack of say 10 fuckwads at a camp/guide service that crowd a point that wasn’t crowded before they showed up. Group surfing is for the VAL.. never got the point of it.
A lot of people want a piece of the pie. Too many bros, too many surf camps and surf tour companies. Some are assholes, and try and project their position in the lineup to their paying guests. Doesn’t work well for locals and longtime gringo residents.
That being said, I get waves to myself all the time, just gotta look around.
Thanks for playing a small part in ruining the one country I truly love. Keep your love notes to yourself, to yourself, mate. Fuck sake.
Fuck’s sake. No?
I dunno anymore, Dimmy. It’s all too hard mate. I can’t even choose between steamed or fried.
Go the steamed every time. Fried has more chance of an unintended repercussion from an exhuberant night before. Bit of soy and the day’s golden in 45 or so.
I’m gonna figure out how to rent a big villa here for a BG party and buy your ticket from Melbourne. The 30 BG folk who come here next year will only make the place better. I believe in us!
Thanks Chas. Can ya try get my flight from Melbourne to Sydney through Avalon Airport so my girlfriend doesn’t have to drive me all the way to Melbourne. That’s like a whole tank of petty mate. Avalon will probably be cheaper too.
I’ll grab you on my way through.
You’re on the bus to Geelong station then the Gull, mate. It’s just the way it is
A whole tank? You travel by go-kart?
Dibs on one of the thirty!! Wigs, I still owe you a drink or 10 and Chas still owes me at least one. And maybe, just maybe, we will then outnumber the Brazilians or Maimi/New Jersey surfers who are down there on the reg.
Cmon, #ad or #spon or do you give advertising regs and codes the flippant finger? Pedantry aside, there’s money to be made in selling holidays that appease most parties. My wife, she hates the beach and by gawd I loathe the city minibreak.
and still no sharks…where is Chas?
Jesus Christ.. I am surprised the Santana boys are going to let you leave.
sponsored post?
Some things are just unbelievably good. I’ve been around and never seen anything like this.
Not paid media then?
No! I took a surf vacation!
A vacation from what?
Dr Leo Marvin wrote him a script to take a vacation from his problems.
*”Family Vacation”, remember.
Your solo surf vacation is still waiting in the wings
Okay…. 1 week there, family of 4, nothing too extravagant food/alcohol/massage/activity-wise… what’s that gonna run me?
Lock the nuggets in the memory safe. You can use them when needed.