"He wanted to make an example of me, to leave me broken so anyone watching would know better than to dare speak his name unsolicited ever again."
This is a completely true story.
In 1991, Steve (RIP), Chard, and I ended up in Costa Rica with a few other buddies from our Florida surf crew.
Our posse arrived in country virtually empty-handed, with no reservations and no set plans — just passports, a handful of surfboards, and barely any money.
I had just turned 18. It was my second surf trip to Central America, after a month-long sojourn the prior year as a 17-year-old fresh out of high school.
This was back in that long-lost magical era when it was normal for parents to let minor kids go to third-world countries with their barely 18-year-old best friends (Chard) for a month at a time with no communication.
On that first trip, Chard and I chased barrels at pre-developed, still untouched, Hermosa.
Big, dark, gaping tunnels at near low tide (dead low was basically unmanageable) in about 3 feet of water over black lava sand. There was either no crowd to speak of or just the two of us, completely alone, alternately getting shacked or obliterated (truthfully, a lot more of the latter).
That same trip we wandered down through Manuel Antonio to Dominical with a grizzled ex-pat who had driven his ancient Bronco all the way around from Florida down through Mexico and eventually married a Costa Rican lady. The Bronco still had Florida plates.
We spent days rumbling down unpaved roads past crystal waterfalls and sand-buggying along pristine tidal lines. We didn’t spot another human on the beach the entire time, just jungle and clean water and constant swell.
The whole experience was epic.
But back to 1991 and that second, 18-year-old, trip.
I started this tale by saying our crew had barely any money. That was a lie, at least as far as I was concerned.
I had no money.
I was in between my freshman and sophomore years of college. For family reasons, I was living in Virginia Beach that summer, my first non-university stretch of time spent outside Florida. And I was working the only job I could find back in those recession-era days, raising money for some sketchy environmental nonprofit.
The work entailed going door to door in sweltering heat, begging disinterested housewives for checks like a homeless panhandler.
It was pretty fucking miserable.
Back in Florida, Chard had sold everyone on the dream, and this time there would be half a dozen going down.
I was hoping I could pull it off. But eventually things became too bleak on the finance front.
I broke down and called Chard long distance on the land line, as one did in those pre-internet days.
“Can’t make the trip bro,” I said. “Really sucks, just have no funds, literally, barely getting by with this shitty job, hope you guys catch it good.”
Chard’s exact words were something like, “Quit whining Rocks, and get your ass down here — scrape together enough for a plane ticket, and we’ll figure out the rest once we’re in CR.”
His blunt directive shook me out of my doldrums.
I suddenly realized I was in a prison of my own making, that the keys to the cell door had actually been right there in my pocket the whole time.
I quit the door-knocking gig that day and flipped my last meager paycheck for a roundtrip ticket from Miami to San Jose.
An extended family member had been visiting and was leaving the next morning to head back down to Florida. I hitched a ride.
Long story short, a few quick days after Chard’s wake-up call I found myself loitering in the open air patio of the Jaco Beach Hotel, killing time between surf sessions, my pockets totally empty save for some stray pieces of wax.
But in one of those random coincidences that seem to happen whenever one embarks on a quest with no money and no plan, at the same moment the hotel just happened to be the epicenter of the surf universe.
You see, Greg Noll himself — live and in the substantial, imposing flesh — was also there, hosting what was apparently his inaugural Surf Legends Classic.
The contest lived up to its name. The number of legends who were wandering the pool pavilion was mind-blowing.
There was Noll, of course, and Miki Dora, Rabbit Kekai, and Bruce and Dana Brown.
But Pat Curren was there too, and Phil Edwards, and Nat Young, and Robert August, and Micky Munoz, and Bing Copeland, and Tom Morey, and Mike Diffenderfer, and Felipe Pomar, and on and on and on.
My buddies and I wandered around eavesdropping on conversations and generally attempting to be inconspicuous.
When things moved to the water we climbed up in the empty lifeguard tower on the beach and watched the show. The surfing wasn’t amazing, or rather the waves were pretty mediocre at the time and no one except maybe Randy Rarick was doing much with them (Rarick was a surprisingly good surfer, for some reason that sticks out in my mind).
But the sightseeing was unforgettable.
In addition to generally watching everyone parade by and paddle out, I have vivid memories of looking down as Bruce and Dana Brown strolled underneath the tower, carrying camera paraphernalia, talking about where to set up, a surf film icon and his offspring on just another day (for them).
Noll never went in the water, at least not while we were around.
Instead, he held court in the pavilion, his big Hawaiian shirts like a flame drawing all the legendary moths around him, these founding fathers of modern surf acknowledging him as the true alpha.
On our second day of lurking around, I noticed Miki Dora playing ping pong with a young hotel guest who seemed to have no clue who he was. I grabbed Steve and sidled over to stand near the table.
Dora won easily, although neither he nor his clueless opponent displayed much skill. As the loser, Mr. Clueless started to hand me his paddle so I could take next, but Dora interjected.
“No, you play him, I’m done,” he said and started to walk away.
“Actually,” I said, “I was really hoping I could play you, Mr. Dora.”
Miki stopped in his tracks.
He turned slowly.
His eyes locked on mine.
A dark shadow passed over his visage.
He transformed before my eyes from a relaxed tourist to something more akin to a feral panther sizing up a lethargic, plump tapir.
“All right,” he growled. “You serve.”
Now, at the time, I was a halfway decent ping-pong player. Growing up, we had a table on our screened-in porch, and I had been summer camp champion a few times. My forehand was especially vicious.
But the demon had been aroused.
Dora played with furious intensity. His game went to a completely different level.
He played in total silence, with no sound other than the familiar bi-dop, bi-dop of the ping pong ball, the sonic intervals growing shorter and shorter as the pace of play quickened.
It was clear right away that he wanted to make an example of me, to leave me broken so anyone watching would know better than to dare speak his name unsolicited ever again.
He didn’t fail.
I was overwhelmed by the onslaught, and not because I was playing poorly. He was just that good.
The final score was something like 21-6.
When the game ended, he dropped his paddle on the table, abruptly spun on his thong-clad feet, and stalked off.
“Good game,” I said to his retreating back.
He didn’t even slow down.
The next day our crew left town and headed north to chase a rumored swell.
We ended up spending nearly a week at double overhead plus Boca Barranca, to this day some of the most beautiful surf I’ve ever seen, breaking way out beyond the headland, across the river mouth (full of crocs), and into the bay.
It was all time, at least on our Florida-centric scale.
We then headed back south and caught a mysto wave breaking outside Roca Loca even bigger than it had been up north. We hit Hermosa again and scored.
We never made it to the headliners — Pavones, Witch’s Rock, Ollie’s.
Guessing they each would have been all time too, but what did we know, just a bunch of clueless kids with no Surfline access getting by on rice, beans, and rumors (and, in my case, Chard’s dime).
After all the gorging on swell, we never saw Dora or Noll or the Browns or Rabbit or any of the others again.
But those moments still live deep in that special lockbox with the rest of my technicolor memories — vivid images of wandering among surf heroes, straining to hear Noll’s stories from just outside his circle of legendary admirers, basking in Rabbit’s aloha spirit.
And most of all, standing at that ping pong table across from a menacing Da Cat, his lips curled into a sneer, his paddle poised like a dagger, his mind singularly focused on disemboweling me (metaphorically, of course).
p.s. I re-payed Chard in dollars, but could never repay him in spirit. Legend.
p.p.s. I don’t recall the official name of the hotel, it’s always been the Jaco Beach Hotel in my mind. Back then it was the big nice one right on the beach with the pool where everyone hung out, whether or not they were guests. Also, it should be noted that we were not actually guests there. Rather, we stayed at a little hovel down the street — $4 per night for a roof over a cot, with no hot water, no toilet seats, and who knows what crawling the floors at night. For whatever reason, Jaco Beach Hotel security (such as it was) never confronted us.
p.p.s. Late last year Peter “Pope” Kahapea (who was there) posted a snapshot on his IG that was taken at the 1991 Jaco contest and includes many of the names mentioned here plus a few more.
