Pavones (pictured) under attack.
Pavones (pictured) under attack.

World’s second greatest left under direct attack in Costa Rica

Save Pavones!

As every surfer knows, waves are a precious resource. Move a rock here, some sand there, and a rifling barreling section fizzles. Build seawalls, dig marinas, frame massive resorts right on the beach and, well, the entire lineup is relegated to memory. It is bad enough when fun local spots are made extinct. Something quite other, though, when a legendary world-class break comes under direct attack.

But let us not tarry. Let us hurry, quick, to Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast and the second greatest left on earth, Pavones. According to locals on the ground, power has been cut to the quaint town and small business are currently being razed to make way for an allegedly illegal resort and marina plus widened road. At issue is the land fronting the wave, which was purchased some years back, officials bribed then etc. but no longer around. Then days ago, and without warning, the bulldozers rolled in, crumbling buildings, mowing a path of destruction, threatening the very existence of the wave itself.

Locals are attempting to bring light to the situation, capturing and posting to social media, trying to bend the government’s ear. The call is not, necessarily, to stop construction forever but rather get a proper environmental assessment that will account for the health of the unique biosystem and the ultra-unique wave out front.

Follow along here and here.

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More as the story develops.

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31 Comments
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Rincon Scrawn

This is what happens when the Ticos dominate the line up and don’t give any set waves to the fat old Gringos (FOG’s) Those FOGS with $ come back to privatize the break…

avi

Its another gaza. What next? Surfing in fresno?

disqus_uMoUTWIbgA

Weiners

wsurfs .

There is nothing as certain as change. So, get used to it…..or not!

Tom House

Have to assume MAGA is behind this

Beerbelly Bogger

Weisbecker’s ghost is gonna do an 8 ball of uncut Bolivian pura vida and Jason Vorhees the fuck out of that place.

primera calidad

It was an American that built the entire town there. Nobody had EVER surfed their previously.

Gwen Walz’s Eyes

What a shame. Beautiful, fun wave with really nice locals when I was there a year ago.

Sean Connery

And he better include photos of what he is having for dinner.

Chief Hot stuff

Is that the floating garbage island?

Rich Marx

Does anyone know if public access to the wave is put at risk by this resort?

Bax

Ya rich, I have heard that the end goal is to privatize the wave, before this, some gringos were trying to privatize the lower beach road that heads south from the point.

Barnycle

The Tico business elite often act like americans, because their modern economy has been designed and built by them.

All sorts of shit, such as predatory banking practices, that wouldn’t fly anywhere else in the western hemisphere if not for the greasy hands. Companies have to pay the banks some shit like 8% of every transaction if you use a credit card. Regular countries that number is 2.5%-3% but I’m sure that’ll soon change, in those countries, as enshittification continues.

Hippy

Try and take your money out of CR, “investors”.

Otto

Welcome back
How you been Hippy?
Been a moment since I’ve seen your handle pop up down here.

Hippy

Hey Ott

Just round paying respect to Jack, sad news, happy dude, when I saw this ridiculous post title.

Hope all is well bro

Got some good picks of Big Sky back from the photog, gawds country

primera calidad

You know how you leave CR with a million dollars? Bring 5 million on the way in…

Barrelled

This type of action typically is of Chinese origin, not American. Plus, Costa Rica is technically in the Americas.

Barnycle

Surely you’re having a laugh.

Do the Americans only go down there when they want to stand up for the free, and spread honour and environmental preservation?

Barrelled

I am laughing but a majority, not all, of the illegal Central America construction activity leads back to China. Much like Fiji.

Hippy

See Harbors

Barrelled

Pavones would rank, at best, about #20 on the list of the best left’s in the world. Top 10 are probably all in Indo. That said, still worth saving the place.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins

The left at Abu Dhabi is the easy #1.

Hippy

Might want to include Fiji in your top tens, maybe Kauai too….. Mexico. Kiwi land. Def peru and Tahiti. CR might not make the top 40.

worth saving even though

Barrelled

Yeah some good ones there too but, Indo takes the top 10, maybe more. Prob top 10 rights too.

Hippy

dunno, Restaurants is pretty much platinum status and might not be as good as cloud. Don’t matter, CR ain’t there for sure.

Barrelled

Not Cloudbreak. That’s a warping, breathing, super hard to surf monster. Restaurants might tip 10 or 11. Not sure how much of Indo you have visited but the perfection, consistency, easiness, and overall beauty of the waves in the whole archipelago wins 10-20x over.

Hippy

got restaurants three days in a row while it was still private. bordering doh and still air, mirror days. not sure waves get better.

got Macca’s bout 10′ faces and it was butter too. not sure how to distinguish except speed and restaurants was a race course.

you know I enjoyed the island very much, treasures. at some point, perfection is just that and comparisons are tough to come by. gotten oaxaca as good though where you can’t believe there’s another needle to thread

no other sport can inspire that, too bad the league can’t showcase the most photogenic art of man.

Abscessed Llama

Thought you were warming the casket wasn’t Ol’boy!

@surfads

A warning to any gringo developer that investing in Pavones may result in cutbacks.

Stick man

…of all that’s Left.


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