Greetings everyone,

Starting next week, we will begin to post information in the form of Surf Tips when planning travel or planning a surf vacation for Costa Rica or for that matter anywhere in the world. Local and long time surf outfitter Chuck Herwig will begin sharing his experience with us weekly.

Chuck has a surf shop in Jaco, Costa Rica where surfers can get information ranging from places to stay in Costa Rica, best places to surf in Costa Rica, best surf instructors for beginners, and much more. Chuck has a website but do not let the low tech or simple site dissuade you from his knowledge.

People here in Jaco know when they need to find out information about anything related to surfing they go see Chuck. So check back or subscribe to the RSS Feed to begin learning from Chucks experience!

Six weeks ago, the canton de Garabito or Garabito County in which Jaco is located took delivery of close to 20 new white Toyota pickup trucks courtesy of the local developers. When the rest of the world is trying to conserve on fossil fuel consumption and when the Fuerza Publica cannot afford to pay for it own gasoline usage, Garabito’s employees and workers are guzzling fuel at record numbers.

Today, you can see the monster size pickups touring through town, towering over the smaller local more fuel efficient cars. Previously, it was the pretentious albeit only a handful who drove monter trucks in this paved road city. With the addition of 20 plus gas guzzling trucks, this will only add to the local pollution and one needs to ask themselves, why? What is the purpose of this? Who is going to pay for the enormous gasoline bills? When the Garabito Council claims it cannot afford to do this or that, they seem to have no problems accepting gifts like this. more…

When it all came down to the final point counts Team Costa Rica was knocked from 4th place to 5th place by Team France whom beat Costa Rica by 1 point. While many focused how the loss of the fourth position was salado which is tico slang for bad luck, others were shocked that the surfers from the small surfing town in Costa Rica made such a HUGE splash at this international event.

Many say it is Costa Rica’s time to share in the global spotlight of professional surfing competition but when it is all said and done, it was the local surfers who did it all. Jason Torres, Luis Vindas, Nataly Bernold, Gilbert Brown, Jairo Perez, and Lisbeth Vindas are the reasons why Costa Rica is now a power to be reckoned with in international surfing. All of these surfers are from Playa Jaco except for Gilbert who hails from Puerto Viejo. But if you live here you know Gilbert is no stranger to Jaco, his monthly visits here in Jaco shows that the surfers in Costa Rican are united and are a real team.

Unless you are a competition surfer, you do not know the mental aspects of this sport. It is important that individually and as a team that you don’t psyche yourself out even when you are competing against your friends. But when you are coming from a tiny town and going up against rich countries, big time surfers with BIG TIME sponsorship the mental aspect takes on a whole new burden to be dealt with. This mental game was one of the key focuses of coach Jose Urena.

Coach Jose Urena of the surfing Team Costa Rica talked about the mental aspects of competing against surfing stars during the 2008 Billabong World Surfing Games in Portugal. Coach Urena was quoted “It’s a matter of making them think that they can win against those guys… We’d make them believe in what skills they had and told them that sjust because they are from Costa Rica they shouldn’t underestimate themselves” More importantly, Team Costa Rica’s surfing coach said “As a matter of fact, they’ve got(surfing stars of the WCT & WQS) the same thing all the other have” Which is to say, they all have the same skills and just need to focus on that and not be intimidated.

You can be sure this blogger will continue to cover our local surfing champions with information and news about your favorite Costa Rican surfers. Don’t forget if you are visiting Costa Rica next year, Playa Jaco will be hosting the 2009 Billabong World Surfing Games in Playa Hermosa, not to be confused with Playa Hermosa in Guanacaste. Check back in this site for information about places to stay, other tidbits about this international event coming to sleept Jaco.

Anyone, have dreams of being bounced around? Unless you were sleeping, you surely would have felt the slip and slide motion of last nights or I should say very early morning earthquake here along the central pacific coast of Costa Rica.

The last earthquake I can remember that shook Jaco like this was in 2004 centered in Parrita. Parrita is that little town south of Jaco that endures earthquakes, flooding on a yearly basis. This mornings earthquake epicenter was located along the Panama border according the the USGS sensors located in Heredia. I have not heard any reports of damage here in Jaco but I can tell you we were swinging for a good minute. more…

Two months ago, a report was released by the government citing Jaco Beach has having a bacteria count of coliforms multiple times higher than acceptable for human bathing. Many people who live here already know this is a problem since they can smell the raw sewage as they walk by the rivers or over the bridges on a daily basis. Furthermore, business owners and homeowners are not surprised by this report since they know themselves to be pollutors and/or contributors. More so, Costa Ricans know very clearly where the pollution is coming from as noted by the Sala IV in 2007.

The problem is further exacerbated by local business advocates focusing not on the report but that the report was published with alterior political motives. Translated: They are not denying the reports of “Aguas Negras” or “Black Water” but fuming about how the report was published and its timing. Nobody seems to focus on the real issue which is lack of enforcement for existing laws. more…