For the Love of Waves: It's Been A While ...

Well, it's been far too long since the last update and there is plenty to talk about. First off, Sister Sarah flew in from Hawaii last Monday. She opted to take a flight into Liberia, Costa Rica and hop a couple of buses to Rivas where we met her and took her the rest of the way to Gigante. We prayed that she would bring sun and good waves and sure enough, two days after she landed, the rain stopped and the two-week stint of onshore winds finally shifted back to offshore. The inclement weather created a series of problems including the complete destruction of beach front plants due to salty air blowing directly onshore, to the fishermen having to pull their boats out of the bay, leaving the entire town fish-less. It's good to have sun, peeling waves, and red snapper again. Sarah gifted us with more Sticky Bumps board wax, a couple of dearly missed spices and the oh so essential, Deep Woods Off containing 25% Deet. Needless to say, the mosquitoes have been in full effect with the continuous rain and after only one week, the Off is almost gone.

Lady Grey had her first, official, complete breakdown this week. As we were driving into Iguana to go surf Pangas, she sputtered out. We started her up again, and she drove, only to sputter out again. And again. And again. The three of us pushed her into a parking spot at the neighborhood pizza joint, surfed, hoping that it was something electrical, and that the car just needed to dry out. When we returned, we were still out of luck. Our friend Seth came down, helped us clean the connection to the battery, just as the sky turned dark grey. After that didn't work, a couple of local guys came down in the pouring rain, cleaned the carburetor, and when they realized it wasn't that, pulled out the fuel pump. Sure enough, that was the problem. Seth gave us a ride back to Gigante and in the morning Ian walked back to Iguana, to intercept the new part that our friend Roger delivered from Rivas, only to realize that it was the wrong one. That was Saturday, and again, since no Nicaraguans work on Sunday, we waited until Monday, Ian's Birthday, to take care of it. Our mechanic Douglas, told us he'd be at Iguana at 9:30, so we all set off on foot to go meet him. A big swell had come in the previous day, and Ian brought his board to score some Birthday waves. (Incidentally, I took one of the biggest poundings of my humble surfing career the previous day - duck dive gone awry on large set, slammed to the bottom, ears ringing, the whole nine - fear and "being worked" is relative on your own, pathetic scale.) When we got to the clubhouse, Colorados was big and perfect. We waited around until 9:30 and Ian walked up to go meet Douglas. A half hour later, he came back and told us that Douglas wasn't there and that he'd be another hour. We waited some more, walked up around eleven to have some lunch, and still, no Douglas. Ian called him again, and Douglas said he'd be there at one. Twenty past one, Ian calls him again, tells him he'd been waiting for four hours and pulled the birthday card on him. Finally, at 2:15, Douglas arrived. Ugggh. Poor Ian, waiting around all day on his birthday to deal with the stupid car. Twenty minutes later, Lady Grey had a new fuel pump and we were mobile again. And we thought Hawaii time was bad! Four hours of pool and Toñas at Don Eloy's was plenty for the day, and we headed up to La Vista where Ian received one of his birthday gifts - windows! The much-talked about, and long-awaited windows had finally arrived, and they are awesome. Screens on the outside, glass on the inside and both sets open like French doors. The doors also went in and we're currently deciding on a paint color for the outside of the house. We're getting so close! We picked out some new beds in Rivas last week and are going to purchase them this week - they just went on sale, so we decided on a King sized bed for us, and a Queen for the guest room. A trip to Managua will soon be upon us for household items and the propane fridge. The plants are doing really well and yesterday I found out that you can get gardenia in Catarina. It's been a slower process than we expected but, each stage is so exciting and one step closer to a dream's reality.

And in critter news, check out this dead Boa with it's belly full. We were also blessed with the discovery of a yellow-bellied sea snake washed up onto Amarillo beach a couple weeks ago. (Unknowingly to us, one of the deadliest sea snakes in the world - we actually saved it, by putting it back into the ocean with Puna's Chuck-it) Awesome.