During my trip to Costa Rica last week, I had the pleasure of meeting surfing legend Robert August again. I had met him (and his daughter) several years ago at a local surf shop. In summer 2009, I had read in the local newspaper that he would be in town and convinced my surfing sistah Robin to go with me to meet him. At the time, Robin and I had our picture taken with him and met his young daughter who was just learning to surf. We knew that we would probably meet him again in Costa Rica since the surf hotel we were staying in frequently had him give presentations. Our meeting with him, though, came a little sooner when we bumped in to his now teenaged daughter ready to shower the saltwater and sand off of herself. Robin recognized her and spoke to her and, about that time, Robert came over to get his daughter. We exchanged small talk; mostly Robin and he did since I was showering off, but it is always good to run into a surfing legend when you are at a surf camp.
At one of his presentations, he discussed how to make a board. We (about eight of us staying at the hotel) followed him into his small shop and watched him take the core/blank and use various tools to measure, cut and shave the board to spec. He was making a performance short board/fish hybrid board. I found it interesting to hear about the importance of the lighting in the shop and why he had it set at waist level (so there are not shadows on the board when he works). He answered questions and discussed the materials he uses, etc. He's now living most of the time in Costa Rica with his kids and his daughter has recently got hooked on surfing. In fact, he says, she goes surfing at the beach by Witch's Rock surf hotel just about every day after school. How much fun that would be!
I've been back in Texas for over a week now, but I'm sad to say that I haven't been surfing yet. I'm anxious to try out my new pop up and other board skills, but either the surf has been crappy or I've had scheduling conflict. I was out of town this weekend. I ran the half marathon distance in the San Antonio Rock 'n Roll Marathon. It was unusually warm for November (lows in the 60s and highs in the upper 70s and low 80s). I generally like warm weather, but I think I got a little dehydrated during this run. I was hoping to set a pr and finish in 1:55, but I didn't. I finished in 2:01. I think I need a little more practice, and I definitely needed to drink more water. All in all, though, it was a fun day. I looked at the gtowsurf.com webcam and, while it looked like there were waves at the 43rd street jetty, they looked messy and sloppy. I probably would have gone down anyway, but who knows? I NEED SOME NICE CLEAN WAVES TO PRACTICE MY POP-UP! But, I guess I'll take what I can get. Maybe next weekend...
