[New] When the Road and Swell Point South

by Jenn Parker

Iwoke at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, and finally rose at 3 a.m. with one of several alarms that I set in fiveminute intervals. Before a surf adventure, I find sleep to be sparse and nearly impossible outside of short nap-like bursts of rest. Anticipation is like a steady drip of caffeine. I was anything but tired when I walked into the kitchen to press the coffee button on. I would be joining three other guys whose names also started with the letter “J,” and with whom I had never surfed before, at a spot I have long had reservations about. A response of “no” is never in my vocabulary though when it comes to a surf adventure.

Leaving Playa Grande and driving through

Matapalo nearly two hours before sunrise is an adventure in and of itself. High beams, prescription glasses, and my naturally slow approach to driving saved several sleeping sheep who chose the middle of the road on the other side of a blind curve as their ideal resting place. I dodged purple and orange land crabs, toads, and an opossum on the dark narrow road before reaching Charlie’s Bar. My coffee was still too hot to drink — a good thing for that steady anticipation drip. The last message I had received late Friday afternoon included instructions for where to meet at 4 a.m. and to not be late.

Compatible adventurers

The boys rolled up at 4 a.m. on the dot. As someone who is perpetually punctual, I knew at this moment that the four of us were meant to adventure together. I hopped in their car with my board, and we were off chasing the sunrise and the south swell. We all hailed from different countries, but at various stages of our lives chose Costa Rica as our home, drawn and kept here by the waves among other things.

A little less than three hours later, the four of us were standing in the beachfront backyard of a man named Cundino, following left lines running north across a river mouth and into a bay with our frothing eyes. The wind fluttered offshore, and the tide was sucked out so far you could almost walk out to the 300-meterlong wall of Amazon-brown ocean. The thought of crocodiles, bull sharks, and sewage almost instantaneously dissipated when I noticed the prestigious Blue Flag and perfect peelers. An abandoned plastic baby doll adorned the wooden sign that marked the spot where we would have our first surf of the day.

I opted to sit deep and wait for the steeper set waves that sporadically passed through, since I was the only one not on a longboard. As a lone sea wolf, this is often my approach when the lineup is crowded. For three stroke-heavy hours, I only randomly caught a glimpse of the three other “J’s” catching a wave or paddling back out after a seemingly never-ending ride. Sometimes it would be 10 minutes or more between sets that I could scrape into.

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