Dominical: The Big One That Let Me Get Away

Canadian Count: 18

I've decided to keep a running tally of Canadians I encounter down here, becasue they are many. Either that, or several Americans are pretending to be Canucks so as not to have to answer to our national politics. As it happens, one group of college-age hosers argued about whether the world is laughing at Canada after last year's election of a pro-Bush neo-con. "Don't worry," I told them, "Nobody thinks ill of Canada. Nobody thinks of canada at all." I'm popular.

Anyway, back to last week:

They gave us the wrong bus schedule in Manuel Antonio, so when the taxi dropped us at the Quepos bus station, we discovered a three hour wait still ahead, all time we could have bee relaxing on the sand. Instead, we crammed ourselves into a small table at the bus stop's soda (essentially a small Costa Rican diner), marvelling at the way dense jungle could grow right up to the edge of a compact urban depression. Quepos seems like a miniature version of Tijuana, or like a small section of the mexican border town transplanted into the middle of the rainforest.

The elderly lady who owned and operated the soda served us a breakfast of gallo pinto (local rice and bean dish) with eggs, topped off by a delicious pineapple juice. As it turns out, her daughter teaches spanish to gringos for a living, so she took great delight in practicing her hija's profession by teaching me a thing or two. For example, how to ask for un vaso con hielo (glass with ice). This trend would continue at another soda in Dominical, with a tico stand-up comic/waiter who would teach us words for kinfe (cuchillo), spoon (cuchara) and fork (tenedor). But this wouldn't be for a couple days yet.

First, we would have to arrive in Dominical following a 2-3 hour busride over incredibly bumpy roads. Word is, local residents, native and expat alike, campaign to keep these roads unpaved to the bulk of the tourism will stop at Manual Antonio. We chatted with some Canadians on the bus who carried surfboards but quickly retreated when the bus dropped us off at the beach, where heavy waves were breaking way out, roaring, crashing and for the most part closing out into massive, unrideable whitewater.

I was excited about surfing this beach, though, and there were two guys in the water, surviving, so we hastily checked in to our hotel and I made a bee-line for the beach. After an exhausting twenty minute paddle through rough waters that pushed me back and side to side, i finally made it outside into the relative calm of deepwater. What followed was one of the bigger waves I ever caught, over my head at about 8 or 9 feet, going left, which is analogous to switch-hitting in baseball. As I rode, the wave bropke heavy enough behond me that the water splashing onto my back was almost enough to knock me over. , and finally, when teh rest of the break clapped down on top of me, i did go down.

Not for long, though, because I had the surfer's stoke, and paddle with all my strength right back to the deep water. I almost made it, too. I had only to get through one more big wave before i could catch a moment's rest, and as I paddled towards it i could see it would be huge, even bigger than the one i'd ridden. I planted the nose of my board in the middle of it as it reared up high to break and plunged through the middle, duckdiving with everything i had. Well, everything turned out to be only half of my board. That crack finally succumbed to the force of nature. In retrospect, i should have quickly turned and tried to ride the wave, breaking the board properly and at least gaining a few inches back towards the sand. Instead, I detached my leash, and races the two halves of my little board back to the beach, a swim of some 100-150 yards or so.

Not a bad introduction to Dominical though. We spent the next couple days checking out different beaches and taking a canopy tour. As it turns out, this "tour" was really just an uphil hike to a series of ziplines you ride through the trees. We did see a sloth, lots of ants and almost step on a snake, but mostly we strapped ourselves into harnessed and careened through the treetops. Pretty fun.

A taxi delay made us late meeting a couple of new friends made in the hotel, a couple from North Carolina whe had a 4x4 and were driving to a decent surf beach a little ways south. I'd had it in my head I would sruf that day (and every day), so when that ride was lost, I decided to try the Dominical beach once again. This time there was only one guy out; though as I struggled against even heavier forces to get outside the breakwater, slowly running out of breath and feeling weaker by the minute, I spotted him catch an enormous wave and was encouraged to push harder. Finally, lungs heaving and heart racing, I was in deep water, way out once again, this time on my new, Brazilian made board, which promised to hold firm against the onslaught.

It only took me a few moments to get up my nerve, and a few more to study the approaching swells to see which ones might be rideable. Then i spotted one with my name on it. Rising like bread dough and coming right at me. i turned, paddled and popped to my feet. The wave face below me stretched on for what seemed like forever--I have definitely never attemped something so big. But here I was, riding it. Well, for a second, anyway. Somehow i was no longer riding my board down the water's surface, but just riding the force of gravity, through the air, my board... well, if it knows where it went, it's not telling. But I wasn't alone. The peak of the wave was just on my heels, less dropping than pounding itself with malicious intent back into thge ocean. It hammered me down with it, and between it and the gravity, i got pushed deep under, turned and thrashed about like a sock in a clothes dryer. The wave passed me by pretty quickly, and I could now feel the leash of my board pulling me at the ankle, telling me that I was upside down, head pointing to the ocean bottom. Below me (rather, above), seven feet of leash pulled taut against the buoyant board, itself about 6'5", fully submerged. two thoughts crossed my mind as I swam back to the surface: 1) There are lifegaurds on duty, and 2) I hope there not another wave crashing when I finally make it up to take a breath.

I'm trying to only do one stupid thing a day anymore, so I paddled back to shore, riding the breakwater on my belly. I made it back to the beach to discover the lifeguards had gone off duty, and that the twenty or so people on the beach who'd seen my fall while waiting for the sunset were relieved to see I wasn't a bloated corpse. I plopped down next to a couple of French Canadian girls and we waited for Roy to take some pictures before hitting the beachside bar for a couple rounds of beer. Some pretty good beer at that.