Ah, Lia

Life is like paddling out into fog. You never know what you're gonna get. 

There were mainly small closeouts hidden in the mist. But with my new (to me) board, I was able to catch more of them, and work on some of the areas needing improvement pointed out to me at Puro Surf camp in El Salvador.

I found Lia, a 6'6" Lost Lazy Toy II, on Craigslist last week and took her out for the first time on Friday, scoring a few fun rides in the usual crappy surf on offer locally. Sad to say, I'm saying goodbye to aspirational Kat and old friend Rocket to make room in our board room. One meaning of Lia, in Italian, is "relaxed," which seems an appropriate name for a Lazy Boy which is floaty and forgiving of position.

His & hers

Eventually, the sun started to come out, although not soon enough to staunch my shivers.

My surfing buddy always stays out a little longer

The surf today wasn't much better, but I'm definitely catching more waves with Lia's extra volume. Gotta catch 'em to ride 'em!

The Best Thing

When I got home, Brad asked me what was the best thing about my trip. It wasn't the surf, unfortunately. I'd hoped for fun-size, user-friendly warm waves to ease me back into surfing after a long hiatus, but instead they were mostly overhead and powerful. Warm though!

The best thing was the people I met (excluding Awful Amanda). Everyone was so nice: Sherri, an accountant from Vancouver Island; Max, a neurology resident from Nova Scotia; Sara, a yoga and kite surfing instructor from France; Myra, a retiree and tandem surfer from Malibu, and her friend Ellie, an actor from LA; and Jordy from Australia's Sunshine Coast and his friend Scott who transplanted from Oz to New York.

Myra, who tandem surfs, teaching Max how to lift her

Sara and Ellie watch Max and Myra

Myra and Ellie at Nan Tal restaurant

The coaches, Academy staff and hotel workers were all nice too, and made the camp well worthwhile and comfortable. And the medical personnel who helped me after my injury were amiable.

Unlike Surf Simply (which now costs a small fortune), Puro Surf Performance Academy does not have an exclusive hotel or communal meals. Instead, the hotel and restaurant are open to anyone, and surf campers get a room and breakfast included. Without the planned togetherness, it took longer to build comraderie, especially for someone like me who's not a social butterfly. The lack of a set schedule also contributed, since I felt like meals were catch as catch can and was oft eating alone (except for the cats) at odd hours. But as the week went on, I increasingly felt like part of the group. We shared laughs, stories, encouragement and experiences, and enjoyed each other's company in the lovely tropical setting.

Hotel restaurant cats

Will I go back? Maybe. Due to my injury, Puro Surf did give me a credit for one day of training on a future visit in 2024. We'll see... Update: No, I won't, given the crickets from the surf camp after I told them what my coach perhaps had not, that I was endangered at La Paz and missed surf and training time as a result.

El Salvador's Plastic Pollution Problem

Plastic trash is everywhere in El Salvador. It lines the roads, blows in the wind, bobs in the sea, and mars the beaches. When a wave knocked me down on the cobblestones and dragged me seaward at La Paz, plastic trash tumbled all around me in the whitewater. If El Salvador is serious about making Surf City a destination, it needs to clean up its act.

Don't Piss on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining

It's my nature to assume people are good until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, Amanda Portinari has shown otherwise. While I could forgive her mistake in taking off on a wave without looking for anyone in her path and then failing to control her board, I can't forgive her refusing to accept any responsibility for the consequences of her actions. She said:

Given that the infection has nothing to do with me and that the accident wasn’t my fault, I don’t think it’s reasonable for me to cover medical costs in the United States....

While I feel terrible that you got hurt, the reason it happened is because your instructors didn’t have you in a safe position. I consulted with several other instructors and more advanced local surfers in the water that day as well as the videographers on land and everyone confirmed that it was unfortunate (seeing anyone get hurt sucks of course) but that it was not my fault.

I suppose the "safe position" I should've been in was on the beach.

In a later message, she came fully around to blaming me. Assuming for the sake of argument that I violated a rule of surf etiquette, that's like a driver telling a jaywalker they hit with their car that it was the jaywalker's fault because they shouldn't have been there. Classic narcissistic blame-shifting.

Seems like her guilty mind is scraping for salve, and Stanley reminded me that she'll have to live with this on her conscience. Perhaps karma will also come back around for her.

Be Kind

It's been just over a week since the accident, and I've been thinking about my response to the surfer who hit me. I wasn't angry then, but I am a little angry now. On the beach, when Canadian Amanda Portinari ran up to apologize, my better angel took control and I reacted with kindness and empathy. She'd hurt me, but I didn't hurt her back. I treated her the way I would have wanted to be treated, were our situations reversed. She made a mistake, she was careless, but she didn't intentionally run her surfboard into me. 

Can you imagine what the world would be like if more people responded with empathy instead of anger?

Unfortunately, Amanda has not reciprocated. Had I been in her flip-flops, I would have owned the results of my carelessness in the water and helped her on land. While health care is free in El Salvador, it very much isn't in the U.S. My cut became infected, delaying removal of the stitches and landing me on a course of stronger antibiotics. Amanda hasn't responded to my messages yet, but I hope she will stop listening to her bad angel and step up to cover my expenses, at the very least. It's the right thing to do.

Relax and Recover

My last full day in El Salvador was relaxing, since I couldn't surf, skate, or train. I sat near the infinity pool and read my book, watched surfers riding the waves that had bumped up further, took another walk on the beach at low tide, and had a tasty lunch with Myra and Ellie at Nan Tal, just up the coast from our hotel. Then I dipped my toes in the warm Pacific Ocean one last time.