Saturday March 4th

Awake to the birds a singing, and the palms swaying, it’s time to get down to breakfast! EGGS today! Gotta love the habenero sauce on those tasty huevos! Plenty of fresh fruit and the coffee is so awesome, specially with the hot chocolate added to the cup! Super mocha for the morning! Chatted with the many friends, and soon made the plans for the day at the beach.

I made a sandwich for lunch and packed the gear for a day of photos and video fun at the Vela office! We tinkered with the computer and the color photo printer, before it was time to get out and snap some action! Tom was doing video on shore, and I was snapping pics on the water! Plenty of traffic all around me today, and it was quite the rush to capture the action on all sides! Love the feeling when I catch a great shot! Not to mention the fight or flee response from all the adrenalin from the close passes! (See the photos here.)

After a fun photo session, I rushed back for a board of my own to ride, and to try to get myself on the video! I was a bit late, and had taken a bit smaller board than required, so I missed most of the video action, but still had a great couple hour session, just rippin it up, even some nice jumps! The wind dropped off, and the 5.7M w/ the 93lt was no longer enough, so it was back to happy hour, and the video presentation!

The gang gathered round the TV, and it was another fun late afternoon of drinks, and video play! Always fun to listen to Tom’s constructive comments for stance and such! We all had a great time watching, and then came the prizes! Some fun stuff was handed out from the names drawn from the hat! Congratulations to all the winners!

I socialized for a bit at the beach, before going over to Café Brazil for some internet and email. The connection is pretty fast, and I spent the early evening uploading the past days photos to the site, and writing the past couple days reports. Sure would love to do this from the room, but at least I can connect, even if the prices are a bit steep, compared to free!

After downloading the photos from the camera to the computer, I waded thru the 575 shots to select the best ones, and to make things a more manageable size. All the work was done in the café, and took most of the evening, so I simply made for Casa Rita and a nice homemade ham, chicken, cheese and pastrami turkey sandwich! With some Pringles, it really hits the spot!

I did step off the board today, and hit bottom sooner than expected, and felt a small pop in the left knee! This was a bit painful, yet not enough to stop the ride! After the session, and some sitting at the computer, it got to be pretty sore, and I had to ice it for the night. Nothing a few advil won’t take care of!

Well, it’s time for bed, so see ya Sunday!

Ciao!

Timo