Our family lives primarily in Northern Nicaragua, but we do spend several months per year in Costa Rica. We love our little house in the jungle, watching monkeys from the porch, walking across the street to check the surf, playing with the kids in the river, and catching waves ourselves.
I pulled out the GoPro on the last couple of days of our trip to capture a few scenes summarizing our life in paradise. Kid play, a lot of checking the surf, and even a bit of surfing.
Luna has been going in cycles of wanting to surf with me every day for a couple of weeks, and then showing no interest at all. I don’t push it. If I say, “want to surf with mama?” and she says “not today,” then it’s not today.
But on this day, I asked her if she wanted to surf and she said “YES!” I passed off Soleo who was not thrilled at hanging on the beach with the nanny right at that moment, but when Luna wants to surf she gets to go surfing!
The waves were nice and small with a big channel. We paddled out and relaxed on the outside for a while. We talked about the channel, the peak, the inside, the outside. She pointed out whitewash and green waves. We played on the board, jumping off and swimming back to it. We looked for turtles, pulled up small pieces of driftwood for inspection, sang songs from Disney’s Moana.
Eventually a set swung wide and we were in the perfect spot, so while still singing a song, I turned to paddle. She held on tight, looking around as I did some gentle turns, was smiling and happy, and even gave me a mid-wave high 5. Then we paddled out for another. It was probably my favorite wave ever. 
After this wave, she was talking about surfing non-stop for the rest of the day and even practicing popups on my hand plane.
Luna has ridden a bunch of waves in her life starting at age 10 months, but this was the first time she wanted to paddle outside with me.
We had been spending a lot of time on the inside, playing around, riding broken waves with her on my back.
One day the waves were pretty small and I saw that there were long enough gaps between sets that I could probably get her outside without having to pop over a big wave. I asked if she wanted to “go out to the amigas” and she said “ok!”
We timed it just right and made it outside with dry hair. She was a little nervous but also happy to be out there.
I saw a little wave coming, turned and paddled for it. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to catch it or what I’d do when we did catch it. Should I just stay laying down as we’d been practicing? But once we were in it, instinct kicked in and I slowly stood up. She was gripping tightly, and I reached around and got an arm on her just in case.
We rode it all the way in! I asked if she wanted to paddle out for another and she said yes. On the next paddle out, I didn’t time it quite as well and we did have to push through a little wave. She got splashed in the face and wasn’t too happy about it, but calmed down once we got outside. The swell was small but long period and building. After having to paddle quickly to avoid a couple of larger waves, I decided not to push our luck and we paddled in.
I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to get her out there again!
A couple of months ago I gave birth to a big healthy baby boy (over 9 lbs). He is my second baby in two years and the recovery process was a lot slower than my first. I didn’t surf as long into my pregnancy the second time (30 weeks vs. 32 weeks) and I waited a bit longer to get back in the water after having my son than my daughter (7 weeks vs. 5). Those two weeks on either end may not seem like much, but they did to me.
When I finally got back in the water after 4 months off the board, I was slow, weak, and out of rhythm with the ocean. These clips were taken in my first two weeks back in the water.
Luckily my son is a very mellow baby who is happy to chill out on the beach while mama goes surfing. My daughter is 2 and loves the ocean and has started asking to catch waves with me. Here’s a snapshot of our surfing life from the past week.
I snapped this picture today because I was taken with how cute she looked walking in my sandals, also intending to send a picture of her in the dress given by a friend. The more I look at it, the more I feel that it perfectly encompasses the personality of this little person. The spark, attitude, and strength of her. And of course the curls. That little face in all it’s seriousness. But mostly her fierce determination to be herself.
It’s been a while since Luna has wanted to get on the board in the ocean. We didn’t want to force it, preferring to wait until she asked. The last few days she has been asking. Yesterday morning she surprised us by riding her first few waves solo. She was even paddling back to dad (with some pushes from mom) after each ride. We didn’t have a camera. Continue reading Luna’s First Solo Waves
Luna is 22 months old and just had her 8th swim lessons with ISR. She went from a kid who was scared to put her face underwater to a kid who is excited to push off and swim underwater. Learning to float and then swim, float, swim is next! We can’t wait for more lessons.
Salt Water Mama 