The last week of 2013 was celebrated with true tropical zest, including warm water, fun surf, sunny weather and the holiday cheer of San Juan del Sur. The week was particularly salty as we spent ample time in the ocean, fitting in dawn patrols, the Catamaran tour on Christmas Eve, and a beach barbecue in the Bay on Christmas Day.
We were fortunate enough to have nine ladies in town for the week, meaning we basically made a party wherever we went, and had plenty of holiday spirit. The holiday spirit may have been slightly imposed by yours truly as the first question I asked the ladies (along with surf goals of course), was to select their favorite Christmas carol. We ended up with an epic playlist that included ‘Oh Tannenbaum’, ‘Numbah One Day of Christmas, Hawaiian Style’, ‘Christmas in Hollis’ by Run-DMC, ‘Fairytale of New york’, and of course, Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’.
The array of Christmas carol selection illustrates the diversity of our group; We had two ladies from the UK, Carly and Katherine (although Katherine is now living in Canada), three New Yorkers, Sara, Myung and Bianca, plus a former New Yorker, Cindy. Cindy now lives in the Bay area, as does Molly, our Oakland native who surfed some but charged the body board even more. The week wouldn’t have been the same without Elizabeth, an orthopedic surgeon who lives in L.A where she is doing her residency, and Yvonne, from West Palm Beach who was either in the water, or reading a book nearly the entire week! That’s called doing vacation right! Check out Sara’s video of her experience here at Chica Brava and her highlight of the week!
We were blessed with beautiful weather the entire week, and small but super fun surf in which all the girls were able to progress. Christmas Eve on the Catamaran was certainly a highlight, as we had Playa Blanca completely to ourselves for sea shell searching, singing, and frisbee shenanigans Christmas Day was also absolutely lovely – a perfect day at Playa Hermosa that left us all perfectly sun kissed and bronzed for our beach barbecue in the Bay.
We kept the holidays going through Boxer Day when we did a White Elephant gift exchange over dinner at El Colibri. Not only was dinner fabulous, but we all ended up with one fun present to make the holidays feel complete.
We finished off the week listening to Mariah Carey’s greatest hits album, but everyone went home with a special Chica Brava X-Mas CD to bust out next year when the holidays hit…unless, of course, they end up back here with us for another ‘Very Salty’ Christmas!
Mele Kalikimaka & Hau’ole La Hanau (Merry Christmas & Happy New Year),
Noelani
Camp Operations Manager
Surf House, December 21-28, 2013
