Board Swapping and Wind Notes

First a note about the offshore winds in this area. They are definitely stronger and more consistent in the mornings. Moreover, the farther north in Costa Rica you travel, the more consistent they are during the winter months. Thus, up in Nicaragua and near the border they are very reliable. In Playa Negra they were strong and blew through most of each day. At Marbella they switched to side-shore or onshore around lunch. Of course all this depends on local weather and pressure patterns. They're predicted to get much stronger over the next few days. We'll see. Unfortunately the surf is still small. At least the offshore trade winds will shape the little waves.

Anyway, as I said in my last post, our rental contract allows me to try a bunch of different boards. Since I'm pretty exhausted and the surf has dropped a bit, I'm trying out longer, fatter boards better suited to the smaller waves.

For example, I rented the Aloha Quickshift in 6'8" for this morning's session. I liked it, but it needed more solid, steeper waves than were generally rolling through today. It also didn't paddle quite as well as I'd like for such a big board. My grade: B. Details are here: http://www.surfindustries.com/surfboards/aloha_quickshift.php

Tomorrow morning, I'm taking out a 6'8" x 21" x 2 3/4" epoxy 7S Superfish. This board is seriously thick and wide. It has a stepped deck so that it's very thick until near the rail where it finally slopes rapidly down in size. I'm sure to catch whatever little waves are out there and I'm very curious to see how well a tank like this will handle turns. Details available here: http://www.surfindustries.com/surfboards/7S_superFishXL.php