I have been in Panama now for 48hrs and ill
tell you something…its great craic!
I stayed in a
hostel called Villa Vento Surf or something along those lines, the owner Daniel
was a really nice fella, and he was generous enough to listen to me last night
while I was getting slightly intoxicated. He told me about loads of secret
Panamanian reefs and beaches that are nowhere to be found on the net. I still haven’t seen the ocean but that’s just
one more thing to look forward to (I only had two nights in the city before I
had to head to Morro Negrito Surf camp).
So my night
continued I met this English bloke named Elliot, bit of a festival head or so
he said…ha he couldn’t keep up, bloody English. The night continued with some
American fella talking crap, a pity I couldn’t chat to any locals…. I can’t
speak that much Spanish especially after a few beers.
I then woke up
with a beautiful hangover, phone ringing and I thought to myself “oh crap my
taxi is outside!” Luckily the taxi was an hour late so it was I waiting on him,
believe it or not! It turns out I must have made a good impression on Daniel,
he said he is going to hook me up with some locals to take photos of them and
they will come to the camp and hang out…. nice, good start to my photography
business!! He then went on to tell me that a mate of his is leaving Panama in 3
weeks on a big yacht and he has offered me a job as a deck hand sailing across
the pacific to Fiji on what can only be called the Ultimate Surf Trip!!
So I am now in a predicament, do I?
A)
Stay in Panama and surf my
brains out in this warm tropical overcast country
Or
B)
Go on this yacht and sail across the Pacific
in a once and a lifetime trip to Fiji
Oh what times we live in, choices are so
hard J
Even the buses here are class, Bus Eireann
could learn a lot, air con, loads of leg room, TV, hot chicks everywhere
(slightly exaggerated) I love this place. J
Morro Negrito
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| The Camp |
First 2 weeks at the camp.
I got dropped
off the bus at a small police check point, Guabala, the buses have to stop here
but if your asleep passing this spot while on your way to camp you’ll find
yourself a bit lost, especially if you cant speak Spanish. Lucky for me the
first 4 hours of the bus trip I had already slept for, so I was wide awake with
anticipation of arriving, hoping that the camp driver would be there to pick me
up, thankfully he was.
Just a short
drive from Guabala we took a right hand turn down to the camps port, which is
made up of a large shed and some rooms for guests that arrive on the wrong side
of the tide. This is one disadvantage the camp has, the boat drivers only
launch from after mid-tide as the camps access is dry at low tide. I however
being the precise and calculating man that I am, timed it right on high so I
was straight off the bus and into the boat to take me on the 40min mangrove
ride to camp.
The
tidal range of Panama is similar to that of Ireland, its actually a bit bigger
getting up to 6.5m on the spring high, this also causes problems for us surfers,
as most spots are tide dependent. As we motored up to the camp even on a
dropping high tide we were forced to walk the boat around the last bend of the
mangrove in order to reach the camp. I arrived with Meeno the boat driver and
Alexis the manager of the camp, they dropped me off, said a few words to the
other guide Ethan and were quickly on there way.
Ethan
has been at the camp for 10 days before my arrival, he is a fairly quiet guy
but we get on fine and straight away we hit up the sandbar for a short session
before dark, it felt great getting in the water despite my hangover and the
fact that Ethan suggested running the 1k to the peak, running is not one of my
strengths. We each get a few waves under our belt and I was glad of it, the cruising
walk back to the camp was held with good conversation and lots of bug bites.
Ethan was telling me about the sick waves he had being getting at Leftovers the
past week and I was frothing to get out there for the coming swell due in the
next few days.
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| Ethan |
 |
| Mark |
The swell arrives followed by the guests.
I
wake up at 6am after what can only be described as a terrible sleep, my back is
stiff from the hard bed, I’m covered in mozzy bites, Ill have to toughen up a
bit, ah well its what I was expecting so I cant complain, I’m here for waves
not for luxury.
Ethan comes down
and we have a bite to eat, we discuss whether the boat is going to show to
bring us to the waves on the islands but it’s a no show. So we surfed around
the sandbar for the few days the swell was in, some good waves to be had,
rights and lefts but the serious current will leave your arms feeling like
jelly, its pretty much non stop paddling. For the next 5 days we didn’t have
any communication from the camps port or see any boat. We had no contact with
the port as there is no phone coverage and there is no Internet at the camp
only at the port despite what it says on the website. After a almost a week of
eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hotdogs, they finally arrived
with another surf guide, Ben from Bryon Bay and some supplies for the guests
coming that night, aaah food, finally some real food!
Myself,
Ethan and Ben headed out for a surf that morning it was pretty fun, about head
high on the sandbar. The guests arrive later that evening, 7 guys from
California, pretty sound guys, we get our first proper dinner some meat and
rice and vegies. For the guest’s week
the swell is not up to much, so we decide to make use of the boats and head out
to Isla de Silva, to check out P-Land and Leftovers. Its fairly hard to get the boat guys motivated
we would be sitting in the boat ready to go and they are still arsing around on
shore. The first days were pretty sick with some solid 4-6ft sets coming in,
the wave is a bit like Ballinalackin but a left, it’s a boil take off, cut back
a few times and then on to the inside section that sometime breaks on to dry
rock. One of the things about Panama this time of year is the wind, it is
generally clean in the morning until around 11 then the onshore wind picks up
and remains for the day only sometimes dying off in the evening, so the best
time to surf is first thing in the morning. The guests got lucky or maybe they
timed it, as it was high tide in the mornings for most of the swell, so for the
first 4 days they got 3-6ft sets at P-land. Now saying that it sounds great but
then we got dropped off at the very far corner of the sandbar with at least a 2
km walk back to the camp with all your boards and fishing gear at the hottest
time of the day because of the low tide access restriction at the camp, this
the guests were not too impressed by.
On the third day
of swell we took the two boats out as usual to P-Land. Meeno the camps regular
boat driver was fairly drunk when he arrived in the morning, we made it out
safely and asked Meeno to go get oil for the generator so that we could get
electricity for the night, he never returned. I was already informed that this
happened the week before I arrived where he just didn’t show up at all and the
guest left after only one day. After surfing for 4hrs and a few phone calls to
Meeno and his sisters and we find out that he didn’t go to port but to the
Monkey Bar in the mangroves and drank the money some Brazilians gave him to buy
them booze for their boat, which was moored at Leftovers. So we all pilled into
the one boat which made a 30min journey into 2hr mission back to camp, then the
2km walk across the beach, again the guests were not impressed. Ben and myself
went on a mission to find Meeno and get oil and drinking water from the port.
We find Meeno asleep in the boat up on the rocks at the Monkey bar, we take the
guests belongings out of the boat, cameras, bags, fishing gear etc. and we make
our way to port. It was after dark when we got the stuff together to head back
to camp, with another guide, Mark from South Africa. It was a very interesting
boat ride, through the mangroves in complete darkness no lights on the boat,
not even moonlight to help us on our way. Needless to say the guests were very
surprised that we arrived back that night with all their gear and oil for the
generator, all was not lost. The next few days saw the swell drop so there was
time for fishing to be done, some Jack Tuna, wahoo, Jew fish, parrot fish and
some others too were all caught and cooked up (except for the Jack tuna they
are not so great so I hear). Since the waves were gone and at this stage the
tides were now more midday the potential for getting good surf was gone, so
there was a lot of hanging around the camp, I went through two books in two
weeks which would normally last me a couple months.
June,
Tuesday 11th, the guests departed the camp and I went with them to
investigate this boat trip across the Pacific. After two weeks at the camp I
had to wash out my board bag, camera bag and shoes as they were covered in mold
from the damp conditions I was living in, my room got no natural sunlight. This
left me a bit pissed, so I decided to bring all my stuff with me just incase
this trip was all I hoped for. I took the bus with the guest’s back down to
Panama City to meet the ships captain.
My
thoughts on the camp are:
·
Fun waves, there is always
something to surf, little or no barrels
·
Lots of bugs but as expected
·
Very tide dependent and quiet
frustrating
·
Good food when there are guests
staying
·
No boats for guides when
there’s no guests
My personal opinion is yes I would stay for
3 months as a guide for free, its not the most epic place in the world but its
warm and there are waves, however, I would not spend $700 a week to stay here
when G-land costs only $400 a week and its offshore all day and you cant get
stuck somewhere if its low tide. I think a fair price would be maybe $300 per
person for a weeks stay.
I hope I dont sound too negative about the camp, Iv had a fairly good time so far apart from the few small setbacks its a pretty chilled place.
