Grain Surfboard’s Al Merrick Biscuit in Costa Rica

Through a lucky series of circumstances, I’ve spent more than half my life with a woman whose father, Erik, is wonderfully eccentric. One day in his late sixties, Erik and a childhood friend decided to sell everything, and with just a couple of suitcases, to move to a little backwater in Costa Rica called Nosara. Tourist accommodations were limited, roads were terrible, and a chico had to be sent down the crumbly runway to flush the goats and cows out from under incoming planes.

In the years since then, Nosara has become a surf destination with comfortable coffee shops, tasteful cabanas and a fascinating international population of expatriates living alongside the local farmers and surfistos. The the cows have been fenced out of the rebuilt airstrip, wi-fi is available almost everywhere, and a small group of surfers disguised as internet-jockeys are taking over the local real estate market using an unlikely tool: their popular video-based surf-report.

SurfingNosara.com sends a photog down to the beach every morning and posts zoomed-in pics of surfers scoring, with occasional video evidence when conditions are really good. That beats a web-cam all to hell because the images feature surfers, not wide shots of a whole beach. You can really tell if it’s good because you’re looking right at some lucky s.o.b. right in the pocket. Even when you’re not planning a trip there, it’s a great site to visit when the snow’s flying here for the fourth month in a row, and you really need to know that there’s paradise somewhere.

On a recent trip, I met up with these uncharacteristically motivated surf entrepreneurs and shared with them the Grain Surfboards story and our new wood Channel Islands Biscuit. The sight of a wood board in tropic blue surf is a welcome change from the dark green of the North Atlantic… I’m feeling like I’ve got an obligation to visit my father-in-law more often.