I’m still in Baleal because this place feels so nice. I decided I’d give it a few more days at least since I’m not really in a hurry. The waves right now are bad everywhere including Spain so there’s not much point hurrying elsewhere because of surfing either.
A new home
I moved from the hostel to a parking spot close by on Saturday. It’s not especially pretty and it’s dusty, but there’s a very communal feeling there among the inhabitants. During the weekend the place was packed, but now that the surf has gone really small there’s much more room. I found someone else from Finland here as well.
Filling Naranja with surf gear
I bought an O’Neill wetsuit on Sunday. It was a little more expensive than I had planned on spending on one, but it is also a perfect fit. I didn’t think I would fit so nicely in a LT size. I just have to do plenty of surfing and maybe skip some after surf beers to be able to fit in it later too.
My teacher didn’t end up selling me his old one, because he said it’s in too bad shape. So I’ve been board hunting for a few days now. First I concentrated on finding a soft board and nearly bought a cheap used one on Monday. Luckily I did a weight comparison with a newer board of the same type and changed my mind quickly. The reason for the cheap price was all the water that the board had swallowed.
I changed my mind about the board type. I don’t want to buy a new soft board and all the used ones seem to be in really bad shape. The thought of buying a brand new one has also occurred to me, because used big ones are hard to find and also not really much cheaper either. Hard boards are also less bulky and easier to fit in Naranja. I might go for a 7’8 Torq (something like this), but I’m still undecided. I didn’t expect buying a board would be this difficult…
Surfing goes on
On Sunday morning I went for a two hour session with the surf gear from Baleal surf camp. I got nice small waves and had a lot of fun. Monday I took a day off, but on Yesterday I rented a 7’6 Torq and tried my luck with it for three hours in small waves. It might have been smarter to get a bigger one for the tiny waves, but I wanted to see how a board that small felt like. I managed to get waves quite nicely, but their power just wasn’t enough to give me much speed. That was also the maiden surf of my new wetsuit. It felt really comfortable and I think I made a good choice.
In other news
I’ve been going out to eat a few times, but I have also been using Naranja’s kitchen more and more lately. I haven’t done many really complicated things yet, but more or less everything has been tasty
I have also been doing some other stuff here. I went running on Monday and saw some big pumpkin fields. The neighboring town of Ferrel is well known for agriculture. And the past few nights the sunsets have been amazing too.
I’ve also been very busy reading. I brought some books with me and I’ve already been able to swap some too. So far in less than four weeks I read the following books:
- Sarasvatin hiekkaa – Risto Isomäki (Finnish)
- Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho (English)
- The Host – Stephenie Meyer (English)
- Doppler – Erlend Loe (Finnish)
- Boarderlines – Andreas Brendt (German)
- (Half way through: Unensieppaaja – Stephen King)
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