Never fly.

Let me start by saying this.....do not fly anywhere....ever..
Airlines are no equipped to facilitate the movement of large numbers of people.
Walk, ride a bus, skateboard.....but do not fly.

I should of known what a fiasco actually getting to Costa Rica would be, for I was given a clue, the people at the check in counter and security check point were NICE.
My story pretty much goes down hill from there.

We arrived at the Charlotte airport at 4:30 in the morning after having gotten up at 2:30am to drive from Columbia.
Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure of flying with a kayak, this is sort of like trying to fly with an elephant.
Even though we pack our kayaks in surfboard bags, and they are often much shorter than surfboards, if the check in agent hears mention of the word ¨kayak¨, all bets are off.
However, on this fine morning we were greeted with kind ticket agents who were more than happy to assist us.....a bad sign.
We breezed through security and were treated with respect by the security agents....another first.
Our flight to miami was even on time!

As I expected, my seating assignment was less than favorable. I had to sit next to the dude with the biggest shoulders on the plane.
This gargantuan was severely invading my personal space, and I had to sit leaning out into the isle.
On top of this, he and his wife fancied themselves comedians and decided to comment on everything going on.

We arrived in miami on time, and walked to our connecting terminal.
Little did we know that we would spend the next 7 hours there.

Our plane was supposed to leave at 11 am. Around this time we got the first of a long list of bad news.
Apparently the windshield wipers on the plane were broken and they expected a 30 minute delay while they took parts off another plane.
Over the next 2 hours they would update us on their progress, which consited of explaining the way windshield wipers work, the parts they were using to fix them, the names and addresses of the repairmen, and more.

Finally, after more time had passed, they told us that the plane was not going to be repaired and we would need to move to another gate to get on a new plane.
After making the move to the new gate, we were told that the plan had changed yet again and we would need to move back to the first gate to get on the original plane which was now repaired. Confused yet?

We boarded the plane and after another 20 minute delay, we were given yet more bad news. The original pilot would be violating federal regulations for working too many hours, so a new pilot was driving to the airport from ¨30 minutes away¨.

You can imagine the groans from the passangers, who were on the verge of staging a mutiny. It was at this point that I began to laugh, it all seemed too ridiculous to be true.

About 25 minutes into the 45 minute wait for the new pilot, the pilot came back onto the PA with another informational message.
Apparently two jewish folks were going to have to get off the plane because the delays were going to mean that they would be landing in Costa Rica during the sabbath.
This would not be much of a problem, except that federal regulations required that their bags would have to be found in the cargo hold and taken off the plane.

At this point I went from laughing to pretty much cackling, you couldn´t make this sort of stuff up even if you wanted to.

Throughout this process, these two older ¨new yawk¨ladies, who were sitting behind me, were griping and complaining the entire time, as well as saying strange things such as this:
Lady #1: ¨I´m reading a book about gene traders from another planet.¨
Lady #2: ¨That´s nice, but I´m more interested in human gene traders¨

After all these delays, I was sure that they would be feeding us free dinner or something to make up for the problems, but I should of known better.
We were given one bag of tortilla chips, and if we asked for a second we were told ¨NO¨.
What is it with airlines not serving food anymore?

After two and a half hours in the air we landed in rainy San Jose, Costa Rica. The pilot announced that because the plane was so delayed, they would be unable to let us off at a gate, so we would have to get out on the tarmac in the rain.
I thought to myself ¨whats next¨? I half expected the pilot to tell us next that federal regulations required him to punch every passenger in the face as they exited the plane.

We were supposed to arrive at 12 noon, but the time was now past 6 and we still had to go through customs and drive ninty minutes to Jaco.

It took another hour and a half approximately to get through immigration, and get our rental car. We quicly loaded the cars up and headed out.
Everyone seemed to think the people in the next car knew where we were going, so we basically spent 3 hours in the jungle trying to figure out where jaco was.

We finally arrived, exhausted. Like I said before, don´t ever fly on an airplane.

We´ve been surfing the break in Esterillos for the past two days. Its a nice area with a tropical beach, parrots, etc.
The wave is pretty mushy, but yesterday I had some good rides, we´ll see how it changes over time. The size of the waves isn´t substantial (they are larger than most east coast waves), and apparently conditions are going to remain the same throughout the World Championships.

Well, thats all I got for now, I will try to post some pictures. Hopefully I will post again in a few days.

Hope everyone is well,

Joey