Day 7: Surfing Lessons and Catamaran Sailing & Snorkeling

This morning we met up with our guide in the lobby of our hotel and followed him down the strip for a few minutes to his surf shop. We put on rashguards and grabbed boards and first started with a lesson and practice in the sand on the proper way to stand up on the board to allow for the best stability. After about 15 minutes we were heading out to the beach area back n front of our hotel. The beach in front of the Taramindo Diria Beach Resort is the best spot for beginners in all of Tamarindo. It offered a nice smooth sandy bottom save for a few rocky areas, low but steady waves, and a shallow bottom to allow for standing in between attempts. We practiced for about two hours until we were both quite tired and succeeded in getting the feel of standing up with a little push and help from our guide.  Both my son and I really started to get the hang of it, and we were both so glad we had taken that first lesson just to help give us the proper technique training. 

After lunch, we walked back down to that same area to meet up with our catamaran sailing tour with Timarouba. We boarded small motorized boats out to the harbor to board the catamaran from there. The boat holds up to 50 people, but we only had 30 people which was nice and everyone had great space to lounge around. We sailed north along the coastline to a little cover for about an hour, enjoying drinks in hand and the cool breeze. Once we arrived at a cove and set anchor, we were allowed to grab masks, snorkel, and fins and jump off the boat with floaties or noodles to snorkel along the rocky coastline of this cover. My son and I decided to head over and see what we could, as I've heard snorkeling in Costa Rica is not really the best, I set low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent variety of fish (perhaps 7-9 species) and some that were quite colorful and came very close. We snorkeled for about 30 minutes before swimming back to the boat for a great barbecue dinner on board around 3 PM. After dinner, we set sail back to Tamarindo, arriving just as the sun was starting to set, creating some amazing colors on the beach for us to take in. Costa Rica is so gorgeous.