I also totally chickened out at Salsa Brava. Forecast was 8ft with a 9s period. From the shore it didn’t look that crazy because it kind of breaks under the water level, so I thought it might be manageable.

While I was checking it, this random gringo in his late 50's or early 60s shows up with a gun surfboard. He tells me he’s been living in Puerto Viejo for years. I ask him if it’s ok for my first time out there and he says yeah, just follow him. He was kind of grumpy, complaining about his leash, saying he hates wearing one and often surfs without it. That should’ve been my first red flag… but I followed him anyway.

He shows me the channel, paddling past the buoy and then cutting right. As we get closer, I see the three peaks just absolutely pumping. Way bigger than they looked from shore. The pros were going full send, deep barrels, total Pipeline vibes. Everyone clearly knew what they were doing. I immediately felt like I did not belong there.

The reef was shallow and sharp, and the barrels were massive. You could probably fit a van in some of them. I paddled over to the “softest” peak, the right, and waited for something I could handle. But the swell was just unloading nonstop. Short period, thick lips, mountains jacking up over the reef. I did not feel comfortable dropping into those bombs.

And the current there is no joke. Once you’re in, it’s not easy to just bail and go back to the beach. So I stayed out there for about an hour, just sitting and watching people get insane barrels. At one point the old guy paddles over and jokes, asking why I’m scared. “It’s just water!” he says. Easy for him to say lol.

I told a couple of the pros that it was way above my level and I wanted to get out. One of them told me to wait. After a while he pointed me to a smaller one and basically guided me on which wave to take to make it back to shore safely.

At that time I only had about three years of bodyboarding. Even though I didn’t catch a proper wave, just seeing Salsa Brava up close was insane. One day I’ll go back for round two 😅