the party starts right now

I meant to update my blog but the internet (and power) went to shit Thursday night and I couldn't get online even sitting right next to the router. This blog post is about a huge party we had and you can skip the wave science and just jump to paragraph 6.

So Wednesday night was a rest day, and then Thursday we all had a big day at the beach. I caught tons of waves and finally have my stance down. In addition I read a book (in my "spare" time) called the science of waves. I learned all kinds of cool things about how to read waves on a beach. For example, the beach we normally surf at is long and has a sand bar. This causes "defocusing waves" (a fancy way to say of the set of 7 waves they all close out except the last, largest wave). I also learned that when you are outside the wave (meaning you're behind it and it's breaking in front of you) you move up and down but your position doesn't change. The book called this "Drake's displacement" or something like that that I have been unable to find in a google search (I wrote it down but my paper got wet).

White water is caused by gravity and wind. The wind blows and causes a wave. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. The north and south poles heat up at different temperatures. The earth wants everything to be even so packets of hot and cool air start moving around in an attempt to even temperatures. That's the coriolis effect. Then the wind caused by the coriolis effect blows on the water and causes a wave. A wave gets momentum and rises up but then gravity is like "uh uh, get back here buster!" and pulls the wave down (this is when the wave crashes back down into the ocean). But the wind is still trying to push the wave so the top of the wave turns white because all the wind can blow is the water at the top of the wave that is not as influenced by gravity.

One of my goals for the week was to be able to go to a beach and figure out what the waves are doing and where to surf. I also wanted to learn to read a surf report. I successfully did both and every time the instructors challenged me to tell them what time it was I was able to do so because I could see what the waves were doing (if the surf report, for example, said the waves would be 9 ft with a 17 second periodicity at 4 o'clock I could look out at the ocean and be like well, the waves are 9 ft and the periodicity is close to 17 seconds so it must be 4 o'clock)

I would note here that the owner of the surf camp saw me reading the science of waves one day and said "we've had that book since we opened and you are the first person to read it". Also, as a side note, one of the guys on the trip, JP, said "you are the only woman I've ever met who brings more books that clothes on a vacation".

Anyway, Thursday night we were all ready to blow off some steam (what little steam we had left, the day was grueling with high tide at 10 feet and a bad rip current). JP had gone into town to buy a case of "decent" (expensive) red wine. We started drinking that and then Ezra suggested everyone (not me) shot gun a beer and it turns out each country has its own way to shot gun beers. First they did it the american way (hole in the bottom of the can, pop the top) then the argentinian way (pour the beer in a glass and drink it sideways) then the polish way (I am not making fun of polish people but their way caused a lot of beer to get spilled on the floor).

american shot gun

argentinian shot gun

 Then Ez and JP called the guard and had him unlock the cabinet that had a bottle of rum ($50). Everyone started taking shots (except for me). Ez, who is a great dancer, started dancing on the table. Soon everyone (except me) joined in. Shit, like glasses, started breaking. We were all playing our favorite songs on the stereo. Suddenly the night guards showed up and started trying to clean up all the broken glass. We were also advised to turn down the music A LOT but we pretended we didn't understand.

guards in the back ground cleaning up broken glass

rum shots

At that point I thought it would be a great idea if we all jumped into the pool (it was fucking hot). LT was supposed to take a picture of us jumping in the pool but he kept fucking it up and after the third jump the guards were like "I think it is a very bad idea to be in the pool. You are all drunk."

Ez and I decided to go to bed around midnight but the music was still ridiculously loud. We asked them to turn it down twice but they didn't. So Ez and I snuck up to the room and she started fucking with the blue tooth stereo. A loud song would be playing and we would switch it to a slow country song (e.g. blue eyes crying in the rain). Everyone was so drunk it took a while for them to figure out it was us. I went to bed around 2 am and when I got up at 630 and went downstairs to the party room the cleaning woman was in there picking up beer cans and crying. The room was TOTALLY trashed.

All the surf instructors were talking about our party. They said in the 4 year history of kalon nothing like that had ever happened before. As we left to go to the beach they were still scrubbing blood (someone cut her foot on the broken glass on the floor) and wine off the stairs.

When we got home Friday night from surfing, around 7 pm, the stereo was gone, the wine was locked up, and there were only 12 beers in the fridge.

Hee. We spent a lot of Friday night debating whether we would ever be allowed to come back to the resort...