Surf’s Up Venao

Playa Venao kind of pulls you in, making it hard to leave this little stretch of paradise. Having received our first dose of the vaccine, we have an appointment to return on July 3. Our time in the jungle unit ran out and other people had it already booked, so we spoke with Jorge at the lodge and he set us up other units to stay until July. We have to move twice though during the month. We are now in an upstairs unit with amazing views (not that the views weren’t amazing before). Some days, it’s hard to get motivated to leave the grounds.

But, the ocean calls. We did some paddling, but my shoulder has been progressively getting worse so I’ve had to give it a break. PJ boldly goes on her own, paddling across the bay and trying for some small waves on her way back home. The other afternoon, we got out our snorkeling gear and had a look at the rock reef out front

We used our boogie boards to float us around in the channel that leads out towards Playita. There were numerous reef fish darting around the large rocks that make up the ocean floor. We kicked out to the point until the water was about 15 feet deep. A group of teenagers scramble along the rock face of the point until they reached a jump rock where they took turns diving into the sea. The drop was maybe 30 feet. One guy was really good and was pulling off big flips but most of he kids were a little skittish and forced themselves to jump out feet first.

We swam back over to the Sandy area where the boats tie up. In that zone, we met up with some sketchy oversized sting rays. We floated around the boats before coming in and tip toeing over the high tide driftwood line at he property‘s edge.

Over the weekend, a surf contest came to town. The renters in the unit above us had their kids entered in the 5-8 year old division. We decided to trudge down the beach and watch for a while. The menehunes (kids) were having a final heat. Lots of family right on the sand hooting them on.

After the kids finished up, the older locals went out for an “air show”, with a cash prize for the biggest air that got landed. It was a high flying event with a few even landing the maneuver here and there. Excitement for the sleepy beach town of Venao.