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Thursday, May 3, 2018

5.3.18 From Just-Get-Wet to Just-Get-Welts at Panga Drops

About two weeks ago, I was messing around with my big toenail on my left foot while watching TV in the dark. It had been off-and-on ingrown and I was trying to fix it, caveman style. I felt a little bit of it stick out and I for whatever reason yanked hard on it.  It immediately bled and I spent the next couple of nights trying to fix the problem I'd worsened using tweezers.

I had a jagged semicircle of nail pushing into the side of my toe.  Walking hurt pretty bad, though I did manage to improve it somewhat after three excruciating hours of tweezing at it.

Probably the gayest thing about me, other than that one weekend in college I'd prefer not to talk about, is I go to get pedicures to cure my chronic ingrown nail issues.  I average about three times a year.

I sought professional help and walked down to the nail salon in the development.  She said she thought she could save the nail but it was going to hurt.  They gave me a bottle of rum and a cup and I took too little of it and swigged it down.  I spent an excruciating twenty minutes getting jabbed at by the half-Salvadoran, half-Nica María.  When she'd done as much as she could, she brought out what looked like a set of pliers.  That's when it really began to hurt.  I was biting into the plastic cup they'd given me for the rum and as quietly as possible wincing/writhing in pain.  My hands bit into the plush chair they had for nail work.  After a couple of breaks she told me I was good to go and to come out in a week to see how it was healing.  I asked her if I could go in the ocean and she said absolutely not, too many pathogens.  I was ordered to keep the toe clean and free of sand/dirt.

Of course, the surf began firing.  Looking at photos really tested my faith.  I was asked to go to the beach by my wife so I could help her transport the girls down there and I wore socks and my Chucks, greatly upping my kook quotient.

I walked down to Colorado after having been given a clean bill of health/all-clear from María the previous day.  It looked small and inconsistent, and there was a pack on it with THREE photogs on the sand and one in the water.  Wyoming looked similar but less crowded.  After watching it for five minutes, I trudged up to Pangas.

I saw what looked like a mysto wedge on the Colorado (to-be-named) side of Panga Drops.  It was empty so I just paddled there and perched.


 The waves were really tricky in that there was a sider coming through and perverting the waves' path.  I caught a couple of unspectacular ones there, though my second had a fun late drop.

I was unimpressed with the mysto wedge so I paddled to Panga proper.



For reasons unknown other than I'm a G, this song popped into my head as I paddled.

There were some overhead ones out but they usually had little to offer in the way of a shoulder/slope beyond the initial drop.

I started getting mauled by sea lice not long after making this decision.  First my right ankle was hit during a duckdive.  After duckdiving a couple more waves, I was hit in the right upper arm so fiercely it felt as though I'd been hit with a jolt of electricity.  Then I got hit hard in the forearm.

My right arm especially was buzzing.   The sea lice spread as it tends to do even if you don't spread it by touching it with your hands.  I made plans to go in.  I caught a wave late and kept up with it well, shuffling my feet up then back a couple of times so as to not be left behind.

On this wave, a section felt bottom and I was able to pump meekly and generate a little speed, but there was just nothing to off of which to even bonk.  The wave fizzled out completely and in I went, looking forward to showering so as to get rid of the stinging.

Before this my worst sea lice session was my last session of my first trip to Costa Rica in 2002.
Three hours later



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