Plans Change & Surf day – woohoo!! 9.10.08

OK….so we changed our plans – surprise, surprise!! We had stressed about the hurricane situation and the ‘what if’s’. Will there be an evacuation order? Will we even be able to fly into Corpus if we want to? What happens if we get stranded in Houston? How long will the evacuation order last? So many questions. So we went onto the Continental Airlines website and found they had setup a deal for passengers who were flying into the areas affected by Hurricane Ike to be able to make changes to their itinerary without fees. We talked to Scott & Liz and are staying another week here! We could have flown at any time and it just worked out for us that Scott & Liz are already flying to Guadalajara for their medical workups on the 20th and that is the last day we can fly fee-free so we booked it for the 20th so that S&L would not have to make two trips to Managua in the same week (it’s a 4 hour trip). We made changes to our flight without issue, then made hotel changes for both Managua (our flight is at o-dark-thirty – 6am so we’re staying the night before at a hotel across the street from the airport) and in Corpus Christi. A couple hours later…we’re all set for one more week in Nicaragua! Luckily, we’re headed out on the 20th, just 2 days shy of our 30 day visitors visa in Nicaragua. But, funny enough…if you stay after 30 days, you simply pay a fine of $1/day for each day over the 30 days. It would be crazy to be an illegal alien in Nicaragua! Haha…

So after all the toiling & torture of contemplating the what-if’s all morning, looking at all of the satellite tracking pages, National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Weather Underground, and watching all we could on Fox News & then all of the plan-changing….we decided to head to the beach for some surf!!

We went to Playa Maderas again and both Scott & Liz were super bummed because the onshore winds were blowing which closed out the waves so surfing for them was terrible. For me though….I finally stood up on the board – woohoo!! And not just once, multiple times!! I will admit, I was incredibly nervous and finally just said screw it. My first wave to stand, I went to my knees first then stood but I ran right off the front of the board. Michael was watching from the beach and yelled “where were you running to?”….what a backseat surfer!! Liz was incredibly patient, even when my swimsuit wasn’t cooperating (there are surfing appropriate swimsuits, and not….I was wearing the not) and flashing everyone at the beach, and encouraged me on wave after wave. Paddle, paddle, paddle…get up, up up!! She thinks she swallowed more water than I did as she was screaming instructions…I beg to differ. Haha… Michael managed to snap a couple photos and said I looked like I was just waving to him on the beach. Yeah, that’s what I was doing all right!!

Back at the house we washed up the animals, rinsed swimsuits, checked e-mail, watched another spectacular sunset, & are showering up for the evening. It has not rained in 5 days!!! Well, there’s been sprinkles here & there and a super small rain, but rain, rain…when it has deterred our plans…free for 5 days! Maybe this extra week was in the plans all along & it’s our week to really enjoy Nicaragua! We still have lots of trips planned for this week & places to see. So keep tuned!

Now we’ll just be worried about our property in Corpus, just 6 blocks from the bay. We just had new windows installed as well, which are being boarded up as I type. So we can only watch, wait, & pray. If you have spare prayers…please hope for no injuries for our tenants and if possible, little or no damage to the property.

Rene