Low Tide, High Tide - A beautiful place

Baker, Tae and I have just had a beautiful 20 hours or so. Working backwards…

We have just returned from a couple hours on Playa Pelada, the beach that is now just a five minute easy walk from our home. We set out in the hopes of exploring some caves on the north end of the beach that only Baker, amongst the five Casagrandes, has yet visited. Along with us was Baker’s friend Omid who spent the night last night.

More than Playa Guiones, the other major beach in Nosara and the primary surfing beach, Pelada transforms itself in the six hours from high tide to low tide. At high tide, it is a narrow strip of sand with disorderly waves crashing up near the scraggly trees at the top of the beach. At low tide, it is a three-quarters-of-a-mile long collection of exposed rock and tidal pools, interspersed with sandy areas that are great for swimming. There are rarely more than a dozen people scattered along the northern two-thirds of it, with just a few more than this—maybe thirty or so along the southernmost quarter-mile. In short, it’s usually empty. And today was no different.

We arrived about an hour and a half before full low-tide. This made it a bit too early to get to the caves, we discovered, as they were still covered with too much water. We will venture back another day at the full measure of low tide.

Instead of exploring the caves, we walked along through the tidal pools, Tae exploring each and every nook and cranny. I changed my focus back and forth from the tiny crabs, minnows, and snails that made their homes in the pools to the whitewater crashing on the rocks further out. Both the microworld of the critters and the macroworld were intensely beautiful, peaceful, calming.

Tae frolicked among the rocks, squealing in delight at each little animal he found. The tidal pools seem to be of volcanic rock, with thousands of dime and quarter size indentations made, I imagine, by the various animals and corals that have lived in these rocks over the millennia. Some pools are just inches deep and others a foot or more. Ultimately, at the south end of the beach, Tae and I found a sort of swimming hole that was a full five feet deep. Can’t wait to show that one to Tara.

Part of my macro-view was of Baker and Omid walking and alternatively running down the beach to the best swim spot. Somewhere Norman Rockwell must have a painting titled “Friendship”, with this view: two boys walking and running down a beautiful beach, whitewater crashing into rocks sending mist into a cloudless, perfect sky.

Tae and I eventually caught up to Baker and Omid and joined them in the water for some idyllic body surfing. As I looked around, I enjoyed the rocks even more—stacked like pancakes into enormous boulders, positioned like half-sunken ship-hulls from long ago.

We finished off the experience with ice cold cokes at a little beach bar called Olgas.

* * *

And, yesterday, at sunset, we went to the Boca Nosara with a few friends. The Rio Nosara (Nosara River) flows from the mountains east of Nosara down to the sea, separating Playa Pelada from its northern neighbor Playa Nosara. At the boca (mouth) of the river, the tide rolls in and out, changing the landscape multiple times a day.

When we arrived to the Boca yesterday, the tide was coming in fast. The river had the strongest current I have yet seen in it—water rushing upriver from the ocean, towards the town and the mountains beyond fast enough to create small rapids. It was with great excitement that Baker and Tae and I and our friends plunged into the river, waded chest high through its strong current, and reached the sandbars and ultimately Playa Nosara on the other side.

We were not alone. Fisherman, tico and foreign alike, were spread across the boca casting their nets and lines while pelicans and other smaller white birds were more effective fisherman, swooping and diving and inevitably coming up successful. The orange sun lowered itself over the mighty Pacific, whose waves crashed on the beach, misting up and reflecting and refracting the last light of day.

I didn’t have a camera with me for either of these trips and that is too bad for no matter how hard I try to describe how serenely beautiful these two times were, my words will fall short. However, I am including a few photos I have found on the internet of Playa Pelada and the Boca Nosara, none of which really give expression to the beauty of the day.

(FYI, Tara and Riley are in Naples, FL visiting my mom and ensuring that Tara’s US Citizenship application stays on target.)

Pura Vida!

The Boca Nosara

Playa Pelada at Low Tide

Playa Pelada