Tikal Tuesday Surf & Culture Report

Lost Boys & Co...

We're eating dinner in a little place in the jungle in Guatemala, near the ruins at Tikal.  Memé says, "I think I just saw a turtle fly onto the path."  This got everyone's attention, since even though there were seven of us, not one of us had ever seen a flying turtle (in the wild.)  Ché, had a flashlight and in no time we found the "turtle" which turned out to be a rhinoceros beetle.  To give you some perspective the Professor asked Ché to put his hand next to it.  Ché thought the Professor must be suffering from Dengue fever... but allowed that he would get "close."  If you can enlarge this on your computer, look at the "forks" on either side of it's mouth.  What a concept! 

A beautiful fall morning here in LaLa land.  We have 20 miles visibility under a hazy ball of orange sunshine.  Winds were out of the north by 2.7kts and the sea surface was smooth with the slightest ripple.  The air temperature was 46.1 brrrr degrees and the water was a bracing  60.1°.  High tide at 7:10am +5.8' and low tide is at 2:01pm +0.2'.  The buoy tells us that we have a SSW swell out of 210° at 3.3' and this morning it looked like 3' and maybe going down a bit.  Our next swell pulse is supposed to come later in the week and possibly some rain and wind as well.  The Danger Boy 72 hour rule is currently lifted...

Our second photo features the crew on top of pyramid #3 waiting for the sun to come up.  They get you up at 4am and walk you to the base of the pyramid and show you the "stairs."  Which are somewhere between a stairway and a ladder.  You climb for about 15 minutes in the dark up the side of this pyramid until you get to this terrace near the top.  You sit there with the moon staring at you in the dark and it's cold, even though you're in tropical Guatemala.  About an half hour later the jungle starts to come alive and it sounds like a cross between and Tarzan movie and Martin Denny album.  The birds are first with those trademark jungle sounds and then the Howler Monkeys start in.  They call them "Howler" monkeys, but that doesn't do the sounds they make justice.  Judging by their bellowing, which sounds like lions rutting, they must be seven feet tall and four feet wide and have the lung capacity of a Buick.  If you were down in the jungle and you heard that noise, you'd piss your pants and that would only be half the story.  This went on until the sky started to lighten...  we'll do that tomorrow...

Breakfast at Brothers, when you order what Yoshi was having...   ✠
 

"When the surf breaks, we'll fix it..."
 The Professor!!