Wednesday, Feb 13 – Day 58

Evandro says that Fabian and I are good enough to start surfing on our own today while he provides more detailed instruction to the rest of the class. We’ll be just off to the side so that he can watch and make a few comments from a distance. We’re in waist to shoulder high water with maybe a 3 to 4 foot swells. The entire bay has a sand bottom, so it’s pretty safe. We’re just doing repetitions of popping-up, and standing. Not really looking for the curl or a direction. It’s pretty fun stuff, and I can see doing this for a while.

Met Regis’ roommates today at Beer Praia. Dan is the American, and he’s a former mutual fund guy that got tired of dealing with the niceties of marketing the investment products to unsophisticated investors. Has been here for 2 months, but even more interesting, he hasn’t been back to the US for 2 years. He likes a bare-bones lifestyle, and now, just for kicks, is focused on living off as little money as possible. The other night he bartered with a net-fisherman and fed a group of five people for less than US$3.00. He says that his living expenses are about R$5.00 per day, including the rent that he splits with Regis. Lots of tourists come through here, and the other evening, while hiking over huge boulders at the beach with his girlfriend of the day, they got stuck on a rock and had to spend the night. They were rescued the next day, however, by a harpoon fisherman.

Regis’ other roommate is his girlfriend, and they’ve been together for 2 months. She’s from Chile, and has been her for about 8 months. They met on a bus here in Floripa. Sometime next month, they are going to go to Chile so Regis can meet her parents.