"Hola Amigos!" from Holly Beck

Hola Amigos!


It's been a while! I am enjoying summer vacation in Nicaragua - no new retreats til October, yay! I've been getting a lot more waves myself without having to put energy into helping girls improve their surfing skills. Stoked!

My Rusty boards have been working amazingly well and I put together a little video analysis of my top 3 boards with some cool surf footage mixed in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9AyOgK0x6k

I've been working over the last two years with a non-profit called Waves of Hope which is run by a couple friends of mine. We've been trying to promote education in the local communities and to lobby the government to green-light the construction of a high school. Currently the only educational opportunity for kids in the area after grade 6 is attending school only on Sundays. We've made a lot of progress. You can check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZneuwRFKg

I recently got engaged! Yay! You can see a bit of what our life is like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1xIry9ENE8

Finally, we're also working with Waves of Hope on a sea turtle conservation project. Baby turtles are the cutest things ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O2Dixa907c

Thanks for the support!
Enjoy the rest of your summer!!!
: )
hb

Garrett McNamara Takes a Trip to Nicaragua

Garrett and his manager, Nicole, took a trip to Nicaragua and here is a story from their trip. 

"Last summer the idea of a family occasion was being discussed. In the past this trip was always made to Costa Rica, but this year everyone decided to live a little and be adventurous so we headed over to Nicaragua for two weeks. This is not typically the ultimate surf destination for Garrett so fortunately we were blessed by the wave Gods with an amazing swell that had the outer reef at Popoyo breaking with some great back side barrels to warm up for Fiji. He had his SUP board so he was a happy camper. The consensus at the end of the trip was that Nicaragua was a beautiful untouched country with beautiful people. The only negative was the trash issue. These small little villages sitting in the middle of a coastal paradise are littered with trash… plastic bags, plastic bottles, candy wrappers etc.

Anyone who knows Garrett will understand that after this small wave trip he really didn’t have an interest in returning. The only way he was going back was on a mission. So when the family started talking about a return trip this summer Garrett was admit on having a purpose and making a difference. The best way to create change is through the youth. The idea developed into going into these small fishing villages and talking with the local children about the life cycle of trash, teaching them that everything thrown on the roads will end up in the ocean. So that was the plan and that is what we did. We also organized a cleanup with the village so we could “practice what we preach” with the kids. On the first day we had over 150 kids come and collect over a ton of trash and the second day we had about 100 kids come and collect and equal amount. All of the children who participated received new hats and slippers and the most popular item was their personalized poster from Garrett. It was definitely a success and we were amazed when we returned home to find an email from the children of the homemade rubbish bin they made out of recycled bottles!!! The way we look at it is if we activate at least one kid and he ends up in office or creates a business that provides a trash service and a recycle program we hit a home run!!!