We spent way more time in Santa Catalina than we first expected but for good reason, a non-stop supply of waves! Pretty basic here, just a tiny village and a few basic hostels scattered around but also a couple of quality waves. The main wave, La Punta, is a 200+ metre hollow righthand point over some dodgy reef (unsurfable at low tide unless you're psycho). The other option is Punta Brava which picks up twice the swell but is a 45 minute walk away. We ended up staying around for two weeks and scored La Punta going off a couple of times and then when the swell dropped and the point went flat we did a daily mission down to Punta Brava and scored punchy 3-4 foot waves for 5 days in a row (with hardly anyone out due to the long walk in the heat).
We stayed in a pretty basic surfer hostel with limited running water and a pretty scummy kitchen but a good group of guys to hang out with and interesting people coming and going. One "highlight" was finding a scorpion in my bed! I thought it was a cockroach when it ran over my hand and turned on my torch to find something much more sinister! It turned out to be non-deadly but I still didn't sleep well that night. Apart from surfing we didn't do much aside from a day trip out to Coiba Island to see the remains of a brutal penal colony (think Papillion) and do some snorkelling (which was actually quite cool).
So, the summary? Two weeks of surfing overhead waves every day but not much else to do. Didn't matter for us, we had a great time and racked up some serious hours in the water!
