A few months ago the « El Hueco » surf shop was born in a backroom of the WAVES house.  It was by the valiant efforts of WAVES volunteer Axel Eaton and my predecessor Samual Roches that a good idea became reality. The idea was to create a place where cultural exchange between locals and international surfers/volunteers could take place while creating both employment for locals and earning potential to fund WAVES Lobitos projects.

The surf shop has eclipsed everyone’s expectations and it has since its early beginnings come a long way. The WAVES surf photography program has been one of the key drivers of the success of the shop with surfers from all over Lobitos coming in to check their photos taken by our resident photographer (Henry Espinoza).  Within a couple of months the original backroom became overcrowded and felt too small for what we tried to accomplish (a relaxed inviting environment). Early November, with an influx of fresh motivated minds, some extensive brainstorming was done and the idea to move the shop was born.  We decided to move the store to the front of the house into a more spacious room where people could see it from the street, look through the windows, hear music coming out of the shop and would want to hang out and interact.

Fortunately there were plenty of willing hands around and with the honest blood, sweat and some tears 😉 of Adam, Dino, Raffael, Pim, Richard, Tali, Fanny  and Sr. Raul Tinoco the work (demolishing the old room (my favourite part 😉 )sanding and painting the walls, building a surfboard racks and a proper shop counter, thinking about and design customer flow charts and the best spots to display items for sale, etc.) the shop was finished just before the Christmas break.

We are all very proud of the end result and potentially even prouder that in true WAVES spirit we built everything from recycled/reused material (minus a few cans of paints and a few screws). The new shop is both more spacious and inviting to both local youth and tourists looking for a place to hang out, read a surfer mag or watch a surf movie (in the near future). Since the move, the shop has kept on growing and every day we seem to attract both more tourists as local youth. In this manner the shop is gaining meaning by providing employment for several local youth, funding for local WAVES projects, being a live training ground for local youth working in the shop and functioning as a place where cultural exchange can occur in a relaxed surfy atmosphere.

Aloha,

Pim