excerpt from...

Be True To Your Surf School

Laid-back surf vacations aren't just for slackers anymore.

by Debra Klein | Jun 10 '02

Instead of hanging 10 at his Long Island, N.Y., beach house last summer, David Anderson, a Wall Street options trader, hung his head. "My neighbors surf, and it was very embarrassing to go out and be terrible," he says. So over the winter Anderson signed up for a week at Corky Carroll's Surf School in Nosara, Costa Rica (lodging and lessons about $2,500, including air fare; surfschool.net). After a few days of instruction, the 35-year-old Anderson managed to stand up on the board. Even though he "immediately wiped out," he says catching his first wave "was an incredible rush."

Laid-back surf vacations aren't just for slackers anymore. Rick Walker, who owns the rustic Corky Carroll's, says 80 percent of the people who come to his four-year-old school are newbies like Anderson. "They've already done every kind of outdoor sport, and surfing's on the list," Walker says...