Every October our camp in San Juan del Sur closes for the rainy season in Nicaragua. While we are sad to go without new chicas in our camp for the month, we are stoked that it gives us the chance to travel and see new spots around the world. This time off each year allows our staff to travel to great surfing destinations around the world including Indonesia, Baja California, Mexixo, and Puerto Rico! This year, owner, Ashley Blaylock, was able to travel to Ireland. The water there is freezing but it doesn’t stop the locals apparently. Check out the pic of stand up paddlers at Lahinch on Ireland’s West Coast, as well as the massive waves brought in by an early winter swell on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. In addition, our surf camp manager, Charity Barkwell, was able to travel to Puerto Rico, in search of perfect October waves. Charity is still there now getting stoked but will be back in time for November to welcome the upcoming camps!!! CHICABRAVA keeps on proving that you can get stoked around the globe!

This year’s National Surf Circuit in Nicaragua drew to a close with the final event at Playa Madera just outside of San Juan del Sur this past month. CHICABRAVA was present and representing in full force! Our very own surf instructor extraordinaire and local of San Juan, Elsi Marin, brought home the 4th place trophy for the final event and owner, Ashley Blaylock, claimed the title for National Champion again this year for 2010.    We congratulate our chicas and look forward to the start of a successful contest season in 2011. Until then… we’re still here getting stoked in style in Nicaragua!

The three day expo, considered to be the most powerful buying event in the action sports industry, showcases all the latest apparel from over 400 surf and skate lifestyle brands for the upcoming seasons. With ChicaBrava’s immense growth over the last year in not just the camp but also in the surf store, we knew we couldn’t miss this insider event!

We hit the ground running on the very first day of the event, previewing lines from Billabong, Kustom and Honalau. We also got the chance to meet 4 time world surfing champion Lisa Anderson along side longboard world champion Jen Smith at the Roxy booth. We attended the ASR’ Fashion Society’ Show, enjoying a glass of champagne and looks from the top surf & skate brands.

Day two was jam packed with meeting after meeting. Some of our appointments included Quiksilver, Reef, Skull Candy, Roxy, Rip Curl and O’Neill. ChicaBrava will be the first surf shop to offer some of these top brands in San Juan Del Sur, as well as in most of Nicaragua. We are so excited to build relationships with such great surf brands. Later that evening, we were invited to the Liquid Nation Ball, which serves as the main fundraising source for SIMA Humanitarian Fund, but due to prior commitments we could not attend the event. Though we were told it was a great success, exceeding their fundraising goal and raising over $200,000.

The last day at ASR the nonstop schedule finally began to slow down a bit. Though we still met with brands like Sanuk, Banana Moon, Lucy Love and Angel. Our time at ASR was definitely well spent, and we look forward to bringing some of these great brands to the Nica Surf Market. The California breeze was a nice change, but its time to go home to Nica!

Welcome to this new blog posting section highlighting upcoming events. Here we will be adding information about the Nicaragua National Surf Circuit upcoming contest dates/results, worldwide surfing events, local events in San Juan del Sur, fun events in Managua and so much more!

This week we just finished a HUGE event weekend in San Juan del Sur in celebration of the 31st anniversary of the Revolution in Nicaragua. There was lots of fun to be had on the beach, including a two day surf contest and fun concerts everynight! We’ll keep you posted here on these types of events BEFORE they happen so you can come!