In the early years, the camera was mounted 30 feet up in an almond tree on the beach, with an ethernet cable running through the branches from a beach bar called Tortilla Flats. Every time the camera needed maintenance we had to hire a tree climber to bring it down, which became a bit of a hassle over time. Later, we moved the camera to our friend Trevor Brown's front porch at his beachfront house. Those were good days—the camera was accessible and under a roof. But that didn’t last long; a massive rainstorm redirected the Baru River, sweeping Trevor’s house and the webcam out to sea.
At that point, we were running low on motivation to keep it going, and we no longer had a good location for the camera. Then along came Erik Blaker, one of our agents and a devoted fan of the webcam, who wasn’t about to let it go. Erik spoke with the lifeguards and arranged to have the camera mounted on the lifeguard tower. I bought a new camera and housing, and we set it up there, running a 200-foot ethernet cable to Cesar and Kaitlin’s surf shop across the street, crsurfschool.com.
Since then Surfline has partnered with us and now things are running relatively smoothly. Please understand that equipment failure and power outages are part of our reality but we try our best to keep the camera running as often possible. It started as a fun project and has turned into a necessity for all local surfers! Enjoy!
Check out these awesome Dominical surf photos from our friend, Justin Hague. Follow him on Instagram to see more amazing shots and check out his local adventure tours.
