Jon SteeleHow many goofy-footers are booking passage to Nicaragua right now?

"Central America stacks up well against any other global surf resource." -- Tom Curren, El Salvador, 2011 (paraphrased)

But what does he know? He just has a dad who lived on the beach in Costa Rica, a Masters gold medal from El Salvador, and a Panamanian family. And a bunch of world titles. Let's put his logic in the centrifuge.

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Right Points? La Libertad, Punta Mango, Las Flores, Ollies, Matapalo.

Left Points? Boca Barranca, Pavones. A couple more unmentionables.

Reefs? Santa Catalina and Escondido for starters. Innumerable for practical purposes. Beach breaks and rivermouths? Witch's Rock. Hermosa. Half of Nica. A quarter of Panama.

Slabs? Salsa Brava, for one.

So Curren's call is safe at third.

And so was Jon Steele's. The Texan-born shooter shuttered his windows and jumped a red eye for Managua last month. A late season south was about to bestow its riches on the poorest country in the Americas. Nicaragua, famed for its Lake Effect offshores and widescreen swell window, has seemed to have surpassed Costa Rica as the go-to Centro wave garden, but Steele didn't care about popularity contests. He just wanted barrels.

As seen in the shots here, he found them. And strangely, he also found glacier surfer, power SUPer and promotional dynamo Garrett Mcnamara.

"The SUP was not a problem out there," says Steele. "There were only a handful out, and they all got along. SUPS, skis, surfboards ... it was a candy store for them. Garrett was getting in early from behind with the paddle; the wave favored that approach."

How very Nicaragua -- by the ballot or the bullet.