“The lobsters have… claws?” Our waiter, David, assumed the look of a person who had been informed that Monday was officially being relocated to the weekend. Yes, we three Mainers nodded vigorously, our lobsters have claws. I helped him do the math – your lobster, times three. This was a man who could appreciate three times the langosta, I could tell.

But David had ceviche on his side. Quick – when you read ceviche, what did you picture? Think about it… If you envisioned a $12 appetizer, a tiny pyramid of lime-cured fish, perfectly assembled atop micro greens, or nest of seaweed salad, I implore you to consider a cereal-bowl sized heap of the freshest marlin, tossed in citrus with slivers of red onion, served with exactly three slices of sweet potato, every time.

Full of ceviche, headed back to the beach for more sun, more unadulterated wave play, and maybe a cerveza, I think to myself, I could do this. I could live here. This is vacation thinking, I’m aware. A neon yellow butterfly flits across my path, an iguana skulks in the other direction.

I can surrender entirely to this thought because I know that the tide will take me home, inevitably. It always does. And I don’t mind. Because knowing that home is a place where snow will soon renew the land, where dry logs will snap in the fireplace as we thaw from a lunchtime ski, and the sun that as barely risen already starts to set—that home is Maine—makes it easier to enjoy these few castaway moments in a small Costa Rican surf town where, regrettably, their lobsters will never have claws.