Kurt Van Dyke, a well-known surfer from a prominent Santa Cruz family of surfers who also own Van Dyke Farms in Gilroy, was killed by armed intruders Saturday in his home on Costa Rica's Caribbean Coast where he was a longtime hostel owner.

As the Chronicle reports, two armed intruders broke into the Costa Rica apartment of 66-year-old Kurt Van Dyke Saturday, tied the hands and feet of Van Dyke and his 31-year-old girlfriend, who authorities identified by her last name, Arroyo, and held them in a room for several minutes. As the Costa Rican paper the Tico Times reports, the intruders then reportedly assaulted Van Dyke and fled with some of the couple’s valuables, including one of their vehicles.

Per the Chronicle, it’s unclear what happened during the events leading up to Van Dyke's death, but his body was found under a bed with a sheet over his head. He appeared to be asphyxiated and had multiple stab wounds, and there was reportedly a knife found next to his body.

“My brother was a very benevolent, giving person who would help just about anybody,” Kurt’s brother, Peter Van Dyke, told the Chronicle over text. “Kurt would never hurt anybody, and he was always there when you needed him. Everyone that he met knew this about him.”

The Chronicle reports that Van Dyke was the owner of Hotel Puerto Viejo, a popular hostel in the beach town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, which is a short drive from his home in the town of Cahuita, both located in the southern portion of the Limón province. The paper notes that while drug trafficking and other types of organized crime are present in the province, the small beach towns where Van Dyke spent his time are typically limited to petty crimes, such as theft, pickpocketing, and break-ins.

“We have the Police delegation in Playa Negra, the cantonal, which is the most modern in the country,” wrote Roger Sams, president of the Southern Caribbean Chamber of Tourism and Commerce, per the site Surfer. “We are working hand in hand on security issues. It shocks us and hurts us, because the Caribbean has been very calm.”  

“There have been no cases of violence reported like this against tourists. In recent months there has been no violence or assaults,” Sams continued. “This is an isolated case, he is the owner of a hotel, not a tourist, it has not to do with tourists and the people who come to visit us.”

As the site Islands.com reports, gang and drug trafficking-related crimes have historically been centered around the province’s capital, Puerto Limón, but the opening of a new port there in 2019 has resulted in the spread of organized crime and trafficking into surrounding areas. Per the site, homicides in Puerto Limón account for 25% of all the homicides in the country.

Per the Chronicle, Van Dyke, who got his first surfboard at age 7, was born in Santa Cruz to Gene and Betty Van Dyke, two pioneering, surf-loving parents who were also prominent in the farming community, as the family has owned Van Dyke Ranch in Gilroy’s Gavilan Mountains for 60 years.

“Kurt loved the ocean, our farm, animals and his family,” said Peter Van Dyke, per Surfer. “It’s a very sad time because of all the great memories we have growing up together, farming and surfing.”

“We remember your spirit, your energy, and the light you brought into the lives around you,” wrote a friend of Van Dyke on social media. “Some people leave footprints — you left waves.”

Image: Kurt Van Dyke/Facebook

• In addition to BART fares increasing by 6.2%, tolls on seven Bay Area bridges will go up by 50 cents January 1, including the Bay, Antioch, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael and San Mateo-Hayward bridges, but not the Golden Gate Bridge. [NBC Bay Area]
• The 60 tenants who were displaced by the large fire in the Tenderloin earlier in December still haven’t been able to retrieve their belongings from the building, and they’re demanding answers from Mosser, the building’s management company. [KRON4]
• Raw oysters are the suspected link in a widespread case of salmonella, which has affected 64 people across 22 states, with around 20 being hospitalized but no reported deaths. [ABC News]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

A man surfing in the waters of San Francisco's Ocean Beach died Sunday night, following calls to 911 reporting a surfer in need of rescue.

According to San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson Jonathan Baxter, SFFD and National Parks Service units were called to the Ocean Beach shoreline near Rivera Street at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

A 29-year-old man was pulled from the waters, Baxter says. Though crews performed CPR on the man, since identified by the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office as SF resident Jason Zumbo, he was pronounced dead.

Bay City News reports quotes Baxter as saying that "it is unclear if Zumbo experienced a medical event in the water," but one rescuer who spoke with SFist on the condition of anonymity claims that it was a "pretty straightforward drowning." When contacted by SFist, the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office declined to confirm Zumbo's cause of death.

Following the April death of two wading teens, the safety of Ocean Beach has come under renewed scrutiny. That month, Supervisor Eric Mar called for lifeguards on the beach, as well as improvements to existing signage outlining the hazards at that stretch of shoreline. As effort to reach Mar for comment on Sunday's death was not successful as of publication time.

Previously: 'Education,' Lifeguards Proposed For Ocean Beach As Yet Another Distressed Swimmer Is Rescued

Even though the formal Mavericks surf competition got scuttled this year, about a dozen well known big-wave surfers gathered yesterday to surf the break anyway, and one of them drowned. As the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports, 35-year-old Sion Milosky, an accomplished big-wave surfer who lived in Kauai, wiped out on a large wave (think: 60 feet), and then got held underwater by two consecutive waves at around 6:30 p.m..

Via a witness: "Milosky caught at least six waves before he fell when the lip of a wave he was riding collapsed on top of him...The fall happened during low tide, when the water depth at the break averaged 15-20 feet deep. The water pushed Milosky toward the bottom and his board 'tombstoned'... Another wave crashed over Milosky shortly after the first."

Jet skis went looking for him, and finally found his body at the mouth of Pillar Point Harbor, about a mile from the break. Rescue crews responded around 6:51 to Princeton-by-the-Sea and transported a lifeless Milosky to Seton Coastside Hospital in Moss Beach.

Milosky was named the North Shore Underground Surfer of the Year by Surfing magazine last month, and had used some of the prize money to travel to Mavericks for the last of the season's swells, which reached up to 80 feet this week.

24-year-old San Francisco resident Adrian Ruiz was killed by a tiger shark while surfing off the coast of Mexico yesterday, making this the second shark-related death in the past week. According to AP, "Ruiz bled to death on Monday after a tiger shark bit his right thigh, leaving a 15-inch wound, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said in a statement."

Similar to the shark attack that took the life of triathlete Dave Martin, Ruiz was pulled ashore, but then alter died due to serious blood loss at a nearby hospital.

The fatal shark attack occurred at Troncones on Mexico's coastline, "about 325 yards from shore." The shark that attacked Ruiz is reported to weigh as much as 660 pounds.