A BARNEY IN BAJA: DAY 3 SUN 09OCT2011 NOON

            I’m so used to waking up with darkness still outside my window. Back home, it’s a must. I have to get up early so I can move lethargically through my El Segundo apartment. Take my morning piss, shit preferably. Make my coffee, pack my gear, kiss Lauren goodbye, and then hop in the wagon to beat the traffic or score free parking locally. But here in Baja, right here in a mansion on the beach, we can be picky with what window we choose to surf.

No Rush:

            It’s about 0730. I wake to the sunlight peering through the clear tiles in the wall. Jonathan’s knocked out. Kevin’s sleeping on the tiny bed in the corner. I have to take a monstrous piss, so I wake up. The house is silent as I walk up the stairs. I grab a cinnamon Pop Tart and go out to the balcony to take a look. It’s a clear day, but the sun’s still weak. The beach break in front of the house looks unappetizing. There are peaks but too many of them. They are so scattered and breaking really late. Every time there’s a shoulder, it runs away too fast. I walk to the south end of the balcony to see if there are any surfers out. I see none. I go to the living room, plop down the couch, and munch on my Pop Tart. Alan’s sleeping on the couch. He turns and mumbles in his sleep, and then he pulls the covers off of himself. He’s wearing his boxers. I’m grateful that he doesn’t have the natural motor reflexes of jacking off in his sleep. He reaches in his pants to scratch himself. I go back to my room. I figure since it’s high tide that I’ll take another look after it’s dropped a bit. 

            At 0900 I hear Kevin get up. “What time is it?” he asks. He’s the first one to go upstairs. After a couple more moments of debating what to do, I follow suit. Jay is up cooking bacon. As soon as Jonathan catches up he assists with the eggs. It’s another morning of engorging ourselves. I eat too much; I think we all do. The morning football games are on, and most of us are in front of the TV. I decide to do a little recon, so I take my sombrero and walk out to the cliff. I sit there for fifteen minutes. There are three guys out, and their rides look pretty average. Two turn at the most, maybe a partial cover-up followed by a pinch in the tube, but they’re mostly one-turn wonders. The sight is a bit disappointing. The swell has backed off, and everything looks like a mediocre beach break. I fancy the thought of glassy water, still as a lake, with only rideable waves to break the integrity of it at a consistent rate. Kind of like Churches or Sunset on an early Tuesday morning when there’s no wind and decent swell. Right here, right now, it’s consistent but with waves breaking on the inside only. It’s almost 1100, and I wonder how yesterday’s right-hand point break is looking. It’s too far to see exactly. All I can see is the white foam indicating that the wave is peeling, but I can’t see the face. I go back upstairs and tell Jonathan that I’m heading out. He says he’ll join. 

Jonathan and his ripped back

I had to hand off my camera to Jay who was nice enough to take some pics of us paddling out

            Jay decides to walk with us, not to surf, but to see how it looks. I take my camera along. The waves I was looking at earlier are actually bigger once I’m on the sand, and they look much more rideable, but the shape still isn’t that great. We three talk about last night’s adventure/misadventure. Jay says he’s not drinking today after last night. When we get to the newly discovered point break, the tide is so low that more rocks are exposed than yesterday. The waves off the point aren’t too promising. I’m trying to give the briefing on what Kevin and I experienced yesterday. A wave rolls through. The pocket is tight, and the rest of the wave down the line looks weak. Jay and Jonathan seem disinterested.

There were tons of more pics on the walk to the point, but they were a little too revealing of the location.

            I say, “It’s smaller here, but it’s consistent. We may be able to get a couple turns on a couple waves. Over there (where we just came from) the waves are a little bit bigger, but the shape’s not that great. I’m easy, man. It’s up to you.”

            Jonathan says, “Yeah . . . well we can surf here for an hour and see how we like it.”

            Alan was trailing behind us. I didn’t even now. He walks up to see what the hype has been all about. From the look on his face, he’s obviously not impressed. 

“You going out?” I ask him.

Alan pauses as he looks out with a smirk on his face. “Nah,” he says. “There’s nothing for me out there.”

Jonathan decides to walk on the rocks forming the point to jump into the deeper water. I take the lower road instead and walk parallel to the shore. I turn to Jay and say, “I’m going to try to sell it to you, but I can’t promise anything.” He smiles. 

Pic courtesy of Jay

            Because of the tide, my walk to deeper water takes forever. With my leash in my teeth, I’m losing my balance and put my hand down to save me several times. When I can finally paddle I see Jonathan jumping in the water. Fuckin’ bastard, he beat me.

 

            Jay’s still chillin’ on the rocks waiting to see if we catch anything. Jonathan and I scratch out on a couple at first. I have my doubts about the session. I draw first blood, almost fall on the pop up, regain myself, pull off a turn, and then stall. I turn to Jay who’s watching. He gives me a thumbs up. By the time I’m back by Jonathan, Jay’s already heading back to the house. Jonathan catches his first wave. It bogs out right after he drops in. “It’s pretty fun out here,” he says. Yeah, I’m thinking. It’s better than nothing.

The Baja Wave Buffet is Officially Open:

            Jonathan and I have this peak to ourselves. In what appears to be weak surf, a random rogue wave pops up and breaks past the point. I forget who catches the wave, but when we’re reunited we’re surprised at the gifts being given. After my next wave, I see Kevin waving at me from the rocks. He’s paddling out to join us. From here, it’s gets consistent. Waves are breaking off the point, just inside of it, and swinging wide just south. Some of the waves feel like they’re bogging after the drop, but we learn that if we cutback and stay in the pocket, that it reforms on the inside for a long ride. For the first hour, the three of us are just trading off waves. Jonathan even makes us get on his board so we can get some GoPro footage of ourselves. It’s almost 1300, and the wind is still light. 

            Jay now paddles out to join us, making our total number four. From here things get incredibly ridiculous. The consistency doesn’t let up, and just like a cycle, we paddle to the point, catch a wave, and as we paddle back, everyone else is catching waves. One by one, taking turns, this goes on for three straight fucking hours. Talking about the wave, it’s not huge, but it’s clean. I’m talking an easy 3-4 feet, but the shape is just short of perfection. I’ve never pulled off so many turns in one session; this is literally the day to practice turns, cutbacks, and whatever you can do on an open face. We are all scoring. We start to hoot each other on each ride, but we get so many waves that we get tired of hooting. Drop after drop, bottom turn to top turn, cut back, pump, bottom to top again, reform, do it again until it’s shallow, each “wave of the day” gets cancelled by each ride. Before long, every prior ride is replaced, erased, and forgotten because the moment keeps reproducing itself.

            I see Jonathan catch the outside bombs, and so does Kevin. Stand out surfer of the day is easily Jay. He paddles into everything. And when it seems like he’s gonna bog out, he pumps and pumps, working his way to make every section. He even goes left, getting a partial cover-up heading towards the massive rock that makes the point. When he resurfaces, I tell him he’s fuckin’ nuts. 

            Today’s rides are beyond describing because there were so many. Just imagine soft shoulders, open, lined up, and begging to be carved and gutted, nonstop. It was good training. How many times have we all gone out of our way to surf good waves, but have been forced to deal with sharing them with thirty-plus people? Today, the waves were good, and the total amount of wave time easily amounts to a weeks worth of surfing a good but crowded break.

            By 1500 the wind picks up. We’re hungry. But we mostly end the session due to the wind. Once we all make our way past the rock path, we see Paul in the distance, approaching with a beer in his hand. 

            “How was it?” Paul asks.

            Kevin fills him in on how good it was. 

            Paul says, “Yeah, when you guys didn’t come back after two hours, I had a feeling it must’ve been good.”

            Back at the house, Alan can’t believe that the surf was good. “I wouldn’t have expected it,” he says. I understand. Neither did we. 

Jay and Allen's turkey keilbasa pasta. From left, clockwise: Jay, Kevin, Alan, Paul, and Jonathan.

The rest of the late afternoon into the evening is spent splurging on more food. For lunch we actually sit down at the table together like a family: plates, utensils, drinks, food displayed, and all. Dinner is another concoction of man food. Jonathan puts together a film clip from today’s footage. I hate to admit it, but I used to laugh at people that film themselves in the water. But after today’s glory, the film clip is a great representation of the day’s events. We’re not stoked just to see how we look on the waves, but the way that Jonathan put it together. It was an experience that we all shared, and Jonathan made the memory more unforgettable by cementing it in a movie.

During lunch, Jay looked up with a mouth full of pasta and said, “We’re truly blessed.” I looked around at all of us eating, thought about the surf, listened to the ocean behind my back, and thought, what have I been doing with my life?