PACIFICA ROAD TRIP, FRI-SAT 25-26OCT2013

Loc: Pacifica/Lindamar

Time: 0900-1000

Crew: Bri, Francis, Jerwin

Conditions: 1-2 FT+, overcast, offshore, glassy, freezing!

    

Friends:

     Francis had called me earlier in the week, letting me know that he would be flying up north from Oahu because of a family emergency. As sorry as I am for his family’s loss and as much as this is a time for mourning, I told him that I would be willing to take a road trip up north to see him. He said that would be great.

     I haven’t seen Francis since he moved to Oahu in the early summer of 2012, so it’s been about a year and a half since I had last seen him. I’ve told Bri all about him, how he’s only one of the few “straight shooters” who I know, meaning that the way he presents himself is the way he truly is. No bullshit, no fake personality, no gimmicks, but what really makes Fransauce special is that he rarely has a bad thing to say about anyone; he’s an optimist, and it’s hard to catch him mad or in a bad mood. I used to call him Filipino Jesus. An image of him sitting in the lineup, peaceful, with seagulls and dolphins flocking around him come to mind. He’s a magnet for waves, as the best sessions that I’ve ever surfed in Huntington were when we were together.

     So I’m down for the last minute trip up north to check him out, down for the hours on the freeway to get to Pacifica, and down to see my homeboy again because who knows when we’ll be in driving distance of each other once more. If I don’t go, he’ll be a text message and a phone call away again, but face time is precious. I gotta check him out.

The Plan:

     Bri gets off of work early at 1330. We plan to be on the road by 1400, no later. Initially, I had planned to bring my Lost Mini Driver and the Becker board for Bri, but since I broke the Becker board this morning, we have no choice but to throw the NSP on the roof so she’ll have something to ride. I’m not thrilled about driving for six-plus hours on the road with a huge object strapped onto the roof. I worry that it’ll fly off and cause a major pile up, but I had bought some FCS roof-rack pads from my buddy Khang about a month ago. I fasten those to my roof rack and hope they will aid our journey.

     Thank God Bri is a surf bum at heart because she’s willing to forego sleeping in a hotel. Truth is, I’m on a budget, and the gas and food costs alone are gonna stretch my anus, so I pack some sleeping bags and blankets-we’re sleeping in the wagon if we must, true pirates indeed.

     I have snacks packed in a cooler, our necessary surf gear, a full tank of gas, and a couple cups of coffee for myself to stay awake. Bri gets home at 1330. I put my Pandora on the phone and bump some KC and the Sunshine Band’s, “That’s the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh!” and take the 105 out of El Segundo.

The Trek:

     According to my Navi we should arrive in Pacifica, via the 5 North, at around 2100 hours. It’s Friday afternoon, and I expect the traffic to be hectic. As we pass the Manchester bottleneck, traffic is actually smooth, but once we near the 10 we become gridlocked. This is my nightmare. Traffic and I don’t do so well together, but I had expected this upon planning this journey. We’ll probably be in traffic for half of this trip, possibly even running into it again somewhere near San Jose.

     Traffic is stop and go. We’re barely passing The Getty and we’re already forty-five minutes into our trip, still in L.A. County, but after we pass the 101 junction we maintain our momentum from coming down the hill and speed off into the carpool lane. Everyone’s in a rush, driving at least 75 mph. Cars stack up behind me, so I pull into the middle lane and cruise with the flow of traffic.

     The FCS cushions keep the vibration down from the NSP that’s strapped to the roof, the caffeine is going strong through my veins, and before we know it we’re passing Six Flags Magic Mountain. It looks like we’ve beaten the traffic just in time.

     I tell Bri that if we arrive right at 2100 that we’ll be lucky. Any earlier will be a bonus. I don’t even have to piss yet. Neither does she. She breaks into the bite-sized Oreos and feeds them to me as I drive. On the 5 we pass flat pasture lands of dried grass. Cattle dot the landscape. Cow pies fill my nostrils. I love it. Now it’s a game passing up the big rigs and getting back in the slow lane while the douche bags who are in a hurry speed past just to get held back by the infinite line of cars going the same direction. They swerve in and out of lanes to gain distance. Are one or two car lengths worth all that trouble?

     I don’t have to piss until Gilroy. We stop at the first shopping center we see. The gas station has a line outside. I guess everyone else has to piss too. Bri and I stop in a Panda Express. A little kid looks behind him nervously as I wait behind him, holding in my piss that’s about to split my dickhole open.

     After I piss I go to the sink and look in the mirror. I’ve been on the road for about five hours. My hair is flat and my skin is ashy. I rinse my face, and that doesn’t improve me by much.

     Francis gives me a call, says that Bri and I have a bed with a heater to sleep in tonight and that there will be plenty of food when we arrive. I give him the status report that we’re about an hour away. He’s surprised.

     I usually get a bad case of road hypnosis after so many hours of driving on the freeway. I pass the signs that read “Sunnyvale,” and I think about my buddy Al who I haven’t seen since we were in East Java together. I wish I could see him too, but he’s up north in Sacramento right now.

     We finally see the lights of the Bay Cities off to our right as we near Pacifica. Fog hovers above the freeway exit signs, and my eyes try to make the transition to slowing down as opposed to the thousand-yard stare.

     I’ve never been to Pacifica before, and even though it’s dark, I can feel the cold and smell the salt air nearby. We exit, drive past a CVS, and make a left into the residential neighborhood. I look at the clock. It’s 2015. We’ve been on the road for a little over eight hours.

     When Francis steps outside to meet us on the street I give him a big hug and introduce him to Briana. I still haven’t parked, and I’m so pumped off of caffeine and reduced from the long drive that I’m weary and giddy at the same time. When we park, he leads us inside the house.

     Francis’ whole family is there, as well as some of his homeboys. We do a quick round of intros, but I hone in on the food right away. “Yeah,” says Francis, “Come eat.” He doesn’t need to tell me twice.

     There’s a seafood medley with rice pilaf, lumpia, pancit, beef, asparagus, peach cobbler, and a bunch of other things to munch on.

     I meet a guy named Alex who says he knows Klaude. I tell him about his KK’s shoulder injury, and he’s bummed to hear about it, but he looks forward to seeing Klaude in the winter.

     While eating, a rotation of friends come and goes to visit Francis. “This is like the hangout for all my friends,” says Francis. I don’t know if I should talk or eat, but I can’t stop doing either one. I keep going for the food. Bri and I tell Francis’ mom that the peach cobbler is delicious, and she says, “If you say my food is delicious, I become your mother.” Fair enough. . .

     It’s a big two story house. Filipino cousins, uncles, aunts, and little kids run around between the two living rooms, returning to the dining table to grab more food. It reminds me of my family get togethers back on Maui when I was in high school.

     Francis and I tell Bri about our stories, how the first time I met Francis he asked if he could use the bathroom at my apartment, and I had led him to it, closed the door, and was still inside the bathroom and watched him urinate. And how we surfed Blacks in San Diego and drove near the border just to buy some street churros that were supposed to be the shit.

     We stay up bullshitting until about midnight when the last of Francis’ friends take off.

     He leads Bri and me upstairs to his room where he sets us up for the night. He has pics of himself from childhood to high school. A scrawny kid with glasses, but then in high school his jawline comes in and earns him Brad Pitt status. A barrel and waves are painted on his walls. He says that his mom had painted them. He says that we’ll surf Pacifica in the morning.

     When Bri and I go to bed, Francis stays up with his family a little longer, and we can hear them talking from behind the bedroom door. Even though this has been an occasion where I got to see my friend again, it is also at the expense of the loss of his grandfather. Bri and I are grateful that his family is still able to host us and put us up for the night.

     Lying in Francis’ bed, I can’t help but think that I’m lying where he had spanked his monkey for the first time. To think, he had lain here in this very spot with his sausage in his fist, cold jerking the night away. If these walls could talk I bet they’d have some stories. He’s probably tossed up some punani on this very bed too. What a guy. . .

DAY 2

     I wake up at 0600. There’s a thick fog outside the window, and the room is scorching hot from the electric heater. I make an effort to sleep lightly, just in case Francis gets up and starts getting ready to surf.

     By 0700 I hear him in the hallway. Bri and I make our way to the bathroom and brush our mugs, and then we head to Pacifica Pier first. “It was sunny yesterday,” says Francis. I’m surprised. The coastline here looks the same as it did the last time I was here about two years ago. It’s foggy, and everything is wet and moist. 

     There’s a small café on Pacifica Pier. We get some coffee there, and Francis points to the pictures on the wall that show the pier bombarded by a monster swell. A few fishermen lineup on the pier and have their lines cast out. The surf looks swampy and walled, but it’s consistent and three feet. I mind surf it, imagining one, maybe two turns at best. I’m stoked. It looks surfable to me. Three guys are on the north side of the pier in thick, hooded wetsuits.

     Francis continues the tour, showing us some other surf spots around the coast, but every spot we see dwindles in size. Regardless, it’s nice to see something new.

     Francis says that we should surf at Lindamar. It’s a big, beach-break bay that is offering some one-to-two foot surf. There are a lot of people here, but it’s spread out. Francis says that his friend Jerwin wants to meet up with him and surf here, and I don’t mind because surfing where it’s biggest isn’t the most important thing this morning. 

     So far all of Francis’ friends have been cool, and Jerwin is probably the coolest of them all. He’s about five-foot-six, stocky, has a chronic cough, and surfs a blue longboard. We all walk along the beach, and then he points out the Taco Bell that’s on the sand. He looks at me and says, “You know, I was almost on TV for some food show, but they cut out my part!” Francis chimes in and says that this taco bell is famous. They have a window where surfers can order from while still dripping in their wetsuits. 

Francis and the Taco Bell on the sea

     Bri uses Rick’s 5/4 Quiksilver wetsuit that he had insisted that we take because of the colder water here. It has a hood on it. I’ve never used a wetsuit with a hood. I’m wearing my 4/3, and I’m fine when I paddle out, save for my face, feet, and hands. It is fucking COLD. I’m weary about duckdiving too much because my forehead already hurts. I don’t know how Francis is managing because his wetsuit is so worn that it looks thin as nylon pantyhose around his shoulder.

     I struggle to get a good wave. Francis does too. He’s on a potato chip and has to go late in order to set himself up for a ride. Jerwin catches waves on his longboard, but Bri is the surfer of the day. In the hooded 5/4 she says she’s not cold, and she gets rides down the line, all the way to shore.

     The sun looks like it might break through, but then a thicker fog swoops in from the south, blocking out the sun again as if it was first light.

     We stay out for about an hour and a half. On our way back to the parking lot, Francis runs into some locals who he knows. I realize that Lindamar for Francis is what 26^th Street is to me back home; it’s his local spot. 

Jerwin, Fransauce, and I

     We say our goodbyes to Jerwin, and then we have breakfast at L&L. Unfortunately, Francis receives more bad news. The water at his house has to be shut off because there’s a tree root that’s busted through the underground piping. I go ahead and take a shit at L&L while I can.

     Back at Francis’ house, we hang out while our loco mocos go down, and then we reload the wagon and get ready for our trek back home. I tell Francis I love him and give him a hug. “Maybe we’ll see you during the summer,” I say. He smiles, showing the lines around the corners of his eyes. Francis the man child; he hasn’t aged a bit since the last time I saw him. Deathly handsome paramedic of the islands. He could be a male model on a calendar titled, “Sexy Men of Oahu,” if he wanted to.

     Bri and I pull out on the road and head towards Pacific Coast Highway. “Awww,” she says. “I’m so glad I got to meet Francis. Everything you said about him was right.”

     “I told you,” I say. “Filipino Jesus.” Yet, as we drive away, I can’t help but think how his bulge in his wetsuit looks bigger from the last time I had seen it.