Loc: El
Porto
Time:
1500-1600
Crew: Bri
Conditions:
1-2 FT+, sunny, onshore, choppy, walled
I’ve never taken PCH all the way down the
coast before. My friend Al had warned me to make sure I take a piss and shit in
Monterey because after that it’s no man’s land. I only know that I’ve looked at
the route on Google Maps and on MapQuest before. All PCH is to me, up here in
NorCal, is a squiggly line near the coast that takes much longer than taking
the 5 South back to L.A. But Bri is down for adventure, and without any
obligations waiting for me back home, why rush just to sit in my living room
again? Everything we see today will be a new experience, so why not just go
with it.
We head up a two-lane road towards a
tunnel, but traffic is immediately halted. Emergency vehicles rush back and
forth in the opposite way. It’s a little past 1400, exactly a day later from
when we left L.A. the day before, and this journey back mimics the one when we
left—traffic. Cars in front of us do three-point turns, heading back in the
other direction, but Bri and I have patience. Dead or alive, we’re taking the
1.
About a half hour later, we start to move
again. We venture through this enormous tunnel, a miracle that’s been bored out
through a mountain it seems. There are even emergency lanes inside of it, and
it’s well lit. “Let’s hold our breaths,” says Bri. We do. We try. Bri runs out
of air before I do, but I still hold it until we’re almost out, but I fail. The
test makes me think of people who have died from running out of air, dying from
shipwrecks in the middle of the dark ocean somewhere. I guess I would have died
too.
Upon emerging on the other side, the
highway is adorned with trees and hills that tower over us. Everything is
scenic, picture worthy. When we make it to the coastline, a surf break appears
to our right. Just next to the highway, only five guys are out surfing. The
surf is much cleaner than this morning. The afternoon sun shines over the
water, making silver, blinding triangles in the surf. The water is smooth, and
long, two-to-three foot lines peel in towards the highway. It’s so inviting. I
want to just pull over and suit up again, but we haven’t even covered any
distance yet. I have the long drive around Big Sur in mind, and a surf session
now will only make me too weary later on, but Bri and I take a mental note of
this spot, sure that we’ll be here again.
The rest of the drive is a struggle. We
want to pull over and take pictures of everything, but we can’t. How can we
even gauge if what we’re seeing now is the best that the coastline has to
offer? It seems that every bend has a view much more magnificent than the one
before.
There are pumpkin patches on the way to
Santa Cruz. I keep an eye out for Four Mile and Three Mile, the Santa Cruz surf
spots that Al had taken me to two years ago. I imagine that they’re further
ahead, but then PCH swings inland and turns into Mission Street. Now we’re in
downtown Santa Cruz.
When the trip turns inland, we’re back in
freeway traffic, an uninteresting part of the journey, but when the highway
swings towards the coast again the scenery returns.
I should stop and piss in Monterey, but I
can’t stop driving. Every turn is a mystery, hidden by fog, blessed by the sun,
and then immersed in fog again. We stop at a scenic lookout that’s so high that
clouds billow over our heads from the mountains, pouring out into the sea. The
air is cold. I stand in my boardshorts with my penis shrunken down to a stack
of dimes. The clouds are white and gray while the blue coastline can be seen
far below in the distance. Other cars pull onto the dirt road with speed,
having been caught by surprise as well.
Hours into the trip with the sun going
down, we stop at the side of the road where the clouds are at eye level. The
setting sun turns everything bright orange. There’s a steep drop below where a
rock sticks out of the sea. Aside from the occasional rush of a vehicle, the
nature surrounding us is silent. “Listen,” says Bri. Down below in the ocean,
the only thing we can hear is the water splashing against the huge rock below.
The drive remains scenic, but once the sun
goes down, the drive gets sketchy. The van in front of us is driving slowly,
and there are a couple cars behind us, tailgating, eager to get around us. The
twist and turns get the better of me. Road hypnosis sets in. There’s no cell
signal or 3G. If anyone has a major breakdown out here he is fucked.
Hours later, we start passing small towns
with signs of civilization. When Bri and I reach Morro Bay, we pull over at the
state beach, and I take a piss. It’s dark and cold out. The stars are much
brighter here. As soon as I tie up my boardshorts, a spotlight from a cop car
beams on us. I wave. I wonder if we’re breaking any rules, but it’s only 1900.
The park closes at 2100. The cop drives away. Bri and I stay a little longer
and then go back in the car to continue the journey.
Just as I start my car, the spotlight
returns, blinding me through my back window and rear view mirror. “Aww fuck,” I
say. “Here it comes.” I pull my wallet out and put it on the dash. I stick my
hand out the window and spread my fingers, letting this cop know that I’m
harmless and don’t want to have to lie on the dirt face down. I hear footsteps
approach. “This is bullshit,” says Bri.
The cop is walking towards us with his
flashlight at my face. “Donny Duckbutter?” says the cop.
“What the fuck?” I look closer, and the cop
is a guy I had been stationed in Iraq with. “Aww shit!” I say, opening the door
and giving the guy a hug.
“I ran your plates,” he says. “I was like,
Donny Duckbutter? There can’t be too many Donny Duckbutters out there.”
I introduce him to Bri, tell him that he
scared the shit out of me, and then we catch up on what we’ve been up to since
2010. “My girlfriend and I were gonna just camp out in our car,” I say.
“Well,” he says. “It’s illegal to sleep in
your car, but . . . if you do it here, I won’t do anything.” I tell him we’re
planning to push it further south anyway, so we say our goodbyes and hit the
road again.
We pass San Luis Obispo, and then Bri
suggests that we stop at Splash Café in Pismo Beach for the best clam chowder
in the world. We exit and park on the street. I worry about the surfboard on
the roof, but we still leave our car regardless.
There’s a lot of nightlife out here. It’s
2030, there are a lot of college kids on the street, and the café itself is
packed. Bri orders while I let my road hypnosis settle. It’s just hard to
transfer from driving for hours to sitting down in a crowded restaurant.
So the clam chowder is good. It’s served in
a sour dough bread bowl, but I fail to eat all of the bread. Leaving the café,
we see a party bus from one of the colleges. White girls pour out of it wearing
short shorts. Their ass cheeks hang out. Mexican cooks and bus boys pour out
onto the street for closer looks. Good for them. There should be plenty of drunken
poon tang for them tonight!
But I’m tired as shit. So is Bri. We push
it all the way to Santa Barbara. Bri suggests that we park in this parking lot
that’s right next to a business establishment. It’s well lit, not like the dark
shady cul de sac that I had wanted to park at earlier. Other cars park next to
us while we shift our belongings in the back, making our bedding for the night.
We throw the longboard inside too just in case. It’s hard enough sleeping in
this thing by myself. It’s doable, but it’s always a shitty sleep when I pull
it off.
Bri is out instantly. The windows start to
fog from our body heat. It’s obvious that we’re squatting in here, and I’m
preoccupied at the thought of security making its rounds. My sleep is broken,
tossing and turning. I dream that a security guard is tapping on our window,
telling us that we can’t sleep here. I wake up, and the sound is just someone’s
car doors’ slamming. Bri tosses and turns too.
Day 3
At 0600 I wake up, go outside, and brush my
teeth. The sky is turning to a dark blue, lightening up slowly. Bri gets up,
and then we reorganize our vehicle for the rest of the journey. No hotel
necessary. We’ve survived the night.
Now we’re driving through Santa Barbara,
Bri’s old community college town. It’s been years since I’ve been here. She
directs me to Spudnuts where we have coffee, bagel sandwiches, and some free
donuts that come with the meal. The place is already packed with church goers,
picking up their refreshments for service. The sun is out, brilliant and gold,
but when Bri takes me to her favorite beach, it’s overcast with fog again. We
both take shits at the public restrooms and then cruise the coastline.
She points out the community college. It
sits right by the sand, overlooking the ocean. The pier here is nice. It’s
early with only a few commuters out. Plenty of people jog along the street. The
water is glassy without a sign of surf. We stop, take a pic, and trudge on.
We’re open to surf, so we stop and see
Rincon for the first time in our lives. Other cars are here too, but the swell
is small. We stop at different spots along the break. We see the potential.
Sad to say, the feeling of the unexplored
gives way. I know the rest of the route. I stop at a secret spot that I had
only brought Klaude to. The surf is small here too. Oxnard, County Line, and
Leo Carillo, we stop and check the surf. Small. But it’s beautiful to be out,
taking our time, delaying our arrival back home.
There are surfers at Zuma. It’s glassy but
small. We take the coastline through Malibu and stop off to walk some scenic
trails. So much in our backyard that we didn’t know about.
And so our trip ends. The 1 leads us back
to Lincoln Boulevard. It’s 1400, exactly two days since we had left El Segundo.
We find ourselves at El Porto, looking at the choppy, walled surf. It’s small
and looks like shit. Onshore with a small crowd, the session is easy to pass
up. “We have to end it right,” says Bri. “It’s only right that we paddle out to
end this trip on the right note.”
She puts on her bone-dry Roxy wetsuit that
she hasn’t used yet on this trip. I shiver while I put on mine, the same one
from Lindamar yesterday morning.
I don’t need to describe the surf session.
Most of us know what choppy Porto is like. The session sucked, but who gives a
shit. It culminated this whole road trip. We saw Francis, the only friends from
SoCal that had the time to make the trip. We drove home one the 1, Big Sur
being a huge highlight. I love Bri because she’s right on board with me, down
for adventure, down to camp out in the car. And here we are back home, two days
later, safe and in one piece.
After our session we go home and slowly
unload our gear into the garage: boards, wetsuits, leashes, sleeping bags, and
all. We do the groceries and pick up Thai Food for dinner. It’s nice being back
home.
We shower off two days of grime. We haven’t
showered since we had left. We climb into bed, exhausted, calling it a night
around 2000.
Thank you, Francis, for everything. Without
your presence we wouldn’t have made this trip. Bri and I will be back to do it
trip again.
