Best it's Ever Been: Hunting for Waves in Baja California Sur

"You should have been here two weeks ago.  Twenty-foot faces,"  a voice behind us said. Standing in the sand looking at the ocean,  Dan, Trevor and I immediately turned to see a tan, fifty-year old man in a hooded sweatshirt leaning casually against a palapa.  He popped a can of Tecate stuffed into a black neoprene wetsuit glove.

"Best it's ever been."  100% Emphatic.

Dan and I looked at each other as if figuring out whose turn it was to clean the dishes.

"No shit,  really?" I said, answering the void.

"Yup.  A buddies coming by later with photos from the day. The wave connected all the way to the beach," he said motioning from the point left towards the beach with his beer in hand.  The fingers of the glove-turned-koozie jiggled in the light wind.  "I've been surfing here for thirty years,  hands down the best I've seen it."  He took a chug of the beer and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"Damn,  we rode that swell in California.  It was pretty fun there too."

"How were the waves this morning?"  Dan asked.  "Does it always blowout like this in the afternoons?"  Dan nodded towards the ocean.

"Yeah, pretty much. It has its days though.  Sometimes it holds off all day,"  he said looking towards his wind chimes made from beer cans and broken surfboards. He took another swig of his beer.  "The waves were fun this morning. A little crowded though, 'cuz it's the weekend and all."

Pausing for a second, I looked at my watch.  ST stands for Saturday.  After three weeks camping,  the days blend together with no functional difference between a Tuesday and Sunday.

"You boys staying the night?  I hear the swells building."

"Yeah we are thinking about it,"  Dan responded.

#campvibes.

Three benches with a view of the ocean.

Quiver.

 A deserted lighthouse.

 

A cacti forest.

 Handed-painted signs.

Red, white and blue in Baja.  The man with the neoprene koozie's boards.

Moo.

Two tents and a van.

Rocky coasts on the Sea of Cortez.

Endless deserts.

That night, the swell built as the man with the glove koozie had predicted.  Waking to take a piss a few hours before sunrise,  the pounding waves shook the ground and the moon light reflected off white water.  Debating if he was full of shit or not,  I lay in my sleeping bag watching the occasional satellite work its way through the clear night sky.  He didn't seem like a bullshitter,  but Baja sure does attract a wild bunch of people. "I guess the photos would leave little to debate," I thought to myself before slipping back to sleep.

We never saw the photos of him surfing, but the next morning, he was out in the lineup.  After kicking out of a double overhead right,  he paddled by.  "Twice this big,  and perfect."

Grinning ear to ear, he kept paddling.

Looking over at Dan, I conceded, "Maybe it was as good as it's ever been, but who cares.  This is as good as we could ask for."

Here are some more links,

Baja California Surf (Facebook),

Fosterhunting (Twitter).

Area of Operations

"Any requests?"

"Yeh.  Bananas.  More bananas,"  I told Dan and Trevor as they stood just outside the van in parking lot of a grocery store in Guerrero Negro with a fistful of pesos. "Get enough for four of five days.  We ran out a little early last time."

"Alright. Anything else?

"Nope. Ohh and don't forget about refilling the water jugs."

"Clearly."

With a slam of the sliding door,  they walked towards grocery store's swinging doors, leaving me to keep an eye on Syncro and the six surfboards strapped haphazardly to the roof.   I unclicked my seat belt and stuck my head out the window.

"Surprise me with an ice cream bar,"  I shouted after them.

Going off a week-old swell report saved on my laptop and a few scribbles and highlights on a handed down AAA map of Baja, we had left our previous camp at sunrise that morning.  Headed for greener pastures, we stopped in Guerrero Negro to restock on provisions and satisfy a healthy appetite for fish tacos.  From what we gathered from other traveling surfers, the break we were heading to  sounded like the promised land.  For weeks we had heard reports of consistent waves, plentiful spear fishing and campsites built from cobblestones.  Heaven.

An hour later we pulled off Highway 1 onto an unmarked dirt road and headed west towards the coast.   Based on the well cut ruts in the road's recently emptied mud puddles,  we were on the track.

"Just take every possible left,  and we should be good,"  Dan advised from the passenger seat.

Bouncing on the rutted road for twenty miles, we finally crested the last hill and saw the ocean and a handful of campsites dotting a mile of coastline.   Out in the bay,  an empty wave pealed for two hundred yards along the cobblestone beach.

The grass can be greener.

Sunrise.

So pitted.

Sticks and stones.

Pacifico.

Changing room.

Firewood rack.

A kitchen with a view.

Lundin equipped with poncho and coconut water.

A fellow traveler holing up for the winter.

We rode the point break in the mornings and the cove in the afternoons.  Around lunch, we d0nned our spear fishing gear and searched for dinner.  Getting into a rhythm, our days started shortly after sunrise and ended just after sunset.  For five days,  we used this camp as our area of operations.

Here are some more links,

@Fosterhunting (Twitter),

Baja California Norte (Facebook).

Baja California Norte

"If not now then when?"  I texted my long time friend and frequent partner in crime, Dan, one night in late January.  The text was part of a conversation discussing a trip to Baja that started when I decided to quit my job last summer and had continued in the background.  During the fall, we procrastinated, going back and forth about safety and timing.  Three weeks in the Northwest around the holidays cured me of this deliberation and shortly after New Year's I decided that I was going.  By myself if need be.

My phone vibrated.

"Baja?  yeh,  you're probably right.  Lets talk in the AM."

"Sounds good.  I'm serious though,  when are we going to have this much time?"

The next morning, Dan called, and based on the speed that he started talking when I picked up,  I knew he was coming.

"Dude.  I'm in.  We have to go.  By the way, you'll have no idea who I'm with right now,"  Dan blurted in one breath.

"Killer.  Who?"

"Lundin!"  (Inspired by the character Cody Lundin on Dual Survivor,  Dan and I started calling our friend Trevor, Lundin, based on his naturalist tendencies and actions on a backpacking trip on the Lost Coast.

"No way?!  That shithead has been stonewalling me for months.  It was like pulling teeth to get his information for The Burning House book."

"Yeh I know,  I haven't seen him since November.  He keeps saying something about planting trees on BLM land for a month straight and then an intense fling with some girl.  Sounds like BS to me.  Anyways,  he's down to go to Baja."

"Fuck Yeh.  When can he leave?"

"Tomorrow."

The next night,  we rendezvoused at a parking lot within earshot of the constant activity of Los Angeles International Airport.   Hugs and high-fives were exchanged as we transferred gear from Dan's Toyota onto the Syncro's racks.  Planning for a month-long trip to a place none of us had been and heard relatively little about,  we packed the Syncro with a full spectrum of camping gear, six surfboards and enough fishing spears and snorkels to equip the cast of Thunderbolt.

"Do you think the swell is building?"

Local Economy.

Local accommodations.

Baja Buggy.

Cheap Tacos.

Empty roads.

Empty waves.

Three hours of excavation.

Untouched towns.

"Long, workable rides"

Crossing the border in Tecate shortly after sunrise the next day,  we had nothing to expect.  A constant flow of bad news from Mexico and handful of mixed anecdotes from people's journeys in Baja left me on edge and weary of any police car or person walking by the Syncro.  We stashed money throughout the car,  hid our passports in inaccessible places and only drank filtered water.  Slowly,  these concerns lifted and within a few days, we were in the swing of things in Baja.

Here are some more links,

Baja California Norte (Facebook),

@fosterhunting (Twitter).

Currently in Baja

I'm Currently in Baja chasing waves and looking for fish tacos.  If you're reading this post it means I haven't been able to find internet to upload photos.  Don't worry,  I will be fine.  I'm taking hundreds of photos and making my way all the way down to Cabo with a few friends.  Check out my Instagram feed @fosterhunting for more updates.

I have scheduled a slew of posts on,

#Vanlife,

The Burning House,

Out of Reception.