CELESTIAL SURF SESSION - 2009

This is by far one of the most memorable surf sessions of my entire life and probably the rest of my life. 

The day before the swell had started to straighten out and the winds had turned offshore, my favorite wind direction.  Late in the day it was looking very good with perfect conditions.  I had ended the day with a great session until after sunset.  It was looking as though if the winds and swell stayed strong, the next day was looking to be a good one.  That night the winds picked up to about 25-30 mph and I could see by the full moon around midnight that the swell was staying steady and strong, a little overhead on the sets.  My anticipation was running high voltage making it hard to go back to sleep but I managed to fall back until about 4am.  The moon was about 1 ½ hands distance above the horizon as I got up and made my light breakfast and drank about ¾  of a gallon of water.  The conditions were perfect.  The winds were holding steady offshore at about 25-30 mph and the swell was even more perfect than the day before, I was stoked.

I got suited up, waxed my board and headed down top the break.  The moon was full and glowing a beautiful light burnt yellowish white and it was now just about half a hands distance above the horizon s I stepped in to the ocean.  I was the only one up, nobody was stirring in their camps.  The eastern skies were just starting to show signs of 1st light as I eased into the ocean.  I made my way out to the break watching wave after vacant wave pass me by on its way to shore.  I was in complete solitude surrounded by my favorite conditions.  When I was outside I just sat and watched the moon make its way to the horizon departing this side of the earth to make its way around the earth.  As I watched it start to dip into the western ocean, making the sky turn beautiful shades of dark purple to lighter shades of deep blue, the sun in opposite skies to the east was producing shades of oranges, yellows to lighter blues then mixing into the deep blues from the moon.  I was right inn the middle of the full moon setting and the sun rising  with this beautiful crystal clear pastel rainbow sky  from horizon to horizon and just me in the lineup.  So I took the next perfect set wave and rode in the balance of sunrise and moon set, it felt unreal.

I surfed for the next hour or two solo before someone finally paddled out.  Most everyone came out sooner or later  but the crowd was light, maybe a dozen throughout that day.  The conditions held day into the evening.  By the evening as the sun started to ease into the western horizon I was still in the water.  It had now been 10 ½ hours of solid surf since I first stepped into the water with the moon setting.  Now as the sun was just a half hand above the horizon I could see in the eastern skies the shades of dark blues and purples appearing and now I was a little blown away by what I was beginning to understand what was about to happen.  I began to feel an unreal sense of the magnitude of the circumference  of the earth.  As the sun started to touch the western horizon, the moon which had just made a complete journey around the other side of the earth and back and was now getting ready to rise, I felt like a cosmic connection with the earth and the moon and sun.  Right then as they were both about to balance on each side of the planet I asked the gods to please send me a set wave.  And just then a set came, I took the 1st one and it was just overhead.  As I rode it I slowly went top to bottom again and again looking from the moon to the sun, back and fourth.  I couldn’t believe what had happened to me today.  I was the 1st one out, I saw the moon disappear and the sun rise.  I watched as I surfed all day the sun travel across the sky and then at days end I saw the sun set and the moon rise in perfect balance and rode a wave just as they were in that balance under pastel rainbow skies.  I surfed until dark that day making it a solid 12 hours of pretty much non stop surf.  As I touched the shoreline I felt as though I was just stepping out of a dream. 

This story is not to bark about how long I surfed, it is a story to share about the moon having passed completely around the earth and the crazy coincidence about being the only one out and riding a wave at the balance of the moon set and the sunrise then duplicating it at the end of a nonstop surfing day with the moon rising and the sun setting.  The chance of that ever happening again is really small especially no one out at those moments.  It truly was a celestial surf session.

MOMENTS ALONE, BUT NOT

Many years ago I would travel down through Baja alone.  I preferred traveling by myself for the peace and uncluttered silence of rolling down the road with just my thoughts and my faithful dog Boojum.  Should anything happen it would be up to me alone to figure out how to fix the problem or get us out of a situation, that’s the way I liked it.

When it came to camping and surfing it was best when I was solo, as pure and simple as it gets.  I never card for babysitting anyone and I have never cared for crowds in the line up.  Surfing solo is a unique and special act.  There is no one to give hi 5’s or hoot, it’s just me and mother ocean, no ego.  She has her moods and a lot of the time if there are people around it distracts from tuning in to her moods, for we wind up thinking of the other people around us instead of the present moment.  Aside from all that, I had a special moment alone in the ocean a while back.

It was October.  No one was around and there was a nice head high swell running that day, it was morning and this is what went on that day.

Today is a perfect morning, the sun is just coming up over the mountains to the east.  The wind is calm and the ocean is glassy with a real nice swell running, the air was warm, 75 degrees.  There are no campers, I am the only one here, just the way I like it, pure peace.  My mind is at peace and my spirit runs free.  I am excited to ride some uncrowned waves.  I will be surfing in trunks for the water is around 72 degrees.  There are huge flocks of birds diving everywhere and I can see huge schools of fish being dove upon, should be an exciting surf session with all the activity in the water.

As I make my way down to the waters edge I can see a coyote off in the distance cruising the waters edge, slinking along in his stealth mode.  Off near a tide pool I see a great blue herring in a deep trance.  I make my way over the rocks and step into the welcoming ocean, it feels good.  I wade out about 10 yards and slip out through the waves.  The birds are everywhere, the ocean is alive all around me, the bait fish are in a frenzy to keep away from the pelicans, seagulls and terns.  There are so many birds it must be a thousand or more.  The bait fish are so many and so scared that they are running into my legs and jumping on my board.  Pelicans are diving so close to me I swear they are going to dive right on top of me and the sound of them hitting the water by the hundreds is like being on the battle field of mortars hitting all around me, boosh, boosh, boosh, and all the little terns are flying at the pelicans grabbing what they can from the beaks pf the pelicans.  The energy is so intense I am getting a high just being amongst it. 

As I sit outside rising over each wave as it comes to me, I’m looking around and back to shore and there is not a sole around, I am the only one witnessing this whole thing.  As far as the eye can see it’s only me and my dog Boojum, and the frenzy of natural selection.  Through all this action I see the wave I want.  A nice head high perfect wave, I turn and paddle into it.  I drop down and make my first turn off the bottom.  As I rise up the face I am almost hit by a pelican diving into the face of the wave in front of me, then a seagull almost takes me out and so it went on as I rode this wave another 100 yards while gazing down into the clear clean water at all the fish swimming beneath me.  As I kick out and drift down the back of the wave I see a few seals having a day of feasting on all the bigger fish feeding on the smaller ones.  The seals toss their half eaten fish into the air, then catch it on the way down, barking in joy.

A PEACEFUL TIME WITH BOOJUM

It was a day in late September, I was camped alone with my dog Boojum at one of my favorite desolate beach in Baja.  It was a warm day, the wind was non existent and there was absolutely no surf at all, just a soft undulating swoosh when the ocean gave a slight surge toward land.  It was so calm out that it was hard to believe the earth and ocean could be so silent.

I had apiece of plywood leaned against the tire of Big Red and I was sitting on the ground, laying back against it, just taking in the day.  It was mid morning, the sky was perfectly clear, the sun was baking against my skin and my dog Boojum was lying beside me about 4 feet away enjoying his time in the morning sun also.  Except for the occasional swoosh on the rocks on shore there was not a sound, I could hear my dog breathing it was so quiet.

Then just about 10 feet away I spotted a lizard making its way towards us.  I didn’t move a muscle and Boojum was in dreamland so he didn’t know the lizard was close. Lizards are one of his favorite things to chase, so the lizard was having some luck on its timing coming towards Boojum.  The lizard kept coming closer and closer until he was just beyond my feet.  Then he stopped and looked straight at me and started doing push-ups, sort of like he was in a boot camp or something.  He stopped after about 10 push-ups and looked over at Boojum, then walked over between us and just as the lizard was about 2 feet from Boojums nose he stopped and did a series of a few more push-ups then continued on his merry little way.  Just after he left us there in the sun I heard a faint whispering sound mixed with what sounded like a small squeaking door that needed to be oiled.  I realized the sound was coming from overhead.  I looked up and I saw the most beautiful fleet of pelicans flying by, about 100 feet above my head.  There must have been close to 200 of them all in different formations.  It was a beautiful display of natures beauty in the air, they just kept flying overhead for what seemed like minutes.  That was a day I will always remember.  It was so peaceful and quiet I could actually here their wings slicing through the still air and the slight flap of their wings which was that squeaking noise. 

BOOJUM, BISCUITS AND RAVENS

As we all know, ravens are pranksters, they love having a good time.  They seem to take any situation and turn it into a fun time.

Where we camp in Baja, the ravens hang out in numbers, sometimes you see as many as 8-10 just flying around or walking around our campsite.  When Boojum was about 8 years old, the ravens would love to play some dirty tricks on him with his dog biscuits, and I have to admit that I would help them with this particular prank.

Boojum loved to chase the ravens if they would get to close to camp as they would hop around on the ground making their cackling sounds and little gargling noises.  It would pretty much keep him busy when they were around.  He could never get a good siesta in for he always had to chase them.  Well I would take his dog biscuits, 2-3 of them and place them separately about 20 feet from each other.  The ravens would see me setting them down and would start to hop over.  Then Boojum would take off after them but all they would do is fly straight up and over his head and then land next to the other biscuits.  As soon as Boojum saw them land next to his other biscuits he would chase them from there and again they would just fly straight up and over him just out of his reach and again land next to the other biscuit.  Boojum was doing tail spins over and over chasing the ravens and I’d swear it sounded as if they were laughing the whole time!  This would go on for 10 minutes at a time.

Eventually Boojum and then ravens got the biscuits but Boojum never got the ravens, they were just to smart for him.

Hurricane Norman, 1997

It was the year of the big El Nino. I was camped at my favorite spot and only 2 other camps were there. The weather was as humid as the tropics. At least 80%-85% humidity and the air temp was 85-90 degrees. The mosquitoes were thick as any place I’d ever been. I couldn’t believe that this was the arid Baja I was so use to. It had been raining so much over the last few months that every square inch of land was covered with flowers. It was the most beautiful I’d ever seen it. Yellows, greens, reds, violets and oranges filled the landscape. The air was still, not a breathe of wind and the sweat was pouring off just sitting still. The water temp was in the 80’s. The surf was 2-4 foot and real good form. It was quite an accomplishment if I could get from my camp to the shoreline without acquiring more than 10 mosquito bites.

I had to fully cloth with my trunks on and run waving my towel frantically around me trying to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Then shed my clothes as fast as possible and try and maneuver over the rocks fast without spraining an ankle and keeping the mosquitoes away which got me no less than a dozen or more, sucking my blood before I was deep enough to submerge myself and find relief. It stayed like this for about a week. Then about the fourth day, in the night, in the southern skies I could see what looked like the skies of Desert Storm. It looked as though a war was going on. I didn’t think much of it because I’ve seen those kinds of skies plenty of times in years past. Summer storms, hurricanes down south so I wasn’t thinking that anything different was happening. I had no idea that the hurricane down south would be coming directly at me that same night.

I had just had a great evening surf session and was looking forward to another great one in the morning. That night it started to drizzle just after sunset. Within a few hours it started to get a little breezy and the rain began getting increasingly harder. I began putting a few things under the Big Red. The rain was actually a welcomed relief because it kept the mosquitoes away. I had no screens on my doors so my doors were shut all the time and it was like a sauna inside. If I went outside I’d get eaten alive. If I stayed inside it was guaranteed a sweat box, there was no relief except in the ocean but it was night time. It began raining harder and harder and the wind was really starting to pick up now. The time was around 9 or 10 p.m.. The it began blowing so hard that I began pulling things inside Big Red. Everything was soaking wet and it was no use having clothes on so All-Natural was my dress code.

Each time I went out the rain came in and the wind kept picking up in velocity to where it was in the 50-60 mph range and rising. Big Red was getting a good shaking. Within an hour all hell was breaking loose. It was now blowing somewhere in the 70-80 mph velocity and the rain was pouring down and in every crack in the windows and doors. Now I was starting to get concerned. I knew I was in for a long night. I knew now that the hurricane I had been watching the last few nights was outside in my neighborhood knocking at my door. I had to start Big Red and move it so the corner of the rig was splitting the direction the wind was coming from. I didn’t want the wind hitting directly on its side, thinking if it got much worse it could possibly roll It over on its side. The winds were so strong by this time it was as if I was driving down the worst dirt road in Baja at 65 mph. I was rocking and rolling like a corn kernel in a popcorn pan. Things outside began flying around so I decided to go and fetch what I could before I lost all of my boards. I opened the door and jumped out just in time to see one board take off in the dark into the desert. I went to grab my other board and my dog took off somewhere.

I yelled for him but the wind was blowing so hard I could hardly hear myself yell for him. When I turned around I could see Big Red starting to billow smoke at the passenger door. I thought to myself, “Oh great, here I am in the middle of Baja in my birthday suit and Big Red is going to go up in smoke and I’ll be standing here bear butt naked holding my surfboard in the middle of a hurricane!” I ran to Big Red to see what was up and the wires from the solar panel that were attached to the battery were shorting out and starting to melt red hot on the carpet. Seems as though by leaving the door open the rain which was now horizontal to the ground, had flooded across my battery and caused a short in the solar panel wires. The carpet was smoking up a storm and Big Red was filled with smoke so I just grabbed hold of the wires and yanked them from the battery and let the rain soak the carpet and stop the smoke. I grabbed another board from underneath the rig and stuffed it into Big Red. My chairs and some camping stuff were on lift off with no chance of catching it. I would just have to wait out the hurricane and look in the morning.

By now my dog had decided he didn’t want any flying lessons so he came back and jumped in Big Red and we rode it out till morning. About 4 a.m. the hurricanes worst part had passed by and by daylight it was calm. The waves were huge. So huge they were breaking out as far as you could see. I couldn’t tell exactly how big they were but they must have been 30 to 40 feet. I found out later in my trip that the winds had peaked at 95 mph and that the eye of the hurricane had passed less than 20 miles from me. There were fish on the road from the hurricane, it must have picked them up similar to a tornado and thrown them around. Quite a night.

Glen's 62nd Birthday Bash!

Hi!

We just got back from another 4 month trip down in Baja!  We had great waves and another fun birthday party for Glen!

"Through the hills of Baja with NO brakes! Who needs brakes?"

It was March 2008 and we were on our way to one of our favorite spots in Baja. We were heavily loaded with supplies to work on our tree house and pulling the Samurai as well. The summer before I had rebuilt the engine in Big Red and put a new system of brake lines and master cylinder in. We were just about 25 miles north of Lake Chapala when I noticed there was something going on with the brakes. They started feeling a little soft in the brake pedal. I’ve felt that feeling before when my brakes had given out, but this time I had a whole new system in so there shouldn’t be anything wrong. I wasn’t using the brakes that much for Big Red has a five speed transmission which allows me to use the gears instead of using the brakes constantly.

I was hoping my hunch was wrong but the next time I stepped on the brakes I felt that lousy feeling again and my hunch was right, something was up with the brakes. I didn’t say anything to Roberta because I didn’t want her to worry. So I began driving a little slower and making sure that I didn’t have to reply on the brakes, I needed to save them for when I would really need them. As I was driving along, I was trying to figure out what the problem could be. The next time I needed to use the brakes the pedal went almost to the floor. I was completely out of brakes! I figured a good place to pull over with what little of the brakes was left would be Lake Chapala where the restaurant was. There were truckers there and a good long flat area in case the brakes failed completely. But before the next turn in the road I needed to use the brakes and they were gone. I gave a little statement of excitement and Roberta asked me what was wrong and I said nothing, just thought something was up with the engine, but not so. We got to Lake Chapala and pulled off to the side of the road with no brakes so I was down shifting until I was in 2^nd gear, then I shut the engine off and let the engine stop us. I then told Roberta we were out of brakes and had been for the last 10 miles. I got out to see if I could tell what was wrong and it was easy to see. The back right rear wheel was covered in brake fluid. I had Roberta step on the brake and the fluid was leaking fast.

First we had to unhitch the Samurai. We had about 2 hours, maybe 2 ½ hours of daylight left so we decided to head for Guerro Negro and try to make it before dark. I would use the gears and go slow on the down hills. We had walkie talkies so we could communicate while driving. I wanted Roberta to drive the Samurai . This would take some of the weight off Big Red and so Roberta wouldn’t be in Big Red also for her safety. So we were off and everything went well. It was easy with the gears that I have, the new engines compression made the down shifting easy to control Big Red.

We were about 65 miles into driving and talking back and forth. We were climbing a gentle grade which at the end of its downhill side is a dangerous curve at the bottom of it. I was talking with Roberta on the walkie talkie and let my timing of shifting the gears go a little to long, for when I shifted into 3^rd gear I realized I was going a little to fast to downshift into 2^nd and I was already at the top and beginning to descend down the backside of the hill and steadily gaining speed instead of slowing down so I could shift into 2^nd gear. If I shifted into 2^nd gear now I would probably blow the engine. I got a real lousy feeling as I began gaining speed and approaching one of the more dangerous curves in Baja. Plenty of accidents happen on this curve. Now here I am going way too fast! As I start into the turn, Big Red is starting to lean so I instinctively start pumping the brakes but there are none! Now I need to make a decision fast. Do I go wide on this blind curve and hope there are no cars coming or do I stay in my lane and hope Big Red doesn’t roll. It feels as though its going to roll the way it’s already leaning and I’m only just beginning to take the turn so I decide to take it wide into the other lane, all the while stretching my neck as far as I can to see if another car is coming. Fortunately I made it around the turn with no accident. By the time I was through the turn I was sure that Big Red would have rolled had I stayed in my lane. I was almost on 2 wheels as it was.

We continued on to the military check point which was at the bottom of a long grade and I made sure all my shifting was right for if I blew it this time I would certainly run through the check point taking a few signs with me. No problem though, by the time I got to the check point I was able to shut the engine down and stop me right at the guard. He noticed the engine looping as I came to a stop. I said to him, no brakes! He looked at me with surprise and waved me on and made the statement, Loco Gringo!

We made it to Guerro Negro just at dark. We pulled into the Malaremo and had a good nights sleep. Next morning I took off the brake line to see what was wrong. It had a crack in it behind the nut where the flare seats on the slave cylinder. A factory defect that almost cost us dearly. So I took the line to the auto parts store where the guy cut off the bad piece and reflared it for me at no cost. I went back, put it on, bled the brake lines and we were off. I now carry my own flaring tool, just in case. Makes me wonder how lucky we were that the line didn’t give out going down the hill into El Rosario.

Just another trip with Big Red and it’s surprises. All in all, it was about 120 miles of no brakes!