Baja

Day 1:

After a quick flight from San Francisco, I met up with my good buddies, Aaron Lanes, Justin Lewis, Matt Skenazi in San Diego. We had been planning this trip for months, however it has seemed like a lifetime as this has been a trip I have wanted to do since I first began surfing in San Diego as a young college student at PLNU. Something about being in a foreign country, searching for waves has always been more attractive to me than most anything else, and I was definitely due for an adventure as it has been nearly a year since my last mission to Guam. 

Before we crossed the border, we all decided to get a surf in at a break in San Diego, because we knew that we had a long day of travel ahead of us sitting in a car. It was just after sunrise and the water was much warmer than what I was used to way up North in San Francisco. The waves were small, but I didn't care because I was with my buddies, the sun was out and the optimism and excitement on this new adventure was high. 

Surfing for about an hour and a half, we all seemed to catch our last waves at the same time and headed for the trucks. We had two trucks, not because we had too much stuff, but because having two trucks was a solid plan in case anything happened while we were in Mexico. Heading down the I-5 our caravan neared the border. Not familiar with protocol, Justin and I crossed with ease and got right through, however Aaron and Matt got stopped. There was no stopping for us as we were herded and honked along like cattle. We were separated as soon as we crossed. 

Without cell service, we had no means to get in contact and no shoulder to pull off onto and wait. We had no choice but to move on until we were out of Tijuana. Not too frazzled by the situation, we eventually came to a spot in the road where we could pull off and still have a view of HWY 1. After about ten minutes or so, we spotted them, hopped back in the truck and with lights flashing and horns honking, we were sinked up again, ready to continue our adventure. 

We continued down the 1 seeing tons of surf breaks with one person, sometimes no one  at all at each break that we would pass, making us more and more eager to get in this Mexican water and surf our brains out. With the sun lazily hanging in the sky, we drove down past Ensenada to a small down called San Ysidro. We were the only gringos there and as we slowly drove through town, boony dogs barked at us, small children waved and people seemed to just stare as if we were a sideshow circus pulling into town with our surfboards strapped to the tops of our vehicles and our ear to ear grins beaming back at them. We stopped briefly to get minimal necessary supplies (beer) and then headed about five minutes out of town along a dirt road to catch a sunset surf session at a break just off of a point there called Punta San Ysidro. The surf was surprisingly fun as the tide began to dramatically drop and suddenly build to head high waves. After a beautiful sunset, we paddled in after dark and set up camp, cooked up some burritos, and then drank a few Mexican beers before retiring for the night, excited to see what tomorrow would bring us.