BajaNomad

Do you remember..... camping /surfing at K-55?

surfer jim - 1-27-2009 at 10:34 PM

That used to be one of my favorite places to go. Just the big flat open field...walk down the cliff to surf.....a "few" houses on the south end with a guard to keep surfers out....guy on a horse used to come and collect 50 cents (or was it a dollar?) for camping....set up a tent and spend a week....

BajaWarrior - 1-28-2009 at 05:53 AM

55's? Oh ya, spent many a summer there. Sometimes parking on the north side of the arroyo, sometimes the south, depended on the condition of the arroyo. This photo would have been around '84. It seems the bottom had been damaged in a storm the year before, and it never broke the same again.

The MoHo was mine. The Bike race was that day...

r.55OldDays.JPG - 27kB

BigWooo - 1-28-2009 at 06:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BajaWarrior
This photo would have been around '84. It seems the bottom had been damaged in a storm the year before, and it never broke the same again.


Funny you bring this up. I was just talking to a friend trying to remember what year the bottom got messed up. We couldn't remember.

After that we started going to K38 and Las Gaviotas. Never ventured further south until the late 80's. Didn't need to.

woody with a view - 1-28-2009 at 06:29 AM

them were the dayz....

:cool:

805gregg - 1-28-2009 at 08:11 AM

Campo Lopez, one of my high school friends had a house on the point. We went there alot.

surfer jim - 1-28-2009 at 09:02 AM

Think it was a winter storm that destroyed the bottom.....it was one of the few "lefts" in the area in its day....I used to go many times to check it out but it was never the same....I think it started to get better about the time they started to develope the area....

One new's year eve I remember 2 drunks sitting on chairs about 10 yards apart fireing roman candles (you know the ones that shoot about 10 flaming projectiles out) at each other....would have been a good YOU TUBE video....

bajabass - 1-28-2009 at 09:55 AM

My first trip to Baja was the summer of 74. Went to k-55 with the Y.M.C.A. from Diamond Bar,Ca. A 15 year old kid from Michigan. Now I have a house in La Mision and a wife from Ensenada. Baja grabbed me by the short hairs at a early age. No more surfing, but I fish that point all the time now. Calico tacos!! MMM!!!

David K - 1-28-2009 at 10:23 AM

Have you seen elgatoloco's license plate?

bajabass - 1-28-2009 at 11:42 AM

No, got a picture?

sancho - 1-28-2009 at 11:49 AM

Remember just no. of Ensenada, just
a stones throw so. of San Miguel?
I believe it was named 3'm, 1969 or so,
also the legendary Cuatro Casas, same time,
50 cent US, for lobsters, I love
good day stories

boe4fun - 1-28-2009 at 12:07 PM

The 12 Ball Roman candle
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Baja California. I love
it down there. I absolutely hate getting down there. I really don’t consider
being in Baja until I’m at least a hundred or so miles south of Tijuana. Once
you’re at these latitudes, you can really get into the “Manana mentality”. I
usually do this by starting off my morning with a caguama of Tecate beer, a
Quaalude and a Viagra. But that’s nowadays. In the distant past we used to go
down to a beach a few miles north of Ensenada. We called the place 3M beach
(don’t know why). It was a point break with a long right and could hold up to
at least double overhead. It was one of our favorite surf spots, along with
chit Cliff, Mepees, the Bone yard, and several others along the Southern
California coast.
We would camp on the beach, and when necessary run into town to buy beer, hard
liquor, food, and fireworks. One of my good buddies, John Robards (name changed
to protect the mentally challenged) went into town one day and returned to the
campsite that afternoon with about 25 bucks worth of fireworks. He had bought
firecrackers, skyrockets, roman candles, and various other toys designed to make
your ears ring and perhaps blow off a digit or two. Fortunately, we were all
lucky in the last regard, never suffering more that a burn on the hand or across
the back of the neck from a wayward bottle rocket. Anyway, two of the
skyrockets John brought back were humongous. The rocket engine was as big as
the tube on a roll of “Bounty” towels; the launch post was bigger around than a
number 2 pencil and about 3 feet long. He could not wait until dark to light
the first one so we gathered up some good size rocks and positioned them around
a quart beer bottle aimed out over the Pacific. This was to be our launch ramp,
and John placed the launch post into the bottle, lit the fuse, and we all stood
back about 10 feet to watch the spectacle. The launch did not come off without
a hitch. Instead of flying out over the Pacific and exploding into a
spectacular display of pyrotechnics, it just blew up. We were damn near knocked
down by the percussion. It was like being inside of a bass or kettle drum while
being struck, you not only heard the noise, and you literally were rocked by the
shock wave. We decided we would be much more careful when launching the second
rocket. Later that evening came our chance. Unfortunately, I had been drinking
a combination of cheap Mexican beer and Bacardi Rum and was feeling quite
festive (translation = burracho) and I was the one who was put in charge of
holding the lantern while John set up the launch ramp. While standing there
holding the Coleman lamp and smoking a cigarette, I looked down at John and
there it was. Sticking out of his back left pocket, fuse up, was a 12 ball
roman candle. My sainted mother always tried to instill in me a sense of
responsibility. She failed miserably.
Flip Wilson used to say “the devil made me do it”. That may be a lame excuse,
but it’s the only one I have. I set down the lamp, crept up behind John, and
touched the fuse with the cherry on my cigarette. He was so busy setting up the
launch pad, and so nervous from the explosion earlier that day he didn’t notice.
I backed up about 10 or 12 feet to watch the impending mayhem. The first ball
went off with a hollow “schumpth” sound, and John yelled back over his shoulder
“Dammit, stop shooting that candle around here, this is one huge rocket I’m
dealing with”. As he turned back to yell at the gathering crowd, the Roman
candle shifted in his back pocket and the next ball was launched, and flew out over his shoulder
(which he could see in his peripheral vision). “Dammit you guys, I said stop
messing around” he yelled back at the crowd, who by now were really enjoying the
show. I can’t really recall what happened next, but at least 2 or 3 more balls
were launched before John realized the commotion was coming from his back
pocket. By the time he’d put 2 and 2 together, I had a pretty good head start,
but that didn’t prevent him from taking out his wrath on me. I had to dodge 6
or 7 fireballs while running through the sagebrush.

Baja12valve - 1-28-2009 at 12:56 PM

YES I DO!!! and Rauls was just a lone house/palapa on the bluff top. Nothing there at all. I took a 20 year break from Baja, but never forgetting, and when I went back it took me 2 trips to find it among all the other buildings as I passed it by.
Salsipuedes was fantastic. A old ranchero, Laredo used to charge 1USD to camp. I used to bring him .22 ammunition so he could shoot ground squirrels and rabbits that ate his garden. The fresh water cistern was primo, a little grass bank with the palm tree next to it. Perfect for a afternoon wash, sun and beer. There was a dirt road that went from there over the top of the mountains to the free road, now long gone. There was the most amazing, beautiful rancho on top, I will never forget it. Man, I loved that place. In all the years that I went there, I probably saw 15 others, cumulative. Now, I don't even stop until South of San Quintin.

DirkEXC - 1-28-2009 at 01:52 PM

My first trip was also with the Y.M.C.A in 1974, we camped at Angels Camp which I think was near K55 and we took day trips to K55 to surf I was about 14 at the time.
A memorable day was when the leaders took us into Ensenda and we purchase fire works, well we were in 2 large stake trucks with about 10 kids in the back of these trucks with bags of M80's. We came up with the bright idea of lighting them and dropping them off the back of the truck. We got the timing down so they would expolde under the other YMCA truck that was following with the other 1/2 of the group in the back.
Well we never laughed so hard, the drivers/ camp councilers driving our truck had no idea what was going on so this went on for quite a while. When we got back to camp we sure got yelled at but heck we were a bounch of 15 year old surfers, we could have cared less about peeing off the councilers. yea good times.

motoged - 1-28-2009 at 02:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by boe4fun
I usually ... Start) off my morning with a caguama of Tecate beer, a Quaalude and a Viagra. But that’s nowadays. In the distant past we used to ....


B.
Hmmmm....I guess that leaves you not knowing whether you are cumming or going....?:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Where can a guy get 'Ludes these days???? Oh yeah, medical connections :light::light::light:


Seriously (as an aside)....thanks for all you are doing for Coco.... the funds my pal (Dochstader) organized came to about $5-6000 U$...Kiki (San Felipe motel/camping owner - offroader) forwarded it to Coco in cash rather than the original wheelchair idea...as other wheelchairs were provided and Coco needed the cash after his surgery.

Keep up the good work...

Sallysouth - 1-28-2009 at 02:25 PM

Yep, the good ol' days! 3m's was a sweet wave, with kelp beds outside keeping the waves smooth as a baby's butt.I do remember seeing sharks there tho, as the cannery was just around the point where they would spew fish guts into the ocean on a daily basis(peeeuuuu!!!)We camped at K38 alot.We lived at Estero for some time back then(1968) and drove daily to where the waves were good.We had an old panel truck with a half of a parachute connected to the side for shade, single bed inside.Coleman stove for sterilizing Juanitas bottles(she was 2 weeks old then, born in Ensenada) and cooking.We would pretty much lived on the beach back then, coming up the cliff when it got dark.K55 was a fun, long wave too but never camped there.I surfed the left at 38(goofy), loved it! Them were the days!!:bounce:

Baja12valve - 1-28-2009 at 06:57 PM

Well, I guess that since there are a few fireworks stories from the K 38-55 days, I can add to that part.
We used to have good 'ol M80 fights with other camps. We would stick them in oranges and launch them to our victims, only to get a similar barrage in return. We all got quite sticky.
I had the bright idea of launching rockets out my window early one morning as my buddies were sleeping outside. They couldn't figure where they were coming from, getting all riled up, looking for the perpetrator. Well, I lit one, tossed it and hit the inside of my jeep, bouncing back inside. It did few laps in the back, I hit the deck, and it went off. My ears rang for a week and I picked up shreds of paper for days. My friends laughed so hard they got cramps.

elgatoloco - 1-28-2009 at 08:06 PM

Three or four succesives storms during the great El Niño of 1983 washed all the sand from the beach at K-55 while it was offshore. It all ended up down at La Mision. Some of the homes on the cliff slid into the ocean that winter too.

Every year as the currents and swell would change in the fall to come from the north the sand on the beach at K-55 would get pulled off and expose the rocks and settle in the surfline. When spring would arrive and the south swells would return the sand would be pushed back onto the beach covering the rocks and making for a wide flat sandy beach perfect for skimboarding and grunion hunting and lowtide touch football and frisbee and softball and if the planets aligned just right midnight full moon naked volleyball and some other similar worldy pursuits.

It took 20+ years but there can again be found a wide beautiful sandy beach. Anyone got a pump? My volleyball is flat. Oh, no more camping on the bluff.

Viva Campo Lopez!

boe4fun - 2-1-2009 at 10:25 AM

Quote:
We delivered a Jazzy electric wheelchair along with a manual chair to Coco last October. Both are in good working order and should last him quite a while. We hope to see him (he's now back at his "Corner") on our way down to La Paz at the end of Feb. and take the molds for his prostheses, make the legs while we're down in La Paz, and deliver them to him when we return. This, of course, depends on if he is completely healed and has been wearing the "stump shrinkers" I gave to him last trip. I emailed Alfonsinas some time ago to see if they could somehow get a message to him, but they have never responded. Any suggestions? Bien Salud, Paul Boe




Seriously (as an aside)....thanks for all you are doing for Coco.... the funds my pal (Dochstader) organized came to about $5-6000 U$...Kiki (San Felipe motel/camping owner - offroader) forwarded it to Coco in cash rather than the original wheelchair idea...as other wheelchairs were provided and Coco needed the cash after his surgery.

Keep up the good work...