Surf Trip

As one of my high school teachers used to say, "Better never than late".

Been lurking around here for a while and this site helped get me back to Baja. I haven't been to Mexico for about 17 years and I missed it. Living in San Diego in the late 90's and early 2000s made it easy to run down the coast for surfing, fishing, and camping.

This trip is from July 2019. My son and I packed up the truck for a 10ish day trip with the plan of hitting a bunch of Pacific surf spots.

Took off from Central California and made Carlsbad by night, up early to check the surf, then on to my old stomping grounds Ocean Beach San Diego for a lunchtime paddle out. South swell just starting to fill in.

Cross at San Ysidro about 2 pm which still gave us plenty of time to get to our first spot. Maybe. Pull into the INM office to pick up an FMM and get our first taste of Mexico weirdness. We are in line with a single agent slowly processing a group of college kids going into TJ for the night. I am starting to get worried about my boards on top of the truck, but telling myself all is ok. After about 20 minutes, another agent comes up and starts asking people in line where they are going, when he gets to use, I tell him we are going to a spot about 4 hours south maybe 8 or 9 days or 10, maybe we will head further south, not sure. He says, "you don't need an FMM, get going." I'm surprised, though I need one. He says "no, your good, next!" Ok, off we go, while in the back of my head the entire trip I am thinking, we should have got one. I will definitely get one next time.


Good old K38

An easy drive down Hwy 1, at the time all the toll booths had been taken over by protesters, no problems. Hoping for a quick trip through Ensenada and we run into all kinds of traffic. Once we clear Ensenada, it was smooth sailing.


Santo Tomas


Never follow Google Maps, we got a bit lost going to a place that I knew would be good for a night or two as long as there were waves. Pulled in just at sundown.


And we wake up to waves!


After the 3rd surf of the day, I asked the kid how he was feeling.

Hard to leave a spot when there is surf, but after a couple of days we started to get the itch to explore. We met up with a couple from Santa Cruz, a guy from the Riverside area, and a guy from England that had driven down from Canada. All good people, they were heading to a spot further south so agreed to caravan. Stop at Moma Espinosas for lunch and gas then south we all go. I tend to drive like a grandpa in Baja to try and avoid La Mordida so I lost all our new friends, we would meet up later in the trip.


Middle of nowhere


On the road

Stop in GN for the night, stayed at the Terrasal. Nice place, it was quiet and relatively cheap, had A/C and it was good to get a shower. Don't really recommend their restaurant though, not horrible but not great either. I hear there is a really good fish taco truck in GN but by the time we got into town, they must have closed up for the night, bummed we missed them.

Search for surf continues the next day, after looking at point that we heard might have surf, but didn't, we kept driving. We came upon this cool beach, blinding white with all the shells that made up the beach.


Good place for a beer, but I can say that about most places.


Wasn't really worth paddling out, very small.


Fishing boat

Still looking for surf, I see a point up in the distance and as we get closer I swear I see waves break. My son thinks I am crazy, he doesn't see any waves. As we get closer it becomes clear there are no waves here but it is low tide with tidepools and we need to stretch our legs. So we jump out of the truck to poke around in the tidepools.


Locals


Hard to post to Instagram when you are in the middle of the desert

I think at this point, we are many miles away from everything and everyone. We haven't seen any towns or vehicles or people in quite a while, we just checking out the tidepools. After about twenty minutes of looking at crabs and the kid collecting empty abalone shells, I happen to look back towards my truck and I am a little startled to see a young guy standing outside of his pickup truck that is parked right next to my truck. He is staring at us and doesn't seem too happy. I tell the kid that we might need to get going and we slowly walk back toward our truck. In my limited Spanish, I say good afternoon and I just get a nod back. I say that we are heading to another fishing town and ask him if we are on the right track. He looks us up and down and then points south and just says "Si". With that, he gets in his truck and drives off. I just look at the kid and say something about how that was a bit weird. Not sure where the guy came from, did he just happen across us? Did he know we were there? Coming from California, I know that sometimes hiking up in the Sierra's you can stumble across someone's farm plot and they tend to be upset. Was this one of those type circumstances, I wondered.

Later, we were camping at a spot with a really good wave. We met a guy named Mike and his girlfriend Heidi from Los Angeles. Really good people. They invited us over for a bonfire one night and we told them the story. Mike said that the guy was most likely with the local fishing collective and that he was just making sure we were not poaching Abalone on the low tide. This made sense. He also talked about how the collective watches over the fishing grounds at night to make sure no one is out poaching lobsters. Very cool.

To be continued in part 2

We found a pretty consistent wave with only a couple of people around. We set up camp for 4 or 5 days.


Baja, land of the rights.


The kid locked in on a fun one. He tried my longboard out a couple of times but kept going back to the sponge. Always had a smile on his face.

Days started to blend together: wake up, coffee and a bite to eat. Surf. Rest up for a while. Surf again. Have a beer. Maybe paddle out again. Watch the sunset. Bonfire. Beer. Maybe a taste of tequila. The good life.


Baja sunset

After a few days, we got the itch to go exploring. Drove into a fishing village and found, what the kid described as, the 2nd best fish tacos in Baja. So far.


Ice cold Negra Modelo and great food.


Osprey and lobster traps


Fishing

I tried to talk the kid into staying another week but he had the Wharf to Wharf race to get back to in Santa Cruz. So we packed up, thanked Mike and Heidi for all of their hospitality and headed home. Everyone told us to take the 5 instead the 1 all the back to California so we took the 5. This was before much of the repairs to the road had been completed to it was slow going at times with some bumps that bounced us out of our seats. Overall we were glad we took the 5.

Quick pit stop




Clouds

We had planned to stay overnight in San Felipe but arrived by 2 in the afternoon. The plan changed to lunch and then crossing over the border at Mexicali before dark. The Moon Baja Guide listed Taqueria y Mariscos Adriana in the Malecon as a place not to be missed and we were very glad we stopped here. A tiny place next that seemed out of place compared to all the large restaurant/night clubs that were blaring music. The kid rated these fish tacos as the best we had in Baja. I agreed. When I was ordering from the woman the was cooking the tacos, I asked if I could buy a beer. She said she didn't have any beer but there was a market just down the road where I could buy one. A couple of locals that were eating overheard me asking her, and they offered up a beer from a 6 pack they had brought with them. I continue to be amazed by the hospitality and friendless of most everyone we came across on our trip.

Being my first time crossing the border at Mexicali, I had Google Maps on trying to guide me in. Maybe a poor connection or maybe don't trust Google Maps but we kept getting rerouted and turned around in downtown Mexicali. We finally turned down a street to see the concrete barriers, success! Except I mistakenly got in the Sentri lane, without a Sentri card. I have never seen so many Border patrol agents just slowly shake their heads while giving me the WTF look. Apparently doing this means an automatic vehicle search. We were lucky to get off with a warning but the agent that did the search informed me that if I did it again I would be fined or have my truck impounded. No thanks, I'll be more careful next time.

Overall, a super fun trip.

Counting the days until we can make another surf trip, hoping to experience San Juanico later this summer and maybe another point that is rumored to have a left to surf, us goofy footers don't mind going backside but sometimes it nice to go the other way too.

Cheers



[Edited on 4-24-2020 by jamiec]

In Guerrero Negro...

Quote: Originally posted by honda tom

The fish and shrimp taco truck in GN is really good! It is like a lunchtime thing though. super clean truck.... like a battleship gray color... highly recommended.

Curt LeDuc made a big deal that everyone on the TV show crew would find this the best fish taco truck in Baja... last May (2019):

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Curt LeDuc made a big deal that everyone on the TV show crew would find this the best fish taco truck in Baja... last May (2019)

Quote: Originally posted by David K

It's a last name... Don't be such a bigot.

One of the really fine posts/ and then in creeps the keyboard cowboy

Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666

Quote: Originally posted by David K   It's a last name... Don't be such a bigot. bigoted? I find the name amusing, in french it means "the duke" The LeDuc spelling with large "D" is especially amusing. I think it is sort a cool at same time amusing. so wonder who is this guy, you seem to know who he is and found it worth posting his food recommendations (so maybe he is a food critic?), so who is he? Is he a duke? [Edited on 4-24-2020 by mtgoat666]

Great write-up

Quote: Originally posted by StuckSucks

Loved the report, thanks. Is your truck 4x4? If so, I own the *other* 4x4 access cab.

Yes, tell us more about the Toyota you used, jamiec...