Coastin' on South
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/20030415-9999_mz1s15sou...
Intrepid Baja wanderers lookin' for surf in all the remote places
By Terry Rodgers
April 15, 2003
Baja California is to be approached with a modicum of caution and a maximum of wonder.
This 800-mile-long peninsula is a Disneyland for the amateur naturalist, the surfer or the insatiably curious.
I fit into all three categories. That explains why our Baja-bound pickup truck is loaded with surfboards, film and field guides as well as the usual
week's worth of water and provisions.
We risk the narrow, no-shoulder Mexican Highway 1, not because it is easy, but because it is an adventure.
California beaches are world renowned, but it's difficult to find a wilderness surfing experience amid so much civilization, SUVs and well-documented
surfing spots.
I view Baja as the poor man's Hollister Ranch, the renowned Santa Barbara County surfing region where the privileged have foiled attempts to develop
public access. The Ranch includes 8 1/2 miles of pristine coastline under 24-hour guard. It's accessible primarily to those wealthy enough to buy a
share in one of the 133 one-acre and larger parcels, or friends of the elite. Brazen interlopers who don't mind boating in from Gaviota (boats must
stay anchored offshore) face hostile locals backed up by armed security guards.
Baja holds the promise of the uninhabited surf spot and beaches littered with a mosaic of sea shells and bleached whale bones.
Our objective this trip is the Seven Sisters region, a series of remote points between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro.
The points are like lenses that focus swells into perfect-breaking waves.
The secrecy surrounding Baja's dirt-road surfing has largely been offset by information posted on the Web as well as several recently published books
that contain detailed maps.
For us, the only essential publication on our last half-dozen trips south of the border is the Baja Almanac, a book of detailed topographic maps.
Springtime is the most fickle season for surfing in the northern half of Baja because it is a transition period for the West Coast wave-making climate
regime.
Wintertime storms in the Gulf of Alaska, which produce the best swells for Baja's central coast, are beginning to wane. At the same time, storms in
the Southern Hemisphere begin to increase in frequency.
Translation: Surfers north of Punta Eugenia and south of Punta Baja can easily get wave-skunked. And for much of our five-day trip in late March, my
son and I saw the Pacific Ocean about as flat and tame as it ever gets.
On our first day, we drove a bladder-stretching, teeth-jarring 500 miles south of the U.S. border. The drive was made tolerable by the sights of the
desert in full bloom, vast stretches of desert splashed with purple and gold flowers.
The next morning, my son and I paddled out at a well-known point south of Santa Rosalillita and surfed by ourselves for more than two hours. The waves
were glassy, shoulder high and peeling perfectly into a crescent bay. Our rides were so long ? a minute or more ? that we soon became noodle-armed by
the long paddles back to the lineup.
As we sat exhausted and satisfied on shore, a smattering of other late-rising campers paddled out to harvest their share of waves.
With the swell dying, we headed north of Rosalillita to find a camping spot more sheltered from the relentless north wind that is the signature of the
peninsula's Pacific side. We spent the next four days reading, hiking and napping.
Two mornings later my son awoke and saw me gazing wistfully at the horizon. "What's the surf look like?"
My reply: "Lake Michigan."
One personal highlight came the next day during a long, up-and-down hike in the arroyos along the coast. We'd been playing around stacking rocks into
sculpture-like shapes on a rocky coastal promontory. Suddenly, a spout of water shooting high into the air caught my son's eye. It was a pod of
Pacific gray whales heading north to Alaska.
One morning, a gray-bearded rancher and fisherman, Raul Garcia Sanchez of San Jose de Las Palomas, rode up on a rusty one-speed bicycle and chatted
with us.
Raul understood that we were gung-ho surfers stymied by a lull. "The surf will be up again on Friday," he predicted.
We thanked him for his forecast, but there was one problemo. We had to return to the United States on Thursday.
At least we could stop and smell the flowers on the trip home.
At the border, a stern U.S. Customs agent on wartime alert interrogated us.
"What are you bringing back from Mexico?" he asked.
"Sunburn, dirty socks and great memories," I responded.
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