Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Packing it for Mexico: Two boards, one bag, one fee...

It's getting closer! Only a couple more days and I'm out of here- heading south for some mainland juice- yes! I can only dream about how fun it's going to be surfing the spot on my 9'4". Last year, I took my 10' Stamps down there- I was stoked on how well the board worked but we've upgraded and refined since then and I can only dream about how fun it's going to be on the Viking.

Check out how I'm packing my quiver for the trip, it's pretty cool:



Here's the FCS stand up travel bag that I wrote about a couple months ago. Alexis hooked me up with this one at the FCS warehouse (the candy shop). This bag was made for a 9'6" so there's a little bit more room in it with my 9'4". Actually, there's room enough for the Vike, my 6'4" fish and two carbon fiber paddles! Check it out- it doesn't even look overstuffed. The boards are so light that it's not even too heavy to lug around.



Zipped open and spilling its guts- hopefully an overzealous ticket agent won't require me to do this when I'm at the counter at LAX. Alaska charged us $75 dollars a bag last time. On that trip I only brought my 10'er. My friends, on the other hand, had bags stuffed with multiple boards. Alaska's cool, they not only loaded up my over-the-size-limit stand up board but also only charged us per bag- not per board. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that our luck holds this time too.

Stand up paddle surf lessons in sunny San Diego- get 'em while they're hot! The water's warming up, the surf is rolling in... get yourself on a stand up board now and learn the skills you'll need to be part of the hottest water sport around. Click here for more information. To book a lesson call John at 619.213.6622 or email john@paddlesurf.net

6 comments:

Allan Cheateaux said...

Your dog kills me John...

John Ashley said...

In a good way or a bad way...?

Anonymous said...

Go Johnny! A Mex trip sounds so cool. Do they check inside the bag to see the 2 boards or is there a weight limit? I saw a thing on fuel TV where Benji Weatherly paid an extra 450 bucks because of his board bag! It had like 7 boards in it! Have fun and keep up the rockin website. Solid south in the water for next 4 days.

Cliff Jumper,
aka Sunset Cliff

Junkyard said...

Johnny Boy,
A secret tip for you my friend: most ticket agents don't know the difference between a boogie board and a surfboard, so if you say you have bodyboards in your coffin they'll often charge you FREE.99 (after looking up and confirming that bodyboards are free)! That's right, you can take advantage of the airlines and sometimes get free boards on the flight...it's such a great feeling!

John Ashley said...

Hey Sunset-

Last time the girl just took a look and said, "75 dollars"- no check or weight limit- hoping its the same.

Here's a horror story that happened to my friend when he decided to take his family to Costa Rica on Delta.

Agent looked in his board bags (there were three of them) and started counting up each board- charged them 300 dollars A BOARD one way (Delta and United have the worst fees).

When the agent said he owed them 2k to get the boards there- he went berzerk and started yelling and getting crazy... luckily his wife came up, said, "Honey just take a little walk", pulled out her credit card (she surfs too and is a big time aquarium engineer) and took care of it.

True story, told to me in first person.... gnarly!

Thanks for the well wishes- lots of good content when I get back- or if I can post from down there- you'll see it sooner.

john

John Ashley said...

Junky-

Great to hear from you!

And thanks for the tip- but even I don't have the ballzac to say that I've got a 9'4" boogey board... but I'll remember that next time. Or I just might have my next stand up made out of sponge like a boogey then technically I won't be lying.