You meet the most interesting people... at surfspots in southern Baja.

This is Hank a.k.a Enrique... I've seen him down south for many years but never took a close look at what he was riding- turns out he get's his boards from the same guy I do. How's that painting? Hank told me his wife did that one for him- I love it... the Rooster Rider. On this particular day, the point was going off about 6' Hank and his buddy were killing it, surfing super fast and flowing on that Stamps quad fish. Made me want to go grab mine. 

This is Sage. Sage was stranded on the beach at the surf spot with his dog Dutch and his killer little trailer. He'd driven in the hard way, taking a dirt road all along the coast for a couple of hundred miles... and blowing the tranny in his old-school Land Rover out in the process. I asked him if he needed any water or groceries but he said he was stocked up. It's kind of tough to see but inside that trailer is a cool motorcycle that he built himself. He told me he bought a book on welding, practiced a bit then just went for it. Check out his bike in the next pic.

Here's Sage's bike. He was on his way to Panama or maybe he was even planning on going further south. Either way, I liked his style... solo with his surfboards, motorcycle and his dog. Core.

Anybody know this guy? Believe it or not, he shaped my first custom surfboard back when I was just a youngster. I ran into him fifteen years ago on a mad-dash, midnight run to catch a south swell at Scorpion Bay. This guy pulled into the camp with a diesel F350 piggybacking a giant slide in camper and a fully amped electric guitar. Fortunately, I beat him and all his surf ghetto buddies there by one day and I got to surf third point two feet overhead all by myself. The next morning he came rumbling in like the lead tank in a Panzer division. He didn't even unpack, he just flipped the back door open, sat down in the door way, powered up his guitar and started wailing on it. I found him last year parked at the La Machina on the way to the spot- kicking back in his Astrovan with his dog, drinking beer and listening to tapes of himself playing. I'd drop off a cold beer each morning as I went to surf. It was an homage... he did make my first board after all.

I posted this before- while I was down south. It's worth putting up again though- this is Sage and his dog Dutch... somewhere further south by now.