Saturday, October 8, 2011

Sweating it out: Stand Up Paddle Surfing Southern Baja Part I

Had a horrible time trying to get the word out about my latest trip paddle surfing southern Baja- sorry for the delay. Here's the report:

Day 1: Getting ready to cross the border. I love donuts- and luckily I was able to bribe my buddy Pilgy with a couple to drive me to the border so that I could fly out of Tijuana. Sound crazy? It's not- the Mexican airline Volaris has brand new jets, hot attendants and cheap fares. A couple of donuts, a cup of coffee and we were off to the border. 

At the border: Once you walk through the clanker (my name for the turnstyle in the background) you're not coming back easily. 


I was tossing around all kinds of options for getting down south and nabbing some waves off the latest hurricane to spin off down there. Option 1 is to drive down.  Driving gives you lots of flexibility during your trip. For one, you're mobile which is important down there where surf and wind conditions change quickly. Option 2 is the fly-in option. Flying is really nice because it only takes a couple of hours (and a couple of beers) and you're there (driving is a 20 hour expedition). I went for the second choice. There were a couple of reasons for this: 1. My compadre Timoteo down at Palapas Ventana dropped me a note saying he was all set up to pick me up and get me right into some good stuff and 2. The round trip airfare out of TJ was $130 dollars, round trip including tax! Wow- that was a no brainer, gas is at least twice that amount each way- and with my good buddy all dialed in and set to grab me, I was in. 

Now I just had to figure out my border crossing logistics. This is what the gate looks like when you're getting set to walk into Mexico- at the last minute I decided to bring my custom Stamps 6'4- I've got boards (SUP and prone) down there- and had to planned to just use what was there- but in the end, my surfer instincts wouldn't let me leave without bringing along something and so I grabbed my trusty prone board, took a deep breath, braved the clanker and stepped into Mexico. I was in and the adventure was on- nothing to do now but let it happen.

3 comments:

[MB] SUP said...

Need more please,

Anonymous said...

you are a wildman John!

John Ashley said...

Ha! Not too wild... but CRAZY when I need to be!