The Wookie's Maiden Voyage        (12/22/06 - 1/11/07)

We left San Francisco bright and early, 2pm or so, after the usual round of last minute repairs and errands. Here's the Wookie having things strapped onto every possible place. God bless the ratchet strap!

Eric's truck, which followed the Wook for the first week or so.

The first night we slept at San Onofre, which is just south of Los Angeles, in the dreaded Orange County. If the Gidget movies weren't shot at this beach, they could have been. I was reminded of the Seinfeld joke about beach towns never producing any good comedians because beach life is too relaxed. But I have to say, I love this beach.

And then, at last, Mexico. This is a spot not far over the border but millions of miles away.

Here's a wider view, from some strange steel tower, click it to see it full sized. The bay on the left is decent for beginner surfers, and the one on the right is some serious fun...

 Sam and Flare lounging around, adjusting to the Mexican pace.

Zed periodically dropped by to give us updates on the situation.

This is Zed's new friend Payaso. We don't know if that's his given name, but he looks like such the little clown dog.

Meanwhile, over at the bay to the right of the point, the surf was pumping... For a size reference, those little black dots in front of the wave are surfers.

Sam headed out...

... and got a ride pretty quickly.

The trick with this spot is avoiding washing up on those rocks...

That's actually easier than it might sound. In the below picture you can see the currents pretty well: the waves break in the bay and the water washes out along the rocks, which forms a little river rushing out to sea. The interesting part comes after the current passes that last rock: it pushes you right to where the waves are breaking, which means you're constantly paddling to stay out of the impact zone. Get lazy for even 30 seconds and you're guaranteed to see those little bumps of doom on the horizon, a monster set coming to give you a good smashing. This brings up another interesting note, the brown area in the center of the picture: that's where the waves suck out over the reef... I never made contact with dry reef, but it's clearly a possibility...

Anyway, time it right and it's like a conveyor belt. Ride the current out, catch a mongo wave with a super fast drop, race down the face, kick out in the channel, ride the current back out, repeat. I brought a disposable waterproof camera and pulled it out right after making the drop, was pretty hilarious, must have been going 30 mph skittering over the shallows with the lip of the wave hanging over my head, fumbling with the camera to take a damn picture. I managed to fire one off before getting slammed, should be an interesting shot if it comes out.

Ok, enough surf talk. Interesting little graves dotted the hills.... Surfers who didn't make the drop? Kidding, kidding.

And lots of mussels dotted the rocks at low tide... Flare and I filled up this dairy box with mussels and seaweed salad and called it Mexican sushi.

One of the many creatures clinging to the rocks in the inter-tidal zone. Someday I want to make tidal pool soup, though this guy probably won't be included.

Later we cooked pasta mussolini over the open fire and ate mussles like popcorn. On a previous trip I'd asked a couple of Mexicans how you tell if the mussels are safe to eat. One of them said "if you get sick after eating them, they're not safe". Can't argue with that.

And then some jamming around the campfire. Pass the scotch, and yes I'll have another cervesa.

That's Eric by the way, to the left of the goofy Walgreens water fountain.

Feliz Navidad! On Christmas day we all had presents waiting for us under the Christmas cactus. I made the star at the top from mussels from the previous night's gorging.

I like this picture of Zed, ready for action. The structure in the background has an interesting story behind it: I first came to this spot in 2001 and there was nothing but isolated beach. By 2003 a guy had set up a little shack and was collecting $5 per day per vehicle to camp there. He was, after all, keeping the place clean, and making sure the shitter was still standing. And now it looks like he set up a whopper of a shack. Mind you this is pure homesteading. God I love Mexico.