The surf has been up the past few days. not up as in 12 feet up, but we’ve had a nice little increase in wave height. A tropical depression has been hanging off the end of the bahia de banderas, sending mushy waves our way. I went out to Burros, friday afternoon, and it’s funny, they were the same mushy waves that were hitting the beach in Bucerias, the little one or two footers, except in Punta Burro they were as tall as six feet. I’m never gonna complain about any kind of six foot wave. Definite storm surge. There were a few people out when I first got there, and then after about 15 minutes I had it all to myself. The waves were hard to read, breaking everywhere and nowhere. i’d see one coming in, and gauge where it was going to peak and i’d be totally off. Then one would just stealthily crawl up my back door and break a foot to my left and i wouldn’t even need to paddle in to it. Once I caught a wave, there would be at least five drop in sections, where the wave was changing. not the best day out, but definitely a learning experience. After about an hour, the waves turned off, unexplainably. and without realizing it I drifted pretty far out into the bay, from the break zone, I guess the currents were stronger then I realized. After about a half hour I paddled back in, and the waves started again. It turns out I was way out past all the action. I grabbed another six footer and rode it about half way in. I promptly got stuck on the inside, in the mixing bowl of white frothy soup, my arms were so tired I couldn’t get back out, so I paddled a little to the right to avoid the rocks and grabbed a little wave in, on my stomach.
Saturday, Marcia and I headed up to Punta Mita to pay the crew. The house is coming along great. After depositing the cash, we drove over to Anclote to see the waves. it was a nice little break with several rows setting up, but only for longboarders. there just wasn’t enough height. So we came back down to Burros again. This time there were about 10 people in the water and even some of the sayulita crew were there. No worries though, since the water was so choppy and the waves so unpredictable as long as you weren’t too close to anyone you were guaranteed a few good ones. I got mine, for sure. The stand out was a 6+ wave, broke right on my door step and had about nine transitions and as long as I kept cutting and pumping I could make each transition, in these situations the Channel Islands 6′2″ Flyer II comes in so handy. But as the mid-day turned into afternoon the on-shore wind picked up and blew everything out that wasn’t already blown out. I kicked in one last wave, had some nice carves and road it all the way to the beach. Marcia says I’ll be ready to go Pro soon. ha!
Back at the car I ran in to two guys down from the states Nate and John (i think). They were scouting locations and getting the lay of the land probably for a future trip. We talked for a while and I gave them a pretty good summary of the various breaks in the area. The surf spots in the Puerto Vallarta area do not have street signs or “x”s on the map. They have no signage what so ever, are rarely accessible by car and often require a 20 minute hike through the jungle following a completely unmarked path. The only other way is to hire a boat, and that’s just not feasible for us locals, on a day to day basis. My advice to surfers visiting this area is either to latch on to a local for the “adventure” of it all or hire a boat out of Anclote, Punta Mita. The guys seemed like pretty nice fellars, I noticed they both were riding fish boards. Same general outline and style as my fish with a nice paint job and glassy finish, nice looking boards (mine is a matte white powder finish, i just kinda like it that way). These guys were alright. Always good to meet quality visiting surfers. Being so close to the US, we often get “all business” weekend warriors who think they’re out in the line-up at County Line (malibu), us locals are a peaceful people and it’s nice to meet visiting surfers that are on the same wavelength.
and that was my surfing weekend.
