A few weeks back, I was out scavenging the northern Bahia de Banderas coast for anything that looked like ridable waves. My tour of the local breaks brought me to Punta Mita, where I caught a few good ankle biters and then managed to snap off a few good shots.
As I was shooting the bevy of longboarders from the tip of a breakwater jetty, I caught the attention of a group of visiting “old dude” surfers throwing shakas my way (through my 100-400mm lens) as they were hanging out in the shade, on the beach. As I finished up and made my way over to the group, I was greeted by a guy by the name of Joe Doggett. It turns out Joe and his buddies return year after year, to Punta Mita, the ‘Mexican Malibu’ as he called it. We exchanged local surf break information and traded horror stories of how the area is rapidly changing due to spiralling out-of-control development. Joe mentioned that he had been a writer for the Houston Chronicle.
We eventually came around to the history of surfing in the area and how Punta Mita was discovered. Joe related parts of a September 1965 Surfer Magazine article, written by Bill Cleary, about his feral surf expedition on the hunt for “Mexico’s Malibu” as discovered by a screenwriter named Peter Viertel who found the fabled break while daytripping through the bay’s several breaks while his wife, actress Deborah Kerr, filmed her scenes in Night of the Iguana (the movie that literally put Vallarta on the map).
Joe Doggett’s stories and impressive knowledge of surf history, had me kicking my own teeth in, after I said goodbye to Joe and the crew without asking for his contact info or email address. A few days after I posted the photos from that day, flickr user Rex Enigma commented on Joe’s photo above, asking if it was indeed thee “Joe Doggett” and today Rex hipped me to a recent article in The Houston Chronicle, where Joe goes briefly in to Cleary’s 1965 Surfer Mag article and than continues on with his own long and varied history of visiting Mazatlan and Vallarta in search of surf breaks and the “Mexican Malibu”:
‘Mexican Malibu’ offers surfers a secret paradise - By Joe Doggett for The Houston Chronicle
Other spots were excellent, but the Mexican Malibu was a no-show not enough swell, wrong angle, wrong tide, wrong week, wrong season, on and on over dispirited bottles of Pacifico beer at the cantina overlooking the beach.
Nirvana, at last
Then, as if in a dream, it was there. Last year, we pulled the board-racked vehicle to a stop and watched in disbelief as ruler-edged powder-green walls brushed by straight offshore wind peeled into the cove. We caught the Mexican Malibu for six consecutive days, with the swell peaking at 2 to 3 feet overhead. This spring, our trip was highlighted by three days of Mexican Malibu, with shoulder- to head-high sets each session. This literal groundswell of riches only can support the virtues of patience and confidence.
It’s an amazing story and a great read. I flipped out, as I read it and thought back to my conversation with Joe. Understanding the history behind this place I live in and how it fits in to the larger surf cannon never really even occurred to me, until my talk with Joe and his boys. I’d like to send a big, cosmic, shaka bra thank you, out there to Joe for unfolding a lesson and sparking a light in a new corner of my consciousness. I’m in his debt.
Incidentally, if there are any surf-memorabilia pack rats out there, that might just have the Sept ‘65 Surfer Mag squirreled away somewhere, I’d give my first born for a scanned pdf of the Cleary ‘Mexican Malibu’ article. My first born or some newly minted gold bullion. your choice.
I remember you. I was one of the old geezers on the beach. Part of the California contingent. You took a picture of my Dewey Weber board. You don’t have to struggle to hard to get Cleary’s article. Just contact Doggett. Yoiu can reach him through the Chronicle.
Jeff