Archive for the adventures category
Here, presented to you, the viewer, 40+ photos from last week’s trip to the mexican coastal state of Quintana Roo, nestled on the Caribbean side. Photos taken in Puerto Aventuras, Akumal, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel above and below water.
I got the chance to put the new Canon G9 through it’s paces with the underwater housing. Overall, it’s just really nice to be able to bring a camera into that underwater environment. Getting in to the water at Akumal, for a snorkel, wondering to myself why I had brought the camera and being presently surprised at the site of 10-12 sea turtles, huge schools of fish and 3-4 different kinds of manta rays. In Cozumel, we dove two amazing spots off of chankanab reef in the columbia area. Huge coral formations with spacious swim-throughs and rolling underwater sand dunes.
I have a few ideas floating around my head on the theme of tourists. you can see the beginnings of this project in the photos above. enjoy!
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… But everything in LA ain’t always what it seems.
Well, we rolled in to Lost Angels last night at around 7:dirty. Only one encounter with Joe-Law along the way (in jacked up Riverside country, no less). Seems my registration was in “non-operable” mode. big oops. We spent basically the entire days today, visiting various different branches of the California DMV to get my registration and license in order. A fine, sunny california day wasted on horribly designed interiors of bloated state government agencies.
All was forgotten with the first few slurps of some damn good Pho, from our favorite little vietnamese pho joint on Sunset and Silver Lake Blvd. Pho is perhaps my favorite thing to eat, ever, and today’s soupy, herbie action was the bomb.
Nothing else was really accomplished and I managed to screw up the zip code on two different packages that were to be delivered tomorrow, in time for our flight, tomorrow night at midnight. I suck. I managed to iron things out with UPS, but we’ll see if the packages come in, as the customer support says.
Unrelatedly, my new H2 fins got here and I can hardly control myself. these things weigh mere onces, where my normal fins way pounds. they’re freakin sick and I can’t wait to fuck ‘em up on some hard ass balinese reef. i’m such a kook.
We’re midway through our drive up to Los Angeles, holed up in a killer little hotel called Hotel San Sebastian in Hermosillo (it’s the perfect hotel for a midway point between Vallarta and LA). We took off at 6am and managed to cover half the total driving distance. roughly 13 hours of driving. This, after one crazy-ass night.
Our friends Fer and Yanen got married on the beach in Nuevo Vallarta, last night. While getting ready, I slammed my foot in to the base of our bed and crunched my pinky toe. I screamed my brains out for five minutes, finished getting ready and I hobbled to the car and we were off to the wedding. During the ceremony, I could see the toe turning purple as it blew up and started turning over sideway. After the mass and vows, but before communion (classic catholic beach wedding), Marcia and I “done r.u.n.o.f.t” and went to a private emergency room in nearby Mezcales. One Xray later and the on-duty doctor was saying I had broken my toe and needed a full foot cast. I was less then confident and pissed about the prospect of having to cancel our trip to Bali, on the advice of doctor who has no real experience with foot trauma. We high-tailed it outta there and a few phone calls later, we were off to San Javier, a well regarded private hospital, to meet a trauma and foot specialist recommended by my good homie Pato. Second opinion doc said the toe wasn’t broken and taped it to the next toe and all was well again in the world.
By 9:30pm we were back at the wedding. We grabbed some food, hung with our tribe, gave the groom and bride our best wishes and were back home in bed by 11pm. On the way home, Marcia started to get some kind of allergic reaction, assumably from the pesto she had eaten at the wedding, so we stopped for foot wrappings and anti-allergy med. Mexico is great like that. Nothing like self-diagnosis and being able to buy meds without a prescription.
After two ominous omens, from last night, we got a good early start today and covered a crap-load of miles in good time with little stress. Tomorrow, we’re off at 6am again and we should be in Los Angeles by 8pm.
In late July 2006, I proposed to my then girlfriend of two years, Marcia Yunuen Vara, and thankfully she happily accepted. We had expected to get married in the spring of the following year, but in the fall, as we started the wedding planning process, we quickly realized that late fall / early winter was our best option to have a relatively inexpensive, small wedding (unfortunately, living in a highly desirable ‘destination wedding’ location can have it’s problems). In the middle of October, we picked our wedding date to be December 1st, 2006. 6 weeks away. We were both fine with this date. We knew we wanted to go on an extended traveling honeymoon and we had a few places we knew we wanted to go. Marcia decided to plan the wedding and I set about to plan the honeymoon. While Marcia ran around all day pulling her hair out, looking after the wedding, I stayed up all day and night researching travel guides and websites. I finally settled on Bali, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and India (we didn’t quite make it to Laos). I booked plane tickets for: Vallarta → Los Angeles → Bali → Bangkok → Delhi → Los Angeles → Vallarta. The planning for travel inside the Thailand / Cambodia / Vietnam area and the traveling inside India was left open to allow for spontaneous decision making and so I roughed out itineraries for these parts of the trip to have some idea of how long to spend in each place. I booked hotels for the first night or two in each location and researched places to stay in every possible town or city we would have any chance of visiting. I had Lonely Planets or Rough Guides for each country and by the time we got going, my guides looked like they had been attacked by post-it notes and a yellow highlighter.
The entire trip would be 10 weeks (2 1/2 months).
On December 1st, Marcia and I were married in a small but lovely civil ceremony on the beach in the town we live in, Bucerias, in the state of Nayarit, Mexico. Our close family, local friends and a few of my good friends from Los Angeles were in attendance. Two days later we left for L.A. and 5 days later, we were on our way to Bali.
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Tomorrow we blow this popsicle stand for less hot, less humid and more vertically oriented pastures. We is gwon to New York City. And as is customary, just as I leave town, a nice big swell is on the way. My friends have started asking me, every few weeks, if I plan to go out of town, on account of there being no waves and that they could use a day or two of good surfing.
I’ll probably post daily links as usual and the occasional snippet, I’ve uploaded photos to flickr from the Varanasi, India, part of our honeymoon. I’ve been too stacked to write an entry around it, so I’ll knock that out in the next few days, but in the meantime, you can check the pics here.
city. subways. museums. indie movies. concerts. culture. shopping. bread and cheese. food. more food. shopping. yay.
This past weekend, Marcia and I had some family business to attend to in Leon, in the state of Guanajuato, about two hours east of Guadalajara. Leon is kinda like Tucson’s mexican cousin. It’s not very pretty, but it’s got a lot of heart. Sunday we ventured over to Guanjuato, the capitol of the state.
Guanajuato is spanish-colonial era city built on top of large tunnels that once held run-off waters, but are now used for traffic. Allowing large parts of the downtown area to be pedestrian-only. This makes it thoroughly confusing as you enter the city by car, as you literally have no idea where you’re going, cuz, well, in your in a series of maze-like tunnels, you find a parking spot and a stairway up to street level, orient yourself and hope you’re not too far from where it is you’re going.
The city is a Unesco world heritage site and it shows. Guanajuato is one of the cleanest and most beautiful places I’ve been in Mexico. Small narrow streets and narrow angles lead to plazas in every direction. Expertly trimmed trees and park benches in everywhere, it reminded me of Florence or Venice. There is a strong artist vibe, we encountered painters, photography, breakdancers, musicians and the most bitter/sweet mime I have ever seen.
We packed as much as we possibly could into the 24 hours we spent in this amazing city. I can’t wait to go back…
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At this point in our trip, we had been traveling for a month and a half. We both had some serious homesickness. There were a few times that we actually considered cutting the trip short and returning home after Vietnam. We felt run down and in serious need of re-energization. In addition to the travel fatigue, I was taking a cheap anti-biotic we picked up in Hué for some stomach bug I had. It was making my face feel like a shriveled up prune. I stopped taking it, the second to last day in Saigon and immediately things started to improve. It was also at this point in the trip that I started to have real problems with the malarial medication we were taking. I was having regular violent dreams, depression and I assume the tiredness was partly from the meds as well. It started in Cambodia and intensified throughout Vietnam. We took Larium. My advice is to stay away from it, it’s the nastyness. There’s a new anti-malarial med out on the market (with few side-effects), but we balked at the $1000 price tag (for two people for 2 1/2 months), so we went with the cheap shizz and in Vietnam it really started to catch up with me. We spent the last three days in Saigon, taking it easy, eating lots of Pho and watching the Australian Open Tennis Championships on the tube at our guesthouse. We didn’t see nearly as much of Saigon as we wished, but it was a good thing, by the last day in Vietnam we were both feeling a million times better. The downtime really helped get my head straight as we headed to India…
or Ho Chi Minh City, depending on who you ask.
This is Saigon. Hanoi’s free market southern sibling, as gigantic, hectic and bustling but for some odd reason, slightly less overwhelming. It was here in Saigon that we mastered crossing the street in an oncoming wave of thousands of motor scooters. We discovered the secret one day while standing on the sidewalk waiting for a lull in the traffic. A nearly blind, little old lady brushed past me and (without hesitation) stepped into the street and at a steady pace walked across the busy boulevard as thousands of motorscooters whizzed around her, gently parting and returning to formation on the other side. A giant liquid sea of metal fish. The old lady calmly and methodically walked in a straight line at a regular pace and made it to the other side, without a scratch.
Marcia and I both took deep breathes, grabbed for each others’ hand and stepped off the sidewalk…
Found in a bar, in Hoi An, Vietnam:
The artist’s name is Tran Trung Linh (take a sec to read his ’statement’, it’s a trip). He’s a graduate of Saigon’s HCM Fine Arts University. He creates wicked pop culture infused mashups like this one. I saw another in a shop he sells from, in Hoi An, that had a Mona Lisa exquisitely rendered, on a flat apple green background, listening to an ipod with the same style of superimposed white type, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it said. Through the generosity of the lady who sells his work, I was invited to go to his studio to talk with him. We spent about 20 minutes talking about the SuperBono painting, his other work and his inspiration. It was an honor to meet him and a totally unexpected pleasure to encounter his work in this tiny little town. This guy is gonna be famous one day, for sure. I tried to buy the Superbono painting from the bar owner, but he had already sold it twice before and was beyond reluctant to part with it for a third time. Some guy in Germany and another in Australia got there before me.
Update: Tran Trung Linh (or someone posing as him), just posted his website in the comments, so I thought I’d add it to this post. Linh has a website! although since it’s flash and there are no meta keywords or description in the html header it’s virtually impossible to find in a search. Check it out: PsychoLinh.com. great stuff, but none of the stuff I really liked is on there. There must be a whole section of pop-icons missing.
A few hours south of Hué, by bus, is the old port town of Hoi An. Our next stop. Along the way we passed De Nang and Sunset Beach.
Hoi An is a gorgeous picturesque trading town that is now mostly known for it’s high quality tailors and cloth shops. It’s also known for it’s regional dishes, local art and gorgeous 100-200 year old architecture. Hoi An has a wonderful vibe to it, it’s more of what my preconceptions of Vietnam were. A picturesque bustling little town surrounded by large rice paddies in every direction.
We had read about Hoi An from the Rough Guide and had come for the scenery, but Hoi An is really a huge tourist trap and you’d be lucky to escape without putting down at least 100 bucks for tailor-made clothing. The tailors really are amazing and tailor and cloth shops line every street in the downtown area. You can survive for a day or two, without stepping foot in one, but once you do, game over. While we were there, Marcia and I each got two jackets made, a pair of pants, I had two long sleeve shirts made and we both got custom-designed sneakers made from chinese silk. It was mad. All for like 150 to 200 bones. We saw dirty, crusty flashpackers (like ourselves) getting fitted for imitation Brioni suits, like they were ordering pizzas. By the end of our stay in Hoi An, Marcia was walking me around the town with horse blinders on. It’s a trap I tell ya. But in the end, I don’t think either of us will wear the jackets we made. The sneakers either, but I gotta admit, I’ve been wearing the pants like crazy, nothing like tailored clothing, beats the hell out of store bought, any day.
Hoi An is also where we learned about touts. We had encountered them in Bali, Thailand, Cambodia and other parts of Vietnam, but here in Hoi An, they were especially virulent. Some girl would walk up to me, started talking in english and next thing I know we’d have walked 4 blocks to her “uncle’s” cloth shop. Touts here were really only a warm up for the ones we would encounter in India, but they were 10x more harangueish then we had previously experienced.
By the way, if you’re going to Hoi An and you’d like to have clothing tailored, don’t mess around, go straight to “Impressions Boutique”, they have 5 locations in Hoi An and the owner is a whip smart chick who speaks english like a 1920’s Chicago newspaper reporter.
A few pictures from The ‘07 Vallarta Kiteboarding Torneo this past weekend, in Bucerias, Nayarit, Mexico.
The correct title of this post is: Lost at Sea or How I got to hang out with Kings Of Convenience, Feist and Broken Social Scene at Roots in Bucerias.
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This post is rediculously too long. there are two parts to it: Part 1 (the surfing/Lost at Sea part) and Part 2 (the getting to hang out with two of your most favorite musicians part). Somehow, they both tie into each other in a nice little way, but reading long pieces of text on the internet sucks, so you can use the following links to jump to whatever part is more your flavor: Part 1 & Part 2
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My good buddy Michael was down visiting us from Laguna Beach, last weekend. We spent a few days surfing. On Saturday, we went up to Punta Mita to grab a boat and get dropped off at the Cove (La Bahia). The Cove is a great surf break, just around the bend from Anclote in Punta Mita and just outside the large Bay of Banderas, in open sea. Normally I go with Action Sports when I show up with Pato, they charge us 150 pesos each (about 15 bucks). On this day, since we were two gringos, they wanted 250 pesos each (better known as “highway robbery”). I told dude that’s the gringo rate, that I live in Bucerias and I’d be willing to pay 300 pesos total. Dude said no way. A few minutes minutes later dude came back with 400. I didn’t budge and dude wouldn’t either, so we went down the road to some guy named Oscar, another one of the boat operators. Oscar tried to give me the gringo rate as well and we settled on 350 pesos. Still too much, but better than nothing. Oscar’s boat driver dropped us off at the Cove and I asked him to pick us up in two hours.
The Cove was empty, we had the break to ourselves. Solid three and four footers with a high tide, but as the tide lowered, the waves lowered as well. By an hour and a half or so they were tiny. We were ready to go home. Michael is an avid surfer, a close family friend and works in the surfing/clothing industry so we just chatted non-stop about life, work, surfing etc… while waiting to be picked up by our boat. Two hours passed, three hours passed. At about the 3 1/2 hour mark, we both started to get a little suspicious. Michael was smart and wore a hat, I was dumb and did not. By this time, my face was fried and my body was cold from the water. We tried to keep it positive, every time a boat would come out of the bay, we’d assume that it was our guy and each time, we’d be wrong. At the 4 hour mark, we decided that the boat driver had forgotten us and we decided to do something about it. We had three choices:
- Swim to shore and walk along the rocks, back to Anclote, barefoot (dangerous)
- Swim to shore and try to get picked up by one of the Four Seasons security guards (trespassing)
- Swim 2 kilometers out to sea and flag down an incoming boat (boats entering the bay follow a few channels) and hope there are no strong currents that suck us out to sea
We choose swimming to shore. As we got closer to shoreline, we could see the sharp, barnacle-encrusted rocks rising above the water line, the sea urchins below the water and 50 feet of 6 inch water to walk through to make it to the rocky shore. Small waves were threatening to wash us into the rocks. We conferred and chose the 3rd option: paddling out to the channel. It took us about 30 minutes or so to get out towards the channel, missing two boats and finally flagging down the 3rd. A guy from Guadalajara and his two fishing guides, they laughed and handed us cold Pacificos after hearing our story and then radioed in to the port control to let them know what had happened.
After we got back to Anclote and profusely thanked the guys for picking us up, I walked by Oscar, the guy who owned the boat that forgot about us. He immediately launched into some bullshit story about how they had been out to pick us up twice and that we weren’t there. I felt like throttling the jerk-off in the mouth. This is Mexico though and people here have cousins, so my cooler instincts prevailed and so I told him he was full of shit and struck off to file an official complaint with the port captain. My efforts were futile though, as I couldn’t find the captain and I wasn’t about to ask around. As I was walking back to the car, Oscar said that he felt worse about it then I did and I figured that was about as close to an apology as I would get. Oscar is very glad that he didn’t ask me for half the money and I’m glad I didn’t pay up front.
As Michael and I discussed the day’s events, it became clear that we were about as lucky as could be. If we had gone into shore and stepped on an urchin, walking back would have been impossible. If we had swam out to open ocean and the currents had taken us out to sea, we’d be in big trouble. Besides the hour of insecurity of being left out there, the only real damage was a nasty case of sunburn. My face was fried, my nose was literally purple. Jessica hooked me with some aloe and now my face is more tan then red. I can’t complain.
What’s the best way to slough off a potentially bad situation? How bout an impromptu acoustic concert from two of your favorite musicians? Andrew called us at about 8:30pm to tell us that Feist, Kings of Convenience and Broken Social Scene were all down at Roots, eating and that Erlend Oye had brought his guitar and would play if we came down. Andrew was calling everyone he knows to come down and represent our small little “pueblito tipico”. It turns out that they were on a ten day vacation staying in Punta Burros.
Most of the crew conversed amongst themselves, as Erlend grabbed his acoustic guitar and joined our band of onlookers. We ended up being treated to several hushed acoustic songs. The night culminated when I asked Erlend to play “The Build Up” or “know How”, full-well knowing that both are duets with Leslie Feist (who is Marcia’s favorite musician of all time). Erlend started The Build Up and when it came time for Leslie’s verse, we could hear her sweet muffled voice carrying over from the table behind us. Most of the band joined in and we were treated to impromptu versions of several Kings and Feist songs, culminating in a round-the-table over-the-top rendition of “I’d Rather Dance with You” with Leslie Feist on the spoons and glasses. I got most of it down with a little audio grabber thing I have and I’ve been trying to get the tracks off of it for days now (love them Sony products). When I finally figure it out, I’ll post em (I hope they don’t mind). Everyone was taking pictures with their little point-n-shoots and of course I brought along my camera. I did manage to grab a few shots, but honestly I felt really awful sticking this huge camera in their faces when all they were trying to do was grab a bite to eat, so I sat in the background. I get a little weird around people who I perceive to be even slightly celebratory. Must be my time spent in Los Angeles, where going to breakfast involves seeing various levels of celebrity types at any given joint.
It was a great night, the perfect end to a terrible day and even though there wasn’t that much interaction between us, it was great, being in the presence of all these really talented musicians. Especially Kings of Convenience and Feist who are literally the most listened to artists in my iTunes library and have been for years.
We just got back in to town from another weekend in Guadalajara. that city is becoming a second home, hmmmm…
Salim and Paulina had their big church wedding on Saturday, in Lake Chapala, and Raul and Sylvia got married as well, just down the road in Ajijic. So we had our hands full, shuffling from wedding to wedding. I got some great pics though and once I get out from under the work I have at the moment, I’ll take some time to edit/process and upload them.
I’m currently spec’ing out the finishings for the house we’re about to start building just south of Sayulita. It’s been a gnarly few months dealing with permits, engineers, contractors etc…
One of these days I’ll upload the architectural plans. It’s gonna be beautiful if we can ever get the thing started.
I took some photos of locals fishing on the river and against my better judgement, I braved the river with the camera, large lens and tripod, held over my head, to the other side to take photos of Adan Hernandex, Kalle Caranza and the sayulita crew, tearing up the river mouth section. Nothing too spectacular, but some good solid shots. Some aussie guy with a Transworld Surf photog shirt on asked me how I got the equipment over the river, and I related my river crossing. He said I was brave and I said I wasn’t sure if it was bravery or just solid stupidity, I’d have to cross back over the river before I’d be able to make that call.
As I was shooting on the opposite side I thought to myself, that I’d really have regretted it, if I had come to Ticla and not gotten some really good surf shots, all because of a little river.
Once I maxed out my flash card, I packed the gear up and trudge back across the river, almost losing it twice (Marcia is glad she wasn’t there to see that one). Enjoy the photos.
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So I’ve finally gotten around to posting the photos from our trip to Puerto Aventuras in the mexican state of Quintana Roo. photos taken in Playa Del Carmen, Puerto Morelos, Puerto Aventuras, Tulum, Tulum Beach and snorkeling in a cenote among other various things. Even though it was only a few weeks ago, it seems like so long ago that we were there, scuba diving with the fishes and eating Marcia’s mom’s wonderful cooking. The blue/green water and the fine-white crystalline powder sand. amazing.
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Perhaps I was a bit too overly zealous in my reporting of said rainy season being over. Saturday afternoon, a rain storm moved into town and dropped a good amount of rain on our heads, continuously, all the way through to this morning with a follow up shower in the early afternoon. As I lay in bed last night I could hear the sound of waves hitting the beach, something I haven’t heard in at least a full month or so, yet it seems like years.
I woke at around 8:30, this morning, got my dose of morning espresso courtesy of Miss Marcia, the best little espresso queen, you ever seen. and headed up to the breaks. From the lookout point at Destiladeras, just as I suspected, Veneros had around 10 to 15 gueys in the water and as I sat and watched the spot for 15 minutes or so, I saw one solitary 3 to 4 foot wave (binoculars come in handy). I could see Burros in the distance, didn’t look like much was going on, but I was hell-bent on getting in the water. As I pulled up to the condo gates and walked out, on to the beach at Punta Burros, I could see no waves at all, just a small raft of surge hitting the beach. not a soul in the water and all at the zenith of the hight-tide. dejected, rejected and smemeckted, I headed home with the thought that It’d be low tide, later on in the day and something would have to give.
Pato and I exchanged text messages and we hooked up around 2:00pm, and headed north to San Pancho. I’ve seen San Pancho but for one reason or another I’ve never surfed the hard and fast lefty beach break there. As legend has it, in October after the rains create a large lagoon, the beach opens up and deposited sand sets up a gnarly river mouth break. and the river, literally, opened yesterday. As we crossed the mountains and past Sayulita, we hit a rain storm and by the time we hit San Pancho the rain and wind were blowing out anything that might have been surfable 20 minutes prior.
Pato got in the water Immediately and tried to make due with the 2 to 3 foot, wind-blown storm surge and I sat at the waters edge contemplating whether I wanted to brave the surge or keep myself out of the water, considering it was slushy brown with the phosphorescent smell of laundry detergent run-off coming from the open flowing river mouth, 50 meters down the beach. Pato tried his best, for 10 or 15 minutes and then made his way back to the beach. The man was determined to at least get in the water. I was a bit more hesitant.
We sacked up and headed back down to Sayulita to see if the odd north-facing angle of the bay there, would eliminate some of the storm surge mentality. As we got to the beach, no luck. A few brave souls on the right break, with not much luck and not a single wave even grazing the left break. We stood on the tip of Sayulita beach, getting pounded by the cold rain. Shrugged our heads for a few minutes, hopped back into Pato’s truck and headed the back way to Punta Mita and then down to our last hope. Albercas.
Albercas had a nice, fast, arcing, 3 foot wave, but for the fact that it was pounding on to rows of boulders poking 2 to 3 feet out of the water. Burros, to the north, again not a soul in the water and Veneros, off in the distance. Sure, maybe a wave or two, with a boat load of gueys, all of whom had heard the same waves I had heard the night before. Pato and I surveyed the Alberca topography and preyed that a little storm currently coming north, might bring some nice heavy swell our way in the next day or two. And all the sea urchins smiled at us from their secure little nooks in the rocks below the swirling dervishes of water that ebbed and flowed between each wave.
Today was not our day.
It’s out last night here in Puerto Aventuras, what “they” like to call the ‘Riviera Maya’. and it’s way too soon to go home. I’ve got a ton of good pics to show though and i’ve even been editing on-the-go for slightly more real-timey posting. I’ll document all adventures with pictures in the coming days but just wanted to touch on a few highlights:
Puerto Aventura has about 12 or so different dive spots and one in particular has become my new favorite. It’s called ‘Paradise’ (fitting name) and each time we’ve gone there i’ve seen some interesting fish and sea life: a turtle, lobsters, squid, trunk fish, trumpet fish, queen and grey angel fish, tarpon fish, barracuda, green and spotted moray, spotted-eagle ray, squirrel fish, parrotfish and a ton of others. Overall, you just get a vibe from some dive sites. This one gives me that vibe. I was home.
On Saturday we did a two tank dive in a group of three connected cenotes. It took me most of the first dive to get used to the confined space, cold water and sometime blurred vision from the mixing of salt and fresh waters. It was kinda like floating through space inside of a giant asteroid. But incredibly beautiful when the sun hits the cave entrance and floods the pool with light.
we visited the ruins at Tulum and headed to Tulum beach for lunch and a swim at an eco hotel called Mezzanine. Tulum beach is kinda like the Sayulita of the Cancun / Riviera Maya area and definitely worth a trip if you’re in the area. Mezzanine has a thai restaurant that had the best thai food i’ve tasted outside Los Angeles (and that’s saying a lot). The beach is killer too.
I’m fascinated with street imagery. hand-painted signs, taco stands, no parking signs etc… and Playa del Carmen is filled with these kinds of things. For every one picture I shot, there were a hundred that got away.
Tomorrow we’re back to Guadalajara and then on to Vallarta on Friday or Saturday. see y’all on the other side.
We spent two days in Guadalajara taking in the finer things like food, some more food and well, more food after that. We took some time to check out equipal furniture and I took a bunch of interesting detail street photos and i’ve been formulating some kind of gallery show in my mind after having plowed through Beautiful Losers in two days.
Marcia’s mom recently moved to Puerto Aventura, a small little development town on the east coast of the Yucatan, between Cancun and Akumal. And since flights are much cheaper from the GDL then they are from Vallarta we decided to take a week off and visit her. The diving is ridiculous here and we’re scheduled for our first dive in an hour or so.
My parents took us diving in Akumal, almost 20 years ago, yeah i’ve been diving since I was 11. I had a coming-to-god experience with the ocean in Akumal and with a school of Jew fish in particular, giant Groupers - slow swimmers, docile and as big as vw bugs. Since then, i’ve always wanted to return.
I can’t wait to get back in the water and to enjoy a nice little vacation. when we get back, it’s straight to work, the soils test is back and our architectural plans have been digitized and are ready to go to structural engineering, on the sayulita project. This means I have to get down and dirty and do all the interior design work.
meanwhile, back in Vallarta another storm is passing through and the boys say there’s some great swell. oh well.
After Friday’s paddle-a-thon, I was sure Lane was gonna be a wash out. heavy, choppy seas and wind blown storm surge. Saturday morning, Pato and I headed back up to Punta Mita for a repeat of the weekend before. We stopped off at Albercas to see what the action was.
La Alberca (or “Pools”) is a small bay with a right point break that takes off just a few meters from a rocky point, breaking in a bowl shape. It’s one of the lesser known spots in the area. The wave tends to stand up much taller then the other breaks in the area, breaking directly on to a rocky bed with a stunning megalopolis of sea urchins. At low tide it’s a suicide mission and at high tide, only slightly less so. La Alberca is, I’d say, the most advanced break in the area and only the most ballsy surfers go there. This spot is kinda like my wonder spot: when I go sit on the sideline and see someone (way more advanced then me) drop-in on an overhead wave and bob and weave maybe 15 feet from the swirling suction pools caused by the rocks just underneath the surface. La Alberca is a triple black diamond, not for the heaviness of the wave, but for the conditions on which it breaks. As the wave gets bigger, the farther outside of the bay it breaks and the better and safer the spot is. Those who brave the conditions are rewarded with one of the sweetest waves in the area. Not for the faint of heart.
This particular day, the tides were higher then I have ever seen them. literally. Waves were coming in glassy, at overhead and sometimes even double-overhead with two sections. The first breaking much farther out then usual, a steep drop with the occasional small tube, nice big faces, perfect for carving and a nice shelf for lip maneuvers. The second section was about 5 feet, tall, steep and fast. This is the more dangerous of the two, as you’re basically landing in a minefield of urchins and rocks and the odds are 50/50 you’re gonna get a urchin needle tuxedo. At least ten surfers in the water. We watched for a few minutes, turned to each other and said screw it, now’s the time to sack up and get in the water.
You enter Alberca from the mid point in the shallows of the bay, no sand, just large and small rocks covered with barnacles for at least 50 meters as you walk out to water deep enough to get on your board. I cut my feet twice and Pato managed to step on an urchin, receiving eight nice, big, long spines to the heal and mid-sole of his foot. good way to start out the session. Once in the water I sat on the shoulder for maybe an hour or so, trying to calm my fear. It truly was a big wave, but nothing I hadn’t handled before, it’s the rocks that were freaking me out. As I gathered my big ball of nerves and took a few waves, the rides were amazing. Fast and strong but not heavy, as long as I didn’t drop in too late and kept in front of the wave, I was in no danger of eating rock. I went for the second section, pumped into it and carved up and down the bowl-shaped wave. As I ducked out the back and the water level slowly dropped, I found myself resting chest-down on a giant rock. No impact, just a gentle big-rock hug. whoa.
After a few waves I got my confidence back and charged the spot. As I waited for the incoming sets it occurred to me that every surfer in the water was more advanced than I am. It felt good to surf with people better then me. Watching, studying their wave selection, take-off point and maneuvers. School was in session. We ended up surfing Albercas for maybe four hours. Glassy the whole time. Truly epic session. I learned how to dive into the face of the wave if for some reason I was being pushed behind or couldn’t make the section, this is a sister move to being in a barrel and punching through the backside. particularly helpful with this barnacle, rock, urchin encrusted wave. I also learned to drop-in on the wave and to come back up to the lip and just sorta float on the ledge of the breaking lip and then drop in again, usually with a two to three foot air-drop before hitting the water again. It’s truly amazing how quickly you can learn by surfing more advanced conditions with better surfers.
For my last wave, i dropped in a bit too late and I could see the crest getting ahead of me, the white foam behind me, easily overhead. Rather then trying to fight my way back to the face and risk getting thrown into the rock shallows, I just dove into the maw of the wave, trying to punch out the back side. This didn’t quite work and the white water pushed me toward the rocks. I knew I was in a bad position, so instead of waiting to surface I just started swimming underwater against the flow, hoping to not kick anything. As i surfaced, luckily the waves coming in weren’t too big. I got on my board and paddled to the left of the breaking faces, trying to stay out of the rock zone. I caught one of the smaller waves and headed in. My last wave wasn’t exactly the most noble of affairs, but it was somehow oddly fitting, a signifier. My close brush with certain pain solidified my appreciation and respect for this spot. I was higher then a kite for the rest of the day, having overcome my own internal fears to surf a local, legendary spot. It’s a surfing cliche for sure: but my stoke meter was off the chart. Thank you Albercas!
oh man, so we’re getting a taste of Hurricane Lane, much more so than hJohn. We actually have heavy rains and winds. Nothing too crazy, but definitely above your average summer rain storm. Looking at the wave reports, I headed out to surf at around 5pm. The peak is between tonight and tomorrow morning.
We went to El Paredon, but the storm surge was so heavy it was impossible to catch anything. waves were banging in from every direction and the currents were pretty heavy. After the last hurricane we got some pretty good directional swell. This one is just throwing multi-directional storm surge our way, maybe as the storm continues north we’ll get some nice, well-formed sets.
We stayed in the water for an hour and half or so, trying to make the best of it. I caught a wave or two, but most waves just got swallowed up by another wave or flattened out just after the drop. And the rain and wind beat down the whole time, when I wasn’t getting pounded by storm surge, it was hard to even see were Andrew and Fer were. I spent nine/tenths of the time paddling. I think I got better exercise today, than I have in months, every thing hurts. it was gnarly. I’m being slightly dramatic, there was no real danger involved in all this and we were all equipped to handle the conditions. I never felt threatened or anything, but it was a big waste of time.
Marcia’s gonna kill me when she reads this. She’s away in Guadalajara for the weekend and I stayed behind to catch the storm surf. Hi Honey!
Hashing out a repeat of Hurricane John, a few weeks ago, Tropical Storm Lane is barreling up the pacific coast of Mexico, gaining speed. Hopefully it won’t get all crazy, the five day forecast says that it won’t come close to the bay, so we should be alright and we’ll get some nice swell coming through.
The other day, Pato was explaining to me his theory (he borrowed from a friend) that says that every year on Sept. 16th, Mexican Independence Day, Vallarta gets a nice big swell. For the past three years, at least, this theory has been correct. I had my doubts, but now as I see Lane running up the coast, it looks like Pato’s theory will be correct, for one more year in a row.
I’m saving up my pennies for the boat trip to The Cove. wish us luck.
I got a text message Saturday morning from Pato, time to go surfing. We headed up to Punta Mita so he could do a quick spot of business and then on to the break. Once we got to Anclote, I waited in the car as Pato took care of business. A surf shop guy came up to me and asked if I wanted rent a boat to go to The Cove (also called “La Bahia”), a spot on the tip of Punta Mita that is really only accessible by boat or (by car with serious 4 Seasons juice - which I don’t have) and it’s also accessible by foot, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve tried before, not fun. The boat ride to the Cove is usually 50 bucks, split between a bunch of people it’s not that bad but generally I have a policy of not paying for boat rides. This guy offered us a drop-off for 20 bucks each. Steep. I told him to hang on and when Pato returned we mulled it over. We both felt the urge to surf a new spot and since the Cove is in open water, the surf shop guy said the waves would be good. We talked it over some more, we both got that new surf spot feeling and took him up on his offer.
Initially, as we drove up the coast, the bay seemed flat. Veneros, Burros and even Anclote were all flat. As we made it out past El Faro and on to the Cove, we could see nice pulses coming in. Periods of flatness, but a nice strong swell, sending rows of overhead waves. The Cove has a nice right, point break. Maybe six to eight people in the water. As head-high and overhead waves came in, there were two and three sections, with the third a particularly fast, nice wave.
It was wicked, surfing a new break. One that nearly every visiting surfer has probably surfed, but one that is particularly offensive in it’s lack of access. As we sat out there in the line-up and I looked back at the miles and miles of land on the tip of the bay called Punta Mita (a private development). I shrugged my head and thought to myself that it’s such a pity that the mexican government doesn’t have their shit together enough to protect it’s coastlines from greedy developers. And they call Mexico’s beaches the people’s patrimony, what a joke?! Oh well, who am I to complain, all I really want is an easy way to get from my truck to the break. I guess I’m just another selfish gringo.
We’ll be going back to the Cove, for sure, you have my word on that one.
This past weekend, Gustavo and Pau organized a scuba diving trip to Las Marietas, a group of islands that sit at the mouth of the Bay of Banderas, here in Vallarta.
They wrangled up something like 12 of us divers. We went on two dives and had a good old time. I grabbed the Pentax Optio WP just to grab some surface pics and to horse around in the water.
On Thursday, Dave, Lisa, Marcia and I went scuba diving at a near by location called El Morro (I took a few pictures but not enough to tell a good story). And then, the trip on Sunday. This was the first time I’ve gone scuba diving since my trip to Fiji, easily five or six years ago (has it been that long?). The first dive was a relatively shallow dive with a ton of green moray eels, not much coral or colorful fish, but if you groomed the seascape you could find lots of interesting small things. The Marietas are known for having manta rays, sea turtles and generally larger fish, so most of the divers were trying to cover as much territory as possible. I’m more of a “let’s pick 10 square feet and spend the next 45 minutes grooming over ever square inch of it” kinda diver. In between dives we climbed up the rock face of one of the islands and jumped off the 20-25 ft. ledges.
On the second dive I found a green and purple octopus hiding in a little nook, but I couldn’t really get a good look at him since I had to keep pace with the group. a bit frustrating. we also saw a ton of green morays, in nooks, on ledges, free swimming. On that second dive, I’d say I saw maybe twenty morays. That’s a lot.
Overall it was a great trip. I was so glad to be back in the water to see all my little fishy friends. It’s been too long! I now have the scuba bug, the mission is to get in some good dives over the next month or so, as the water will turn cold soon and scuba diving season will be over shortly (we get thermaclines here). The dive I’m most looking forward to is the Los Arcos Night Dive.
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The last time we were in Guadalajara I came across a book called the “Guia Arquitectonica Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara” or The Architecture Guide to the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara. It’s a great architecture guide published by the government of the state of Jalisco. The book organizes the cities into neighborhoods and then goes through each of the fifteen or so neighborhoods and points out architecturally significant buildings and monuments one by one. Each listing has a picture, an address and a small summary of who the architect was, the year it was built and anything special that elevates the building above the fray. There are about 300 listings in the book.
As I was casually reading the guide, I came upon several houses architected by Luis Barragán. I immediately went ploughing through the book looking for other mid-century modernist style buildings and architects, trying to glean what I could from the scholarly spanish summaries of each house. Connecting all the houses to the various neighborhoods and learning about the other modernist architects working in Guadalajara, admittedly I didn’t know anyone besides Barragán. A light went off in my head and I realized it would a great experience to go and seek all these buildings out. To actually use the guide - for what it is - a guide.
Marcia and I went out and got our own copy of the book and marked 20 or so buildings we wanted to visit, I grabbed the camera and a nice wide-angle lens and we set off to learn more about the modernist architecture of Guadalajara.
We learned so much that afternoon. I was introduced to the earlier work of Luis Barragán, face to face, in some situations the houses have been altered considerably and in one, the house was boarded up and looked to be vacant. Some of his houses still remain unscathed and one or two have been restored faithfully and are on display to the public. I was also introduced to the works of Alejandro Zohn, Felix Aceves, Ignacio Diaz Moralez and Rafael Urzöa, as well as the work of several un-named architects and engineers whose work has come to exemplify a modernist ideal that briefly flowed through certain neighborhoods in mid-century Guadalajara.
It was like peeling back an impenetrable layer of concrete, to see wonderful, enlightened architecture whose idea and ideals I share. It was like finding a community of like minded individuals who had been here before me. Every other house I saw I was convinced I was going to buy, one day and fix it up, especially the Barragán house that had been boarded up and basically left to rot.
I’ve posted 31 photos to Flickr and carefully annotated each photo with specifics taken from the guide and general impressions Marcia and I had, while visiting each building. A very special thanks to the folks who edited and wrote the Guia Arquitectonica Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara. This is my hommage to the modernist architects of Guadalajara.
and so, let’s begin…
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A night out at the local whose-who club. These photo were taken at the end of July when Salim was home for the weekend. I recently found them hidden in one of my photo folders. and I figured all the vallarta homiez love to see themselves up on the internets, gettin’ all debaucherous. go tech-mol-ogy. Hi guys!
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These guys are the first of my LA homiez to come and visit me. after two years of living in paradise, I was beginning to wonder if any of my friends would ever visit. Dave and Lisa dispelled that concept.
So we had a typical tourist day out, stopping off first at the fancy stores in town and then taking a left turn for the flea market, the perfect place to pick up cheap souvenirs. September is a hard month for the flea market owners so haggling is a must. we did plenty of that and these guys came out with some good buys. We headed back down to the malecon to see the vallarta sights and stopped in to the Bodeguita del Medio for some mojitos. After getting pleasantly sprited, we hit the pavement, hooked up with Andrew and headed up to Las Carmelitas. A great little restaurant at the top of the mountains, overlooking all of Vallarta. The restaurant isn’t the best, but the drive up and the resultant view are worth it alone. enjoy.
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We were hanging out at Andrew’s house and Hurricane John was a big no-show, thank goddess, at around 5pm yesterday I started to feel and hear the waves starting to pound. He lives about a block from the beach, so I walked on down, to my pleasure nice rolling lines coming in. So against the better advices of my girlfriend, we headed out to El Paredon, to catch the incoming storm swell
As we rounded the corner towards Destiladeras, we could see waves and white chop everywhere. In the parlance of our times, it was going off.
As we got to Veneros we could see guys dropping in to slightly crouched tube rides. The waves were six to eight feet with nice hollow tubes. sweet. As we got to El Paredon I counted nine people in the line-up with nice fat lines stacking up, breaking much farther out then usual. In spite of incoming storm swell, it was glassy as can be. I dumped my crapola on the beach and hopped in the water.
The waves were breaking beautifully. Tall but not too powerful, with perfect drop-ins and the longest rides I’ve had in easily six months. Too many people out though, for the size of the spot. There was a group of about seven visiting older gringo surfers on one of those surf-buddy trips. These kinda guys are starting to become the bane of my existence. If you’re gonna roll in a group, that’s cool, but keep it to three or four, seven people is just too large to handle.
With large sets and the occasional wild-card outside set, I stuck on the shoulder for awhile to analyze the swell. This is, generally, good practice but during the two or three hours we were surfing, it was amazing how the spot changed. Impossible to really get a good lock on the waves. The sets definitely had minds of their own. I’m just now starting to get a handle on that maneuver where instead of paddling into a wave, you just wait for it and then grab the nose of your board and dig your tail into the wave and drop in. I had some really nice drop-ins but I’m still getting used to the new Flyer II and it took me a good 45 minutes to get comfortable on the drops. I don’t know, but I just expected my new Flyer II to feel exactly like the old one.
We surfed until i could no longer distinguish the size of the waves coming in, my eyesight goes to pot at sunset. I grabbed a really nice long ride, carved it up really nice and as I hit another section, I crouched into the looping crest and tried to fit myself into the smallest of tubes as best I could.
Good day!
Hopefully updated on a semi-regular schedule as we endure the hurricane:
Hurricane John has been pounding Mexico’s west coast, making it’s way slowly towards us, in the Bahia de Banderas. Not to be left alone, John has now been joined by a lesser hurricane called Kristy.
Historically, the Puerto Vallarta area has been spared from hurricanes, due to the geological nature of the large bay we sit on. Hurricanes barrel up the coast and then turn out to sea just south of the bay, once out to sea the water becomes much colder and the storms dissipate. This theory was shot to hell a few years ago as Hurricane Kenna started close to the coast, down by Acapulco and then swung out to sea, only to come right into the bay, giving Vallarta an almost direct hit. The photos of the destruction of Vallarta’s Malecon (boardwalk) are impressive.
Depending on who you talk to, we’re either gonna get a double pounding or we’ll get some light rain and wind. Officially all schools have been given the day off tomorrow, so maybe the municipality knows something I don’t. As I stick my head out of my nice, a/c’d office, all I see are blue skies and not a ripple in the ocean. If a major storm was to break ground here, later this evening, wouldn’t we already be getting some nice storm pulse swells?
Not to put a lighthearted spin on a potentially dangerous situation but I could use a nice big storm swell. i’ll keep my fingers crossed that the hurricane(s) stay out of the bay and that the waves come in.
**update - 5:00pm**
Well, the skies are no longer blue, more cloudy but white-cloudy not storm-cloudy and the ocean has a light roil to it. it’s not flat, but there are no waves. just looks like there is so more non-directional movement.
**update - 6:50pm**
Well folks, it looks like this isn’t a drill. This is the real thing. Hurricane John is now officially a cat 4 (Katrina was a 3). And the US Consulate in Vallarta has issued an email advising us to storm proof our houses and to put our passports in plastic bags. Further, the airport will be closing and the AP wire is saying that we can expect 15 foot storm surges. Reports are saying that the hurricane will pass closer to the bay then previously forecasted. I don’t quite know how to respond yet, but I’m about to go over to the parents’ house and help them storm proof their house, just in case. they live at sea level (i live up the hill about a hundred feet or so). They are starting to get a little worried (compounded slightly by mom’s childhood hurricane traumas). We’ll see what happens in the next 12 hours or so. I’ll keep updating as I know more.
**update - 11:00pm**
It’s hard to decipher the signal through all the noise. Most people around us, neighbors, friends etc.. have not made any preparations yet the resort “Paradise Village” in Nuevo Vallarta has already evacuated all of their guests and employees. It looks as if the hurricane will hit here, sometime around noon. I can’t find much more info, so we’ll have to wait until NOAA updates. I helped my parents move all of their furniture and decorations from their sizable covered patio area, along with the pool furniture etc… We also packed up the office and moved everything to the back room. The office has three large very breakable windows and is also at sea level so it’s possibly prone to flooding. At our apartment, Marcia and I have moved all of our smaller potted plants, and patio furniture etc.. inside. we have several larger potted plants that are just gonna have to weather what may come. Since we are high on a hill, with a nice view of the ocean, we have very little to block the oncoming winds. As the winds pick up, we’ll decide to (or not to) tape the windows. Our biggest concern, at the apartment, is that it sits at a shallow “V” in the road, this V has a storm drain at the lowest point and the drain is partially blocked. During large rains, the street fills up with muddy water and has come close to flooding our apartment several times. Usually someone has to wade out to the drain and try to unblock it. If the rain is particularly hard, we could be in trouble. Like I said, lots of noise, very little signal. Time to watch a movie and not think about this stuff.
**update - 8:00am**
We got a little rain, nothing too heavy, last night. The humidity is insane and has been, since mid-yesterday. Things are calm here and the Hurricane Center’s 3-day cone says that the storm is farther out to sea, than was predicted yesterday. So it most likely won’t touch the bay. We’ll get some heavy rain and winds, but nothing too crazy. Let’s go with the cautious optimism, that works for me. The report is saying Hurricane John will pass by around noon. I’ll continue to update as I get more info and as the weather starts to change. stay tuned.
**update - 10:00am**
It’s pretty thick clouded to the southwest, but we actually have a little sun peaking through the clouds to the east. All the workers are out, building the umpteen houses that are going up in my vicinity and it looks like everyone is ignoring the idea that a hurricane will be rolling close by in the next few hours. The Hurricane Center is calling it a cat 3 hurricane now, which is better, but as I look at the wind speed graphs, we seem to be in for some heavy winds. The local radio says that the weather should start to turn sour around 1:00pm, so again, we sit and wait….
**update - 1:00pm**
Well, it’s 1:00pm-ish and no sign of any hurricane just yet. The ocean is getting slightly choppier but with no real directional swell. The airport is open, but most flights are cancelled. People are either boarding up their windows or kicking back celebrating a day off with a beer. We just got back from the corner store, stocking up on vegetables, fruit, cheese and beer (only the necessities). The Hurricane Center says that hJohn is about 60 miles southwest of Cabo Corrientes, which is on the south side of the horn at the southern tip of the bay. The local government is issuing directions to all residents to prepare as fast as possible, including turning off gas and electricity, I think they refuse to be caught off guard, as they were with Hurricane Katrina. Just started drizzling, still waiting.
**update - 3:00pm**
It’s raining a little bit harder now, but nothing near storm strength and not an ounce of wind or waves. Depending on who you talk to, hJohn is directly west of us now and we should be getting some kind of storm winds. It’s weird. We hear that Vallarta’s malecon area has been evacuated as a precaution. Cautiously, I think we aren’t going to get much more action then we’re getting now, Vallarta seems to have been spared. Obviously it’s still to early to tell, and Murphy’s Law is a powerful thing, but let’s hope things continue to go the way they’ve gone.
**update - 5:30pm**
The Hurricane Center has reclassified hJohn to cat 2 and it looks as if the hurricane has completely missed Vallarta, now being about 100 miles west-northwest of us. No real rain to speak of and no wind at all. The skies to the east and south are light and clearing. I went to the beach to check the waves and it actually looks like something small is rolling in. actually, honest-to-god waves. This requires a closer investigation. I’m about to put the board in the car and head out to El Paredon. Assuming the weather doesn’t miraculously change, this will be my last update. hurricane updates are fun but only if something is actually happening. Some guy writing about nothing happening is, well, boring. it’s a good thing, boring, i like it. signing off….
La Caleta is one of the two or three surf spots that you can get to, by boat, from Chacala. It’s a wicked lefty point break that breaks perilously close to a sea-urchin infested rock beach. Not for the faint of heart. Located up on the coast outside the bay, about an hour north of here. Chacala is in open seas, it gets direct exposure to both northern and southern swells. and so with Jorge and Gris in town from Guadalajara, we all convened at 7:00 this morning, for a day trip up north, to catch what’s left of the current swell.
I had been to Caleta once before, probably just about two years ago. I was still a surfing novice. when we rolled up on the spot, it wasn’t breaking at all. almost flat. I could see the break though and I hadn’t learned to surf backside yet. I envisioned what could be one scary break, if the swell was right. For some reason, I’ve never gone back. We’re an adventurous crew, but to be honest we really stick to our spots inside the north side of the bay, with occasional jaunts to Quimixto and others. We haven’t dedicated time to exploring the breaks north of the bay. If anything, I’m just conferring with myself, out-loud (sort of, anyway) that we should check out the northern breaks like Platanitos, San Blas and Santa Cruz. Make it a priority.
Back to our story:
The text messages started going off around 6:45am, with everyone up and ready we piled into the trucks and headed north. Getting to Chacala at around 8:15, already the sun was up and the wind was picking up as well. Jorge quickly secured us a panga (note to visitors: best to have a non-gringo rent the boat. as you won’t be charged the gringo rate). It took us about 15 minutes to get to the break and the ocean was already roiling. we could see swell coming in, but nothing overly exciting. As we arrived at Caleta, I think we were all a little bit disappointed, there were maybe ten people in the water already and the waves didn’t look very big. We had the boat captain drop us off at the shore. As we all sat under the palapa covered hut, none of us seemed situated. The hut was covered with trash of every kind and we all struggled for a clean place to sit. We looked out at the surfers waiting for the set waves to arrive. I grabbed my board and headed out to the line-up.
As I got out to the front of the line, a six footer rolled right to me, I dug in the tail of my shortboard and popped right into the crest of the wave, dropped in and kept the pressure on my back heel. As I slid down the face, I tried my best to see through the ridiculously bright sunlight beaming off the water and to thread the needle as I dodged all the buoys. It was a great first ride, most definitely beginner’s luck, once I got that wave, admittedly, I had a slight thought that I didn’t really know what to do with it. not knowing the break. I just tried my hardest to stay out of the shallow water and to have a good ride. I managed to catch three different sections, bringing me half-way back to the beach.
The waves were definitely coming in sets with long waits in between, but nice big chunky waves made it all worth it. As I sat out in the line-up surveying the break, I got the feeling that Caleta could be dangerous on a big day if one were to get caught on the inside and forced into the mixing bowl. Caleta has a pretty wicked mixing bowl. Several of the group of visiting gringos in the water (when not talking about dumb business deals they were involved in) were trading war stories of getting urchin stings from getting too close to the rocks. The wave, itself, walls up really nice, not too fast, and I could see that it gets tubular with size. Some of the waves breaking out on the point, too close to the rocks, had perfect loping tubes, well, two foot diameter tubes, but I used my imagination. If you read surf mags that show pics from the vallarta area, they are usually taken at La Caleta.
As morning turned to noon, the waves got blown out a bit and the sea got choppy, but it was still very surfable and actually looked like it was getting bigger. The currents picked up a little, pushing me inside, close to the point. A place you don’t want to be. So I had to learn to navigate the current (there are no spots inside the bay with bad currents, unless it’s real big out). Probably due to the currents, the water turned murky brown, most likely from a nearby stream run-off. The boat captain picked us up at 1:00pm and we headed home. We got back to Bucerias and celebrated our trip with chelas and pizza.
A very very good day. fun was had by all and it was great to have Jorge play the leader, showing us a new spot. Sometimes I balk at having to pay a boat fee to get to the surf break, but today was totally worth it.
**update**
Israel pointed out to me that this spot is actually called “La Caleta” so I’ve altered the story to reflect this. Thanks Isreal!
After rolling into Tucson, we kit the main drag looking for a supermarket that sold coffee beans. my bad, i forgot to stock up on peet’s before we left LA. As we learned, Tucson’s main drag goes on for miles. Literally the largest collection of continuous strip malls I have ever seen. insane.
After ‘mission: coffee beans’ was finished, we called up the front desk guy at our hotel and asked him to give us the name of the best sushi joint in Tucson, he gave us a name and directions.
Tucson has a pretty goddamn good sushi joint and it’s called Sushi Garden. I was totally impressed and Marcia really enjoyed her veggie rolls. We partied hard. After rolling through a few days of so-so food it was so nice to come upon a truly good sushi joint. If they can do it in AZ, why can’t they do it in MX?
