45 to the beach

Check out this link to iWindsurf.com's Long Marine Lab wind report. It's better than what Surfline provides.

One of my dreams has been to get barreled for more than two seconds plus a closeout on the head. I never thought I would be able to realize that dream until now. SurfAid and Quiksilver have partnered on a fundraising contest, called Get on Board, that will take the top fundraiser for SurfAid to Indo to see SurfAid's good work in action and surf some amazing barreling waves.

I've been a SurfAid supporter for years now, even before the 2004 earthquake/Tsunami that devastated the villages of Western Indonesia. Now I'm more motivated than ever to help out this amazing organization.

I've pledged to match the top donation that SurfAid receives through my fundraising web page, http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=179815.

If you stumble across this blog and wonder what you can do to help a fellow surfer realize his dream, then please donate to SurfAid via my fundraising page and everybody wins (you get a tax deduction, I get a shot at being barreled, and Indonesian villagers get help from SurfAid).

thanks for reading,

Steve

Labels: Indo, Mentawai, Quiksilver, surf trip, SurfAid, surfboard, surfing

It's been a while, but I decided to finish my magnum opus travel story quickly so that I can get back to blogging about current events. So, here is a summary of the last few days of the trip:
1) Storm blows in from the Pacific and brings lots of rain, washing out roads and making travel to surf spots hard. The surf is wind-blown and not good.

2) Mosquitoes attack many of the other surf travelers, but I survive mostly unscathed.

3) Stomach flu hits two of the other travelers, but not the guys I am traveling with.

4) AeroMexico, already under the cloud of chapter 11, announces that it is ceasing all flights as of noon on the Saturday that we are scheduled to return to the USA. Our flight from Hualtulco to Mexico City is scheduled to leave at 10:30 a.m., and we walk across the tarmac like we are in a scene from the fall of Saigon, a ragtag line of refugees trying to find safety in a distant land. As the plane lands in Mexico City, the captain makes an extended speech (in Spanish, of course) and the entire plane erupts with clapping when he finishes. it is surreal as we look out of our window at the rows of AeroMexico planes parked on the tarmac. The entire fleet has returned to Mexico City to be counted and we are the last of the planes to taxi to the gate.

5) Our excellent surf travel agent (Henry at Wavehunters), managed to find new flights for the three of us from Mexico City back to the USA. Nick and I had to wait a few hours for our departure, but Bob caught an immediate flight to LA and then a connection to San Jose. He arrived about 4 hours before we finally got to SFO.

6) My travel insurance did NOT cover bankruptcy of the airline, much to my dismay. I wish I had used TravelGuard. They took care of me when I had gear stolen in Nicaragua on my last international surf trip. Lesson learned.

Labels: Mexico, Oaxaca, surf trip

Our plane arrived at Mexico City at 7 a.m. local time and we attempted to make our way to immigration/customs area, so we took a right out of our gate and started walking down the terminal corridor. We occasionally saw yellow or green pictographic signs indicating open luggage or plummeting aircraft, but nothing indicated where immigration might be. We eventually found ourselves in a large open area of shops, with the airport entrance on one side and a terminal walkway on another. In front of the terminal walkway was an immigration desk with a long line, including three American coeds who had been on our flight. We entered the queue, thinking that this must be the place.

while we stood in line we began to question whether this was, in fact, the correct immigration desk, due to the flood of people joining the line from the airport entrance. After the American women where turned away and pointed back where we came from, we exited the line and followed them. As we were walking back down the corridor, we saw a previously hidden hallway with a customs immigration sign. We would have had to make a u-turn on our original trek in order to have seen this corridor. Anyway, after traversing up some stairs, across a suspended walkway and back down some stairs, we found ourselves in the immigration area. No other passengers were there, so we made our way quickly through, walked down the exit hallway and found ourselves right back where we started, in the Mexicana terminal corridor near our arriving flight's gate.

We continued past our gate in the opposite direction and after a long walk eventually found the Mexican equivalent of a giant food court, where we ordered semi-American Egg-McMuffins from a McDonald's. After about an hour, we made our way back down the corridor (toward our original gate) and boarded our flight to HUX (Huatulco). The flight was uneventful and we stepped out of the plane into 90% humidity and walked down the tarmac to the thatched roof buildings where our bags were to be picked up.

Everyone else's surfboards arrived before the luggage, but mine came after the bags for some reason, so we had to wait for it. I picked up the surfboard bag and made my way to the security area, where I was asked to press a red button. This button apparently triggers either an electric shock or a treat for a capuchin monkey, who then lights a red or green light, depending on whether is shocked or pleased. Bob and Nick had gotten the treat light, but I got the angry monkey light and was forced to go to the side to have my bags inspected.

Having finally exited into Mexico proper without damage to our bags, we stood by the curb waiting for the taxi that the Wavehunters trip promised would take us to a hotel, where the Salina Cruz team would pick us up. We guessed that the local taxi union had a pretty strong lobbyist to get that law passed. However, a van pulled up and we were told that we would be taken straight to Salina Cruz from there. Sweet! While our stuff was loaded, we met Robin and Tek, two other surfers headed for Salina Cruz. We also saw a pair of Salina Cruz bound surfers get pulled back inside that the thatched hut buildings to meet with immigration, whom they had failed to find in the Mexico City Labyrinth...

About 10 days before Nick, Bob, and I were scheduled to fly down to Mexico, Mexicana Airlines announced that they were entering chapter 14 bankruptcy and cutting back on some flights. We worriedly checked the website and the news sites to see if our relatively inexpensive SFO to Huatulco flights had been canceled. We knew there was a big swell coming and if the flights were canceled, we wanted as much time as possible to use our travel insurance to purchase new flights. Luckily, we found out that the SFO to Mexico City flights survived unscathed, as did the Mexicana Click flights from MEX to HUX.

Reassured that we would probably have flights waiting for us at the airport, I thought that my only concern was whether or not I would be able to buy tropical temperature wax for Bob and I. Nick sent us an email on Thursday night, the day before our departure, to say that he had purchased the wax, but that his minivan, our chosen mode of transportation to the airport, had ceased to function. We debated various strategies for carrying three surfboard coffin bags, our backpacks, and our luggage, and eventually determined that Nick's son needed his (Nick's) other minivan more than my wife needed her minivan. Jane graciously assented to drive the kids around in my WRX for a week while I left the minivan in SFO long-term parking.

Having made it through two potential setbacks, we were still excited to be leaving for the trip, as we packed Nick and Bob's gear into my van and departed for SFO. Little did we know that ominous clouds were on the horizon...

Labels: ominous clouds

A few months ago, my friends Bob and Nick and I were looking for our next surf trip destination. We had collectively been to Baja and Central America and wanted to try something different, so Nick contacted Wavehunters and worked with Sean to find a spot for us. He picked the Salina Cruz area of Mexico, which has right-hand point breaks and sand bottoms, so the risk factor was a little lower than a gnarly Indo reef break. Nick is very big on low tides, so he suggested the week of August 21st for the trip, since the low tides would be in the morning, when the wind was down.

About a week before our trip, Mexicana, our airline, announced that they were cutting back some flights and entering bankruptcy protection. We knew that a big swell was on the way to Salina Cruz and we were worried that we would miss it because there would be no flights down to Huatulco, our destination airport. After a couple of days and much gnashing of teeth, we found out that our flight was still happening. Yay- next stop, Mexico!

I saw this post on Craigslist here in the SF Bay Area tonight:

Brian of Montara Surfboard Webber Afterburner (half moon bay)

Labels: surfboard