Wednesday, August 17, 2005 @ 12:00 PM
Horseshoe Trip Day 2
Wednesday in the pre-dawn hours I kept peaking my head out the tent to look at the waves. It was tough to tell how big they were and no one was stirring in camp so I kept catching more Z's. I finally woke just before dawn and the lineup was empty. We had no food with us so I looked for milk at the store, it was closed, so I roused Mank to head out. He got up and by then the first guy was in the water. By the time we were down to the beach, there were a dozen guys out over a few peaks.
We hiked south along the beach because it was peeling off way better down there. Once on the beach we could see there was size. And shape. Nice peeling lefts that were fast a pithing out. Every so often one would spit out some spray. Windless and foggy. The paddle out wasn't bad and were soon hanging out at our own peak, trading lefts. Would take a few chest to shoulder high ones in between the sets that were fun to the maximum. The sets were a bit overhead and often were unmakeable. That didn't stop us though, it had been so long since there was size we'd often take off impossible waves just for the rush.
Mank had two waves burnt into my mind. The first was a smaller inside wave, chest high or so where he was all setup for a nice barrell ride, I was paddeling out over the shoulder and he was heading towards me... it was a cover shot. Then right has he's about to be covered up, somethign out of nowhere grabbed his ankles and made him wipe out. So close. The next was an outside wave he caught, overhead and zero chance of going anywhere. He took off late in what was once again a perfect magazine cover shot. I was paddeling over the wave as he was doing this air drop and then I turned around to see the thing detonate. He came up somewhere down the line with a giant smile.
I managed to sneak a few fun rights in between the lefts. My rights were smaller and slower, but slow enough that I could actually turn on them. The lefts were so fast, I was haning onto the rail on a backside drop in and then maybe coming up towards the lip if I made the first section. My surfing was not very good. First time on the shortboard since May 1st, I had only surfed the Fish and longboard since then. That and I hadn't surfed at all in August and I was one bad surfer.
The lineup got crowded. It felt like back home, with maybe 100 guys out over the whole stretch of beach, about 1/2 mile of peaks maybe. A big set came in, the biggest of the morning. Mank and I got back to back waves and paddeled back out, and then the little peak we owned saw a dozen guys paddle out to it. Said one grom, "I saw that set come in 20 minutes ago here and it looked good." I convinced him that was a freak, the "real" good waves were further down the coast, and we were in a "no mans land" right here. Mank picked up on this and showed the Grom where the good peak was. He believed us and paddled away, our PsyOps working to perfection. It's a cruel, cruel world. We surfed until our arms fell off and the made it back to camp, packed up, and had beer and ChiliQuilles at the local restraunt. Food never tasted so good.
We headed south and stopped for groceries at a mercado south of ensenada. Mank was a pro at navigating our way to our next chosen stop which included nearly an hour of bone jarring dirt roads. I called this place "Victors's" named after the man who has run the show here for 25 years. We pulled up and it was obvious the waves were good. We decided to let the tide "fill in" so we setup camp and rested for our afternoon session. We headed out around 4 or 5. There were 3 peaks working, the point, the main peak, and the box. The point looked big and gnarly, breaking near a lot jagged rocks. We only saw 1 or 2 guys surf there the whole trip. Most of the people were at the main peak where you could go right or left. The box had a hardcore crew who policed it like any tight takeoff spot gets policed back home, it felt a bit like surfing the spit with the tight pack and fast takeoff. I only surfed the main peak this first session, while Mank sampled both.
The wind was heavy offshore, making for wild and blind takeoffs. Many times I got denied entry, rubbing water out of my eyes. Many other times I'd make it in and race down the line. My surfing was still pretty cruddy, many had this place wired already and I hadn't surfed good surf in 3 months. I did have some really fun waves, great drops and attempts at getting covered up, but my turns were stalled and I don't think I ever hit the lip this session. Pretty meager performance. The vibe was pretty good out there, but there were guys who would constantly back-paddle the lineup, which got old. The peak was shifty so sometimes the best place to sit was to the left of the lineup and even with it. Those sets were great, I got one of them all the way to the box, but they were less frequent. I once again surfed until my arms fell off.
Dinner and beer on the cliff watching 3-4 guys own the box below us while the sun set. Drop in, adjust, stall, get covered up, make it out, then make a giant cutback. These guys were doing laps but I only had enough energy to move my eyeballs. Went to sleep shorty after sunset.