Around The World In 80 Waves

Las Flores is another fantastic right hand point break. However for me at least there is definitely a but to this particular break.

That but is the rocks which are just a handful of metres from the peak and then stay that way for the whole of the ride to the shore, which can be as long as 300m. One fall and you could be in a very bad place very quickly.

The international crew in the water here are certainly friendly enough though, and amongst others I spend a great deal of time chatting with the lovely Whitney who you can see behind me.

However if I am honest for the whole of the time I am in the water here I am not feeling that comfortable.

A good wave would usually sort out any nerves I have. However the set up of this break is such that in order to be sure of being the person that catches a wave you need to be paddling for it directly adjacent to the rocks sticking up out of the water at the very tip of the headland which you can see over my shoulder. Everybody knows this and the result of that is everybody pushing one another closer and closer to the rocks until people take off directly in front of them assuming they will make the turn. The natural breaking of the wave does indeed keep you far enough away from the rocks once you are riding, but such critical take offs are not really my cup of tea anymore. I have been to A&E too many times, and it is never fun!

Despite my better judgement I tried this once only to have picked one of the bigger waves of the day which then broke well before it got to me leaving me very much between a rock and a hard place, and was then lucky not to damage myself let alone my board. (One of the Brazilians here did something similar and landed on the rocks and put a two foot long gash in the base of his board ‘game over’-ing it earlier in the day!)

Regardless of all the above I have caught loads of long rides here though and this one shows the trees on the point a little too close for comfort behind me. This particular ride was about head high, but during it I also had to charge through a gap between two rocks which appeared sticking out of the water that was little wider than my board and just hope it was deep enough in the gap for my fins to get through. It was but more by luck than judgement and I dont think I will be doing that again.

So far I have managed to avoid an Isaac Newton moment with a fruit landing on my head.

However there are so many mango trees around which seem to shed their fruit at the slightest breeze, I fear it is only a question of time before I am wearing one.

The Litle Green Surf Machine has already been involved in a drive-by fruiting or two and has been left showing the fruit splats from its time in combat!

This no normal fruit, it is an aggressive predator.

You have been warned!

After leaving El Sunzal I had a very hot but scenically stunning drive eastwards towards the town of El Cuco where I am basing myself for a few days.

I arrived in the afternoon and got myself a great room at the Atlakamani Resort  (www.Atlakamani.com) run by a local guy who unusually for this neck of the woods is called Vladimir.

It is perfectly set up for surfers and is 60 seconds from a world class point break.

The rooms have air conditioning which is a welcome relief. The wifi is quick and the restaurant is brilliant. There is even an in house masseur called Anna whose services I treated myself to upon arrival.

At the moment it is just me and a cool group of surfers from Brazil who I have been having a laugh with.

Most important of all, they have toasters here! Me turning my nose up at the lovely free breakfast which is available, instead gorging myself on toast and the marmite that I have been carrying since Los Angeles raises a few eyebrows but I don’t care

Punta Roca is where the point break sequences for Big Wednesday were filmed and I simply had to surf the break where such great lines as ‘I said he aint a hodad squidlips, this is Matt Johnson and he needs to borrow your board’ and ‘That is Matt Johnson, THAT IS Matt Johnson!’ were coined. If you are not familiar with the film, it will make more sense if you watch this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xgBnGQhAUI

It is a perfect right hand point break and the scenes from the  movie have had me salivating for years, dreaming about such a perfect setup to enjoy. Without doubt a major contributory factor in me taking this trip. The area is somewhat more developed than when the scenes were filmed in 1976, and I was able to stike a deal with a restaurant overlooking the break that they would look after my car and I would enjoy a big feast after my session. 

I have been wanting to try to get some forward facing shots on the camera for a while, and because this wave is so predictable I thought it would be the ideal opportunity to try it out.

I attached it to the board the other way around which is just as easy using the mounts I have attached to my stick and paddled out into the glorious conditions you see here.

I was able to get some fantastic pictures of other people, but not the shot I wanted of the wave walling up in front of me as I charged down the line, which all surfers would recognise instantly. I think this is because the mount on my board is pointing directly forward and the board usually travels in the direction which is 45 degrees from the wave face, which results in a lot of shots of air pointing vaguely in the direction of the shore.

This meant that each of the peachy waves I had here, and it was a lot, will just be memories for me I’m afraid. The waves is so mellow and just goes on and on and on and on and on. Really chuffed to have bagged this break on my travels and even if I cant prove it I know I was grinning from ear to ear!

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, and unlike Mexico it wont take me long to drive across it.

Rather than bother with their own currency, everything and everybody has used dollars since 2001, which helps me because I like to have an emergency stash of them so I can replenish my diminished stocks while here.

There was a brutal civil war here in the 80s, and the country gets hit pretty frequently by natural disasters i.e earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, etc which devastate the infrastructure here.

 More and more tourists are willing to come here for the excellant weather and surf though, and I have found it quite cosmopolitan. I only hope the waves later on this trip will be as good as they are here.

Since arriving in El Salvador I have based myself at the Surfers Inn in El Sunzal for a few days, coming here on the recommendation of the Dutch surfers, Tommi and Martine, who I met in Mexico.

It is a basic but lovely place run by Antonio and Sassie who you can see in the picture here. They do everything they can to make their guests welcome.

It is so hot and humid here that you are inclined to hide in the shade for much of the day. Something I had to do a lot of after getting really scorched during my first surf session here.

However I have been hanging out and having a lot of laughs with a German couple called Reiner & Uta, who are also staying here.

Reiner has been teaching me how to get a better sound out of my ukulele and we have been singing Creedance Clearwater Revival songs into the night, whilst enjoying the local beer which is really cheap and served in huge bottles. It also seemd like the appropriate time to crack open the two bottles of Longboard Merlot, which I have been carrying with me since San Francisco. Wine is in short supply in this neck of the woods so we all savoured it and because of the quality were all blessed with clear heads in the morning.

I have a little room to myself which feels like a furnace during the day, and even with my fan on it is still roasting hot at night under my mosquito net.

I have been eating the El Salvado speciality of popuzas which are small parcels of dough filled with chicken, cheese, etc that are cooked on a griddle.

Everybody is really welcoming and the locals are really friendly, however Fallon the chief of sceurity you see here has everything under control in case anybody gets out of hand!

As an aside here I have to say that watching a lady in a bikini hacking away at a coconut with a machete is a joyful sight to behold.

In fairness to her however, I should say that Fallon, who is visiting here from Canada, is lovely and not at all like a nightclub doorman.

I have felt really welcome here and in contrast to the guns which were on display everywhere in Guatemala it is good to feel that you can walk around freely, leave my car unlocked in the car park, etc.

However it was also reasuring to note that Teri, the dog who lives here, was keeping a close eye on my board for me whenever my back was turned.

The Little Green Surf Machine reached its hundredth birthday today.

I expect that a telegram from Her Majesty is on the way.

There have not been many waves which I have surfed twice on this trip, but because it is such a perfect right hand point break and I hadn’t really surfed that well the day before I had to go back for a second session. I’m so glad I did!

To protect the left hand side of my face which was still a little raw from the scorching it got the previous morning I waited until the afternoon allowing the other side to get cooked instead.

The waves are really big at the moment, and again I was a litle bit slow to get started.

I took a few more beatings in the inside section and had the fright of my life when scatching towards the horizon to try and get past one set. As I was about to start paddling up the face of the wave a huge ray with a four foot wingspan lept out of the water in front of me! I was more concerned with the several tonnes of water quickly moving my way so had no choice other than to keep paddling as fast as I could towards it.

Just as I was starting to get annoyed about my lack of waves a huge one set up beautifully for me. The waves are so fat at the moment it is hard to get in front of them, but after paddling like a man possessed I popped up, skipped forward and practically stamped on the front of my board to push it over the top. The picture above was taken with my GoPro, but there was also a professional photographer on the beach who got every second of this ride, as well as the others I caught soon afterwards because my confidence was up. Massive snaking rights, two of which I surfed from the very peak until I stepped off onto the sand in the shore. Rides nearly a minute long, all of which were so fast, just about outrunning the mountain of water chasing me.

Easily the best surf session of my trip so far. The photographer caught this picture of a very contented me racing back to see what my camera had captured. Also, very unusually for any surf trip, all the friends I have made here were on the beach and had seen each of the monsters I had caught.

Stoked doesn’t quite cover how happy I was feeling as I strolled back to the Surfers Inn. Try to think of me as happy as you have seen me and then square it. I was pactically bouncing I was so excited!

To top off a perfect day I made myself my favourite meal of bangers and mash with baked beans, washed down with an unhealthy amount of the local beer. I wish everyday could be this good.

I got up at 6am and started early by cleaning my board before treating it to a fresh coat of tropical surf wax. (Even the warm water wax there already was like plasticene on the top of my board due to the heat yesterday so it needed to be done.)

I love the smell of strawberry surf wax, it is one of my most favourite things in the world and I was looking forward to paddling out with it under my nose in the waves I could hear breaking just out of sight but through the trees.

First things first, it was quite big today. The picture you see here is me about to take another hammering of which there were many. I also suspect given all the white water around me I have only just come up from the last one!

There is a huge surf scene here in the town with surfers from all over the world in the water. Some of whom must know the break well because they were absolutely shredding the waves which were easily over head high.

It is a classic right hand point break here and I was dying to do well because I haven’t really been on fire on anything that should be well set up for my forehand surfing so far on this trip.

Sadly apart from one monster ride which this picture doesnt do justice to I spent an awful lot of time not catching what I wanted. There was a professional photographer on the beach who was taking picture of everybody’s waves so I will try to find him later to see if he got a better angle of me catching a bomb.

Good stuff. I like El Salvador already!

Having crossed the border I headed for the coast, and knew I was getting close to a wave when I started seeing signs like these everywhere.

I rounded the next headland on the coast road and saw a small crew of people surfing in the sunshine at the beach located at the mouth of Rio Miztapa. 

I very nervously made my way down an extremely long and rocky path, getting overtaken by walking children, snails, etc, because I was trying to ensure no more damage to the car, but was delighted to find this punchy little wave breaking over sand at the end.

The board was off the roof in no time at all and I was into a pair of board shorts and on my way. A local guy promised to look after my car, although he had disappeared with the $3 I had given him long before I had got out. 

I paddled out and chatted with the friendly dudes in the water about my trip and where they were staying, even meeting the owner of ‘The Last Resort’ surf camp who offered me a place to stay.

I bagged a few quick waves (as well as a particularly slappy face plant), but the lengthy border crossing had meant there was not much sun left or time for surfing. I was also keen to get further down the coast so that I could get straight into the morning glass at one of the breaks there rather than have to travel the next day, find a place to stay and then arrive at the beach as it was getting windy.

I thanked the owner for his offer but declined, and then made friends with the local kids by handing out some of my bag of blackcurrant and liquorice sweets before leaving. I.e. crawling back up the hill via the extremely rocky road in the car.