Around The World In 80 Waves

Also known as Ventura County Line. I had arrived here the night before, but the sun was almost down as I turned up and it was looking quite busy, so I checked into a hotel and waited for the morning. As you can see an early start saw only a couple of people out at high tide when I returned.

I caught loads today and did take the camera with me after regretting yesterday’s omission. This was the shot of the day, and you can see the wave is breaking just above my paunch even though I am half way up the face.

Again I have loads of photos, and too many to choose from so here is wave of the day from start to finish shot at two second intervals, beginning with an amusing comedy shot of my face as I struggle to turn the board around after the lady behind me insisted that I go for it and drop in at the last second before the wave arrived: 

I chose a quiet residential area to sleep in the car, but am woken by the morning commuters. As I sit up in the car I am greeted by this sight. Not a bad way to start the day.

I drive straight to Rincon Point which is just off the highway and is one of the legendary right hand point breaks I just have to surf on this trip.

The first thing I notice there is that I am the youngest in the water by about 15 years, which was swiftly followed by the realisation that I am undergunned. My 7’10” is a great board but all the wily old dudes are paddling past me with ease on 9’6″ or bigger longboards and keep nicking the epics rights I line up. I still catch loads even if I am missing out on the quality rights that the sea offers up every 20 minutes when a set rolls through.

As a consequence there is an awful lot of waiting around and during one of these lulls I get my latest shock from the animal kingdom when a school of bottlenose dolphins suddenly breaks the surface all around me. I could have touched them they were that close, but can admit to being a little bit disturbed by the experience initially because there was a fatal great white attack in Santa Barbara County where I am surfing just before Christmas and I dont really want to see any big fins around me in the water.

However I get much more comfortable as they hang around me for a while, coming up to the surface to have a good look at me, make a big gesture of snorting out of their blowholes, and one even starts splashing me with its tail which was an amazing experience. I didnt take my camera out today and regret it massively.

Now very aware of the marine life as I sit out back I turn around about an hour later after hearing a strange sound to see a…  Golden Retreiver!!!! I later found out this dog is called Lulu and she belongs to the bloke next to me in the water. She has paddled about 100m out to sea to ‘save’ her owner and clambers up on his board to give him a hug and a lick once she has made it through the shoulder high surf with several waves landing on her on the way out. He tells me she does it a few times each session to make sure he is ok, which is very cute but the poor guy has to keep paddling in to the shore to escort her back missing out on limited ocean time.

Credit to Lulu, I think her duck dive may actually be better than mine. Barking mad in every sense of the word!

Pearsonville is what I would call a town, but somebody has beat me to it!

I nearly crash the car laughing so much when I see this.

Apparently it is the hub cap capital of the world. Who couldn’t be proud of that honour?

However there is really nothing to the town other than the garage and the Subway sandwich shop inside. I stop there for dinner and then drive the little green surf machine up over the Sierra Nevada. It copes with the 5000 feet increase in elevation without any issues, but it is pitch black and the road is so winding that I feel like I have been doing a marathon night stage on the Ridge Racer computer game after two hours of driving in these conditions without seeing a soul. Thankfully it is very dark and I cant see the drops to the side of the road as I race through the mountains.

I reach the coast and find a place to crash out, after eventually shaking off the Caliornia Highway Patrol who are interested in me and what I am up to as I sit by the side of the road trying to figure out how to avoid them.

Rather than take the interstate all the way back to the coast I decide to drive a circuitous route through Death Valley. I barely saw another sould for the whole day of driving. I covered nearly 300 miles and nothing I say will do it justice. Epic scenery, so I will just let you see for yourselves what it looked like.

Not in a Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue sort of way, but I need to get away from this place and return to the coast where I can satisfy the craving for my real vice of surfing.

In the end I have stayed an extra night in the hotel because it costs about the same as a hostel bed at the coast, but the private room does not entail sharing with any of the mental health patients I have met so far along the way. The luxury of high sped internet, a bath and a double bed are also too much of an added temptation. I’m not sorry about missing the Sunday night rush back to LA either. I will travel back once everybody else is at their desks on Monday afternoon

However I spend a great deal of time on the extra day catching up on myself, doing a little bit of car maintenance, sorting out some admin and planning the rest of my time in the US. I spent so much time in the hotel room the staff may have been beginning to wonder if they have another Howard Hughes on their hands.

As I set off for the Californian coast once more I can’t help reflecting that the shortest queues I have seen all week are the ones at the cashiers where people convert their winning chips back to bank notes. What are the odds on that?

After taking part in an organised Vegas Crawl last night my head hurts. However I am pleased to report that I have all my teeth and no tattoos, that I did not get married in an Elvis chapel, and that there was neither a tiger nor a baby in my hotel room when I woke up this morning.

It was Saturday night in Las Vegas and I dont know how many of those I will have in my life so I headed for the Hard Rock Cafe on the strip where the crawl was starting. I was given a name badge and told to put my Vegas name on it. I chose Simon Cowell, finally giving in to the overwhelming statements of ‘Hey Rob, do you know who you remind me of?’ which I have encountered since landing at JFK airport in New York. It seemed to go down well with the people I met out of the 220 who were on the organised crawl.

After an hour there we moved on to the Coyote Ugly bar at NewYork-New York, and from there on to Tabu at MGM Grand, which is where I took this picture. After that it was the Bagatelle Club at Tropicana, where I was diappointed that the drinks were not in fact free.

The final stop was LAX at Luxor Hotel but I didnt stay long because I was already quite hammered. I caught a taxi home without any brushes with ladies of the night.

Although a beer is the last thing I want right now I feel I have to offer praise to US beer in general, which has been surprisingly good everywhere I have been. There are loads of micro breweries making delightful Indian Pale Ales and in all the beers I have consumed I think I am yet to have a poor pint.

That Newcastle Brown Ale has been sold everywhere in all the cities I have visited as an exotic foreign import beer in the same vein that at home a Czech, Belgian or American one might be is quite amusing. It is what I started my drinking career with back in the eighties.

A lovely bar maid called Traci I was chatting up earlier in the week told me I should go see Red Rock Canyon which is only a few miles outside of Vegas. The voyages of Dr Doolittle continue and it comes as no surprise that I see this Mountain Lion near the visitors centre. That it is dead and stuffed is not that important, because I am told that there are plenty of them about and I should hope not to encounter one. I have some personal experience with big cats, but they are more impressed that my cousin Christopher catches lions for a living (www.wildconevents.co.za) than they are with my explanation on the Beast of Sydenham (http://www.standard.co.uk/news/hunt-for-beast-of-sydenham-7249671.html) from the neighbourhood of my flat in London.

There is plenty of other things to be mindful of though. I can hear, but do not see, a rattlesnake while walking on one of the trail paths, and decide that not hanging about might be best. I’m aware that there are scorpions all over the place too. I am just too slow to get a picture of the Coyote who runs off into the brush as I approach. There are also golden eagles and bald eagles nesting in the rocks.

Despite all this the only thing to get a warning sign is the humble tortoise, which has me in stitches.

The canyon itself is stunning and I would be more impressed had I not seen the Grand Canyon a few days ago.

I enjoy my standard fayre of ham and cheese sandwhiches by the side of the road before heading back to Vegas at the end of a charming day.

The desert has wonderful moonrises. This is actually the eastern sky as the sun goes down in the west, which I drive towards all the way back to the hotel. Beautiful

I saw an absolutely brilliant show at Caesar’s Palace last night. It is in a small circus style tent on the forecourt at the front of the casino. It is about as politically incorrect as you could ever possibly be but VERY, VERY funny. 

 The circus style acts are jaw dropping-ly good too, and because it is such a small tent you are really close to the action.

I loved it and my sides were hurting a one point through laughing so much. Absolutely brilliant. I don’t know if it will ever tour but if it does go see it. You wont regret it.

I noticed that some of the showgirls were rather easy on the eye too.

😉

 Walking through the casino I spotted this statue of Joe Louis whose grave I had stumbled upon in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. Upon reflection I cant say which is the more suitable epitaph for the great man.

The night is young though and I have plenty of life left in me so I am willing to chance my arm once more in the casino itself, and surprise myself by actually winning back the cash I had lost previously.

I did it playing Blackjack for hours at the Pussycat Dolls tables within Caesar’s Palace.

That I was able to concentrate at all given what was going on around me is nothing short of staggering.

My good fortune does not go unnoticed however and after having cashed in I head for the door opening it to allow a lady through first, only to discover that she may not be quite so much of a lady as I first imagined! Passing up her very persuasive proposition I drive the little green surf machine home chuckling like an eight year old school boy all the way back.

I think it is a good job I am leaving Las Vegas on Sunday! It wouldn’t be hard to go right off the rails here.

No this isn’t another interesting road sign. It is a reference to the rating for the Adult Entertainment Expo which started yesterday at the Hard Rock Hotel.

I’m sure you can imagine my absolute distress at hearing that all these attractive young women would be on show for a few days while I am in town. By way of solidarity I went down there to show them some moral support today and forming a one man picket line I must have stared in protest for hours! It was a tough day for me, but somebody had to do it.

On the plus side I got to see the latest installment on the star wars saga. Star Wars XXX – A New Hole.

Sin City, what can you say?

At least there is every chance of seeing one on Sunday. A monster swell is coming this way and the Mavericks break south of San Francisco, which I rather wisely swerved on my way south is going to be absolutely firing this weekend. The Mavericks Invitational event organisd by the great Jeff Clark himself, has been given the go ahead and the contest is being run from 8am Pacific Standard Time (which is 4pm UK time) and will be streamed live on the following link:

http://mavericksinvitational.com/