To Cabo San Lucas and the East Coast
by Bryson

Don’t drive down a 4X4 only road in an old 2-wheel drive pick-up in the middle of the Baja desert. Even if there is a rumor of an amazing wave at the end of the “short” dirt road, which “lots of 2 wheel drive cars drive down”, getting horribly stuck is not worth it. I wish I could tell you this advice was given to us and not learnt first hand but I would be lying. As soon as we started down the road we knew we were not getting back out.

One evening last week, we decided we needed a break. We were getting burnt out on all the jobs, lists, shopping, building, painting, etc and needed to go for a surf. Not just a quick surf in the morning but a couple of days away from the boat and it’s inherent jobs. We headed for the south end of the peninsula, and the East Cape.

The East Cape of the Baja peninsula is famous for its warm water, good right hand point breaks and empty beaches. Sounded like just the place for us to set-up shop for a couple days and relax. After a quick phone call with the beautiful Miss Jess, we were off to find some surf. The buoy reports looked good and the truck was stuffed with Sitka boards, West wetsuits, Creatures leashes and enough sunscreen to keep us going (Note: Bring lots of water if heading this way).

We had a good evening surf at Shipwreck Bay and watched a pretty incredible sunset (Forgot to take photo’s though), and got super excited to try and find this new wave the next day. Big barreling right-hander… say no more.

Directions: Follow sketchy dirt road for 20 km, turn right at the rundown house, 10 km more, turn at the giant cactus and follow the rather (read: extremely) rough road to the end. May encounter some sandy sections and will definitely need a 4X4. We chose to ignore the last part and go anyway. Wilfred is amazing and will be able to pull it off, we thought. But after the second turn, we knew we were in trouble and were not getting back out. So we boycotted going for a surf and decided to try and get the truck out ASAP. We walked back up the sandy hill and tried to pick good hard spots for traction. After finding none, we decided to try the only real approach we know. Just give ‘er. Get as much speed as possible and see how far you make it. Hugh climbed in the back of the truck under the canopy to give us some extra weight over the rear tires and I floored it back up the hill. We were bouncing, and drifting, and sliding and slowly making it up the hill… Until we hit the really soft sand. Wilfred then decided he liked the idea of throwing sand more than driving and proceeded to dig deep (Not the drivers fault at all.). So we decided to back down the hill and try again. Not happening… Wilfred wasn’t moving. After a wander through the scrub lands we found a couple of pieces of wood and some scrubs we thought might give us some traction. And after digging a hole behind each wheel with our shovels (read: Sandals) and stuffing it with whatever we could, we managed to reverse back to the bottom of the hill.

Now we needed help and so began the “Trial of the Trucks”.

Contestant Number 1: Brand-new Rental Hummer H3 driven by Joe American Surfer. Failure. Managed to blow the diff on his truck and only get us about 10m up the hill. Driver Marks: 2/10

Left us to wander the “main” road in search of someone else. A 20-minute walk down this dusty double track in the midday sun, led us to Contestant Number 2.

Contestant Number 2: Jacked-up Ford 150 driven by Mexican Construction Worker. Failure. Got his truck stuck up the wheel wells but was very helpful despite our lack of a common language. Nice guy, too bad he couldn’t help. Driver Marks: 5/10

He left us sitting on the hood of Wilfred trying to decide who was going to hitch back to San Jose and who was going to spend the night in the desert with the car. Then Contestant Number 3 showed up.

Contestant Number 3: Jeep YJ driven by Joe American Surfer 2. Didn’t even try, just said there was no chance and drove us to find someone else. Driver Marks: 0/10

10 km back down the road at another surf spot, there was a group of people surfing and relaxing. We told our sob story and most people were sorry for us but unwilling to help too much. Until we ran into Anton. Anton said he had nothing better to do and needed a distraction anyway. When we saw his car, we scoffed and said that there was no chance that it was going to be able to do the job. He was insistent and we had no other options.

Contestant Number 4: Old Rusty Ford Econoline Van driven by Anton, a Baja vet. Success! Slowly and carefully dragged us up the hill without even slipping a tire. Driver Marks: 10/10

Lesson learnt, never underestimate the value in the slow and steady. And experience counts for a lot more than a little more horsepower and steam.

Now we are back at work. In the next couple days we will fire a quick list of some of the things we have done to give everyone a better idea of what is involved with our day-to-day lives of boat work.