A trip from February which has never seen the light of day in the surf mags... So here it is in interweb form... Pics here.
In which our heroines- Bethanwy Mason, Gwendolen Spurlock and Anastasia Swallow head Stateside to traverse the Golden State from north to south in search of waves, good times, ice-fuelled mentalists, celeb’s and the perfect breakfast pancake… (Whilst also attempting to turn one previously sane surf photographer completely doo-lally through the sickening mental torture of Lady GaGa on infinite repeat).
Things didn’t start well. I’d got on a plane in the tropical heat of Bali at the end of January and got off in a London that was battening down the hatches for a serious winter storm. ‘No problem,’ think I, ‘we don’t get proper snow anymore!’ I was wrong- three days of public transport free, snowy, house arrest and many flight cancellations later I was en route to Heathrow unsure if we’d be going to California at all…
We landed in San Francisco, which was nice, apart from the minor fact they didn’t let Gwen in. The rest of us had the normal green visa waiver form- you know the one with all the silly questions: Are you a beardy terrorist infidel? Were you involved in Nazi war crimes 30-years before you were born? Ain’t got a kilo of coke stuffed up your bum have ya? Oi, mush, you ever thrown a shoe at George Dubya Bush? etc. The G-Unit has a proper US visa thanks to her dad being born there and it seemed more of a hindrance than a help as she was detained and quizzed for over half an hour whilst we sailed through and perfected the art of thumb twiddling waiting with the bags. Finally on the road we pointed the rad automatic people carrier in the general direction of Santa Cruz and after an hour or so arrived in the real Surf City USA. It was dark, late and we were all knackered so we booked into a cheap looking but reasonable motel that had the benefit of being two doors down from the Santa Cruz Diner. The family room was kitsch but huge and for $60 between four of us an absolute bargain. Sleep took us swiftly…
The next morning saw our first and only full American breakfast. Now our brethren across the pond think brekkie is more than a bowl of Oatbix and a mug of tea… Eggs, sausages, bacon, hash browns, toast, OJ and infinite coffee refills are plenty for any normal, non-morbidly obese person to contend with. The idea of breakfast pudding is uniquely American: the pancake, or rather two-inch high pile of pancakes is designed to make you fat- it exists for no other reason. Smothered in maple syrup and artery-bunging butter you somehow defy the physical constraints of your digestive system and fit it in anyway. The one benefit of such a breakfast is that you don’t need to eat for another two days afterwards…
Wobbling onto check the surf it was found to be lacking, the famous Steamer Lane set up looked insane though, it was also raining and we got a parking ticket when we parked briefly to check out the cosy town centre (note for tourists, don’t let your cars nose stray a few mm near a red kerb, it bad). Things had to get better. They didn’t…Stone cold sleepy from the time difference we were awoken at two in the morning by a bizarre noise- it sounded like barking, but human… When staying in seedy motels in strange lands the standard response is to roll over and hope whatever it is goes away. It didn’t. Whatever was making the otherworldly racket was living next door. It became apparent it was a man shouting but a man that could only make noise for 2-seconds before his vocal chords gave out and so it was like listening to someone ranting while a caddish mate turned the volume up and down. He was mad as shit about something though. Shouting in his room, at our door, in the car park, wandering off and coming back shouting all the while. An hour later it was getting a bit old. Gwen helpfully suggested opening the door, we thought that was a bad idea… Hiding under the duvets was a much better plan. That was our first mentalist- the first of many…
Steamer Lane finally turned on for a day after agreeably giving us a few days to shake off the jetlag. The point is insanely long, from the hectic first peak all the way through the fun middle sections on into the longboard friendly inside section near the pier. It was a Saturday so it was busy but getting waves was possible. As a first dip into the Californian waters the girls were pretty stoked, more than anything as a way to shift some pancake calories. That night we’d lost the shouty man and his replacement was a psycho woman who woke us up at 2am shouting outside our door ‘you better get out of that room fucker! Or you’re going back to prison!” and various other things not fit to print on a family website. We were waiting for gunfire but it never happened. She took her shouting somewhere else. The next morning so did we- south, via a tour of the amazing Monterey Aquarium and onto the Big Sur…
Now here’s the thing I didn’t realise about California it is wild, really wild, not in a guns and crystalmeth freak on every corner way but a beautiful, unspoilt, wildlife everywhere, natural wilderness way. The Big Sur is stunning. No wonder it features in a million TV car ads. Nearly a 100-miles of untainted coastline with nothing but a few discreet houses dotted around (amazing views agreed but when popping out for a pint of milk takes the whole day then it loses its appeal) and it is one of the world’s best coastal drives. South of the Big Sur is equally wild as the landscape is dominated by huge ranches and bigger military bases which perversely are doing a fantastic job of preserving the wildlife and natural environment, well, the bits of it they aren’t blowing up… 8-hours of wilderness driving later -passing beaches covered in thousands of elephant seals en route- we got to the classy town of Santa Barbara. Home of Kelly Slater, movie stars and a main street that sent the girls shopping mad. Now here’s a weird thing driving from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara the big chunk in the middle is pretty much free of surf- probably a good thing cos it must be sharky as buggery. Around SB there’s so much potential but it needs a big NW swell, which we didn’t have, on the flip side Rincon is just down the road…
This was originally run on the site as a 2-parter... Stuck together now as one.The story continues... Pics are here.
Now if you live in Mid-Wales you know the score on boulder point breaks. Rincon is just like that except it’s a right and you get people like Dane and Slat’s surfing it all the time and there’s no caravans but a gated community of extremely expensive houses. It’s a perfect set up. Flawless. Well, apart from the freeway some idiot built at the base of the point… Love to know how many freeway pile ups are caused every time it’s any good, driving from the south you can see straight into the barrel and see the lines zipping around the point for about 5-mins before you pass it.
Imagine trying to not watch as Slater took apart a 6-foot set wave. You’d be wedged under a Mack truck with a face full of airbag before you knew it. We scored it small, crowded but fun. Rincon is never uncrowded, even when it’s flat there’ll be 20 old longboarders sat out there. They range from the super-friendly- take the older lady, ‘is this you girls first time surfing Rincon? Welcome!!!’ to the grumpy old dude, ‘just as well you’re wearing a helmet cos you’re gonna get your brain smashed out’ (a particularly insensitive remark seeing as Gwen’s wearing a helmet cos she had brain surgery last year, she was too flabbergasted to tell him to ‘feck off’). We hung for a few days until we figured out that US surf reports are literal- as in 3ft of swell is just that 3ft… as in comes up to your waist. It didn’t get much above 3-4ft in our whole trip… SB was cool, there weren’t any celebs, which disappointed the girls, they’d hoped for at least a minor character from The Hills or some other MTV reality brain-buggering dribble but we did encounter a great nutter. We were just walking downtown (from our digs the awesome Presidio Motel) when a dude came lurching out a church clasping a crucifix in his hand, ‘I should burn that fucking place down!’ he snarled at us. We smiled politely and walked fast. ‘Hey! You ever thought of going on a diet?’ he shouted after the girls, they were stoked… We moved on south, Ventura where Dane’s from has some awesome set ups, and from there on to L.A is surf spot central… In a good swell Cali is holding.
We didn’t stay in L.A favouring somewhere less mental, you know down the league table a tad for drive-bys and car-jackings. Oceanside was the call, close to Trestles and nestled nicely between L.A and San Diego. Our beachfront condo was perfect, check the surf from the balcony, walk out the back door and be in the water in less than a minute. OS has a super fun beachy with a long pier and jetties to anchor decent sandbars. As we’d discovered solo sessions don’t happen in Cali but the crew there were friendly enough and it was surfable in a small way everyday pretty much. We didn’t get to hit Trestles in the end cos it seemed a bit pointless with weeny swell. We did hit L.A for a day and the girls saw the fat dude with glasses and curly hair from the film Superbad on Rodeo Drive so they’d got a genuine celeb spot. Not having seen the film I wasn’t that impressed… On Venice Beach a bum stared right at Gwen’s face with an incredulous look on his face and said, ‘Shit!’ and walked off. Nutters 4- Us 0.After three weeks of weeny waves and not very Californian weather (wettest February this year) we decided to bail inland. Death Valley was the destination- the lowest, driest and hottest place in the US. If we couldn’t get a tan there we really were stuffed. It has been 56˚C there in the summer, we’d be stoked with 20-something. The Californian desert is amazing, amazingly weird on the drive out there cos you wonder what the hell people do living in the arse end of nowhere but in the desert and Death Valley proper where there’s no people it blows your mind. To think that the early settlers crossed those deserts after having made it through the Rockies gives me shivers. Those dudes were hardcore…
After more geology than is strictly necessary we headed for our last port of call: Las Vegas, known as ‘Sin City’, seeing as I was there with three under 21-year olds it was more ‘Nice Tourist Looking At Stuff Not Gambling Drinking Or Doing Anything Naughty Town’. It was still fun, it’s a crazy place, the nutters are on another level as well- one rabid looking dude who must have been crystalmeth’d up to the eyeballs staggered passed us looking like he’d eat the face off the first person that dared look him in the eyes… All I could transmit telepathically to the girls was- ‘please… don’t… laugh…’ they didn’t and we survived.
So. Cali. Is it worth a trip? Definitely. We didn’t score it crazy good but the potential was obvious everywhere. People are friendly -especially the homeless crazy people- they’ll talk to you all day and the food was awesome (as long as meat and cheese are your favourite food groups)...
Oh and one final thing- while we were waiting for the plane home in Vegas’s diddy little airport a British woman won $2500 on the pokies. That’s right in Vegas they have fruitys even at the departure gates…
Big thanks to:- Virgin Atlantic- awesome service, no board charge, our hosties were not as hot as the ones on the TV ad though? Santa Cruz Diner- for making us fat, Presidio Motel Santa Barbara- free wifi, big rooms, free brekkie, good price www.thepresidiomotel.com, Frank for the condo in Oceanside www.franksbeachcondos.com, Alamo for a sick deal on the rental car and Mummy Mason for being stand in travel agent while I was out the loop in Indo.
Oh and the pic is the girls checking out Death Valley- an awesome place.
