Pangas are fiberglass boats common throughout Mexico and much of the developing world, with upswept bow, good for beach landing.
Three guys were fishing, two jumped out, and this guy went back out, waited for the right swell, then gunned it.
They then pulled in farther with a Datsun truck.
Somewhere in Baja this morning (post written on February 6).
This is not me; in fact my first time out in three years was hardly successful last night; one prone ride and feeling pretty tired from being out of shape.
Had great swim with goggles this morning, water 73 degrees.
Meeting totally great people, Mexicans and gringos, all tuned into the natural world, especially the sea.
Photo of Ranchera on Naranjos Road rancho about 30 years ago. Below is much farther back.
It’s really unusual to hear about Baja this far back.
Hi Lloyd! My, how tasty a menu of treats your latest flyer presented Geraldine and me! You’re heading to Baja and I first flew down, with my dad piloting his trusty Cessna 180, when I was a junior in high school ~ 1954 ~ and our first stop was at Santa Rosalia for fuel which the sole attendant hand pumped from rusty 55 gal drums into our screened funnel. Dad was raised in France and his home apartment elevator was a classic engineered by Eiffel … so we were impressed to visit Eiffel’s chapel there when the French were mining … Muleje was a favorite overnight and when the prison was operating they freed the prisoners in daylight and on the honor system they returned at night. In the plaza ~ evenings ~ the boys strolled clockwise and the gals otherwise with amazing eyeballing etc. We flew to La Paz and visited, with dad’s insistence, “La Vista Hermosa” which was a whorehouse of renown … We set off for San Jose del Cabo, a tiny shrimper hamlet, and landed on a narrow strip strewn with white seashells and no other planes! We walked to the Rodrigues Posada, the only inn in town, with six, maybe eight rooms! The only gringos who visited there were occasional bill-fishers. There was absolutely NO development there nor at Cabo San Lucas … I’ve been doing Baja in my 17′ RV, a TDI VW Coupe and one winter, after the America’s Cup racing on San Francisco Bay, sailed down with the BajaHaHa cruise and hauled out and trucked home from Guaymas…
I believe we met thru ED STILES, an old buddy, or maybe HUEY JOHNSON whom I’d known in his school-teaching days in Boise before Nature Conservancy and TPL or maybe when you visited the PacNW inasmuch as I live at Rangerville … and Ranger and I went to the memorial pot-luck (Plenty POT!) for Sun Ray up Day Creek … and I know we sent you fotos of the Gnome Dome that the crew built at R’ville, in Alger!
In 1977 I homebuilt a snazzy cabin (#92) at Salmon Beach, under Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, built upon pilings in The Narrows and I’ve often wondered if you ever wandered down to Salmon Beach as it shows the creative flair of community love action.
Enjoy your adventures, Lloyd, and many thanks for catching your admirers up!
Hugs! George Jay, Rangerville in summertime, Oceanside in wintertime
Got Doug to shoot this because I want to see if I can improve my form.
Any suggestions from swimmers?
Getting into a beautiful body of water like this makes me want to reverse the aquatic-to-terrestrial transition from water to land of 300 million years ago and go back to living in the water.
Story of our flood adventure in yesterday’s Santa Cruz Sentinel:
My Santa Cruz roommate George Kovalenko and I went down the San Lorenzo River on our surfboards in 1955, during the biggest flood in Santa Cruz history.
The water was up over the parking meters on the main street. It was a gray, drizzly day, and George and I put in by Paradise Park and got swept down the river, along with cars, uprooted trees, sections of houses, and refrigerators. Every bridge across the river had collapsed; it was pretty scary.
Morons!
When we got out down by the ferris wheel at the river mouth, the cops said they were going to arrest us, but they got diverted by other emergencies and we slipped away.
These 67-year old photos were almost illegible. Rick Gordon performed some Photoshop magic to get this much out of them.
Note: I was interviewed by Jessica York, a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel yesterday for an article on our adventure.
Lit with ultraviolet flashlight.
Photo by Tjarn Takuji Sato, sent us by Elise Cannon.
Last Thursday I saw two guys digging in the sand at Stinson Beach. They were collecting what are called “sand crabs,” or “decapod crustaceans.” Also called mole crabs. The guys were Salvadorans and told me they would be cooking them with tomatoes and having over rice.
The next day Doug and I got a batch, boiled them for 10 minutes, then marinated in olive oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and red peppers and fried at high heat, as shown here, in walnut oil.
They were delicious, like crunchy shrimp.
Rod, Steamer Lane. Rod was a powerful swimmer, the Laird Hamilton of ’50s Santa Cruz. Fearless.
Rod going left at the Lane, which very few people did in those days. We surfed without wet suits, summer and winter!
Rod doing a hasty reattachment of skeg. That’s Pat Curren at left, me on right. On the cliffs facing Santa Cruz pier.
Jack O’Neill at Steamer Lane in the ’50s
One of the early wetsuits
Jack had this kite flyer at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, before he moved to Santa Cruz. This thing would get up to high speeds. I was his insurance broker when he opened The Surf Shop on The Great Highway in SFO in the early ’50s. Some time I’ll tell you the story of how Jack made his first wetsuit. Spoiler alert: he did not invent the wetsuit.