Dear Diary...

This is the first entry in my sketchbook/journal from El Salvador. I was scribbling down notes for a forthcoming Wend Magazine piece. Stay tuned.

Gringo Mask, El Salvador 2009

A drawing I did in Las Flores between sessions. Stranger in a strange and wonderful land.

Counter Point (Punta Roca, Pt. 2)

As I mentioned before, on our last day of the El Salvador trip we weren't so lucky. Our luck, in this case, had less to do with bodily harm or broken boards than the plain fact that we couldn't get waves. The swell we'd been watching for weeks had finally moved in — and so did every local Salvadorian shredder, as well as a group of traveling American pros we'd been trying to avoid all week. They happened to be traveling through the same tour outfit as ours, but our guides were doing their best to keep us out of each others' way. We'd been assured that the pros were going to surf somewhere else Saturday morning, but the gravitational pull of Punta Roca proved too strong and they paddled out at the point minutes after us under the watchful eyes of their photographer's and videographer's telephoto lenses.

With the six professionals and the 30+ locals and other traveling surfers in the lineup (Saturday draws surfers from around the country), the scene was pretty hectic. The "rules" we'd learned from our guide didn't seem to apply anymore, with the American pros sitting deeper than anyone and taking off on anything. I remember set waves coming through with three guys dropping in, their white wakes trailing like jetstreams behind, threatening to cross as they streaked back up the face and under the lip.

The chief local — the dude in the top picture above — wasn't having it at first. He blatantly dropped in on guys one after another, picking them off like an assassin, forcing them to straighten out and bail with their tiny boards flicked out ahead to keep them away from the maelstrom. But the pros got their waves, as did the locals, who made up for any lack of acrobatic trickery with flowing power turns and critical drops that exhibited years of experience at Punta Roca.

And there were barrels to be had. Plenty. I saw one wave were the same local pictured stood straight up inside the gut of a bomb and dragged his fingers along the roof, smiling and hooting the whole way. To be sitting in such close proximity to these massive, perfectly shaped waves – sometimes just catchting a glimpse over the ledge at a rider speeding under a thick lip — was a rare treat. It was a ringside seat at a world-class sporting event. But I couldn't help but dream about breaks in El Salvador's East, where the waves may have been less perfect, but where it was just me and my two friends alone on an exotic coast.

In the end, we just paddled in after a couple hours, back down along the point to where it turns into a second break called La Paz. Our motel overlooked this break and for the previous four days and it was always mushy — a great option for longboarders, but we had no incentive to try it. This day though, the increase in swell gave it some size and punch. Waves would wrap from the outside rocks (the end of Punta Roca) all the way into the bay to the sand. We rode as many of these shoulder-high peelers as our arms would allow, before the 200 yard paddle became too much. Then we exited on the black sand, negociated the cobblestones, climbed the stairs, and walked back through the village to our motel where we packed our bags for home.


Above: My last wave of the trip, trying to make it all the way to the pier at La Paz. Special thanks to our guide (and friend) Joaquin Aragon for shooting the awesome photos above (and many more of us that won't make his portfolio).

Counter Point (Punta Roca, Pt. 1)

Punta Roca is a right-hand point break that can deliver long, spoke-like bombs that explode over a shoreline of cobblestones and jagged lava rocks. Along the 400-yard walk to the point, you pass a wall sprayed with local graffiti (behind which lies an ominous graveyard) and tiptoe through debris scattered among the wobbly stones. When you finally reach the jumpoff spot, you get a court-side view of the wave, which at times seems to be breaking right on the boulders. On a good day, the sight of the swells lining up and falling like dominoes — precisely spaced with razor-sharp edges — is nothing short of "perfecto."

Perfecto. That's what our guide Joaquin called it over the last couple days of our El Salvador trip, when the long-awaited swell finally started filling in. The first time we surfed it was Friday morning. The photo on top is my first wave, on a board I'd never ridden, after having just been thrown backwards across the rocks on my shaky entry. The sun hadn't even risen yet. It was 6am.

The reason we were out so early was because when this place works, it gets crowded fast. As you can imagine, the local surfers and bodyboarders aren't so fond of alien invasions, as is the case with any other world-class wave. Joaquin briefed us the night before, drawing a map on his hand: "The main peak is here," he said, pointing to a spot near his fingertip, "but we'll be sitting here." He tapped a spot closer to his palm. "Anyway, if you sit out there and you don't know this wave at low tide, you won't make the section and you WILL end up on the rocks."

So we followed his directions carefully the next day: how to time the entry (kind of), where to be, where not to be. For the first hour, we were among only 5 other surfers and our trio got quite a few waves. It was only a matter of time before the number of surfers doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled. And the locals did what locals do anywhere: they paddled around the new faces and got any waves they wanted. And we behaved ourselves, sat where we were told, and got some wide-swinging rights that felt as if there were 10,000 horses sprinting shoulder-to-shoulder behind the 8-foot green faces.

One of our boards was snapped like a toothpick, but we all paddled in three hours later with good rides under our belts and smiles on our faces. The next day we weren't so lucky.

GREETINGS FROM EL SALVADOR

We´ve been in Las Flores and La Libertad for the past six days. Lots of fun right point breaks everywhere. Big swell is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Much more to come...

WISH YOU WERE HERE...
(But maybe not in the lineup)