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Layne Beachley, Jodie Nelson and crew have an otherworldly experience in Baja
By:
Alison Berkley
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March 31, 2006
930 visits
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Forget about exotic boat trips to Indo, racing the dolphins at J-Bay, carving down monster faces on the North Shore or all the miles in between.
As seasoned world travelers Layne Beachley, Jodie Nelson and friends recently discovered, some of the best waves in the world still exist under our noses -- in this case, Baja. Who would have guessed that perfection could be so easy to find?
This is their story. |
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SEAN COLLINS: We don't go to Baja unless we know it's going to be good. We spent too many years down there getting skunked. Back in the old days, I literally spent months in Mexico waiting for waves. It's so hard to get it good at some of these areas -- it isn't just about swell direction and size, but what's happening farther offshore. A lot of variables can make or break a swell. I've spent a lot of years of studying ocean floor contours as well as the personality of each spot. That's kind of how I became a wave forecaster in the first place. I just couldn't afford to spend the time anymore. After going down there for 30 years, I think we finally have the place pretty wired. This particular trip came about in July when we saw a really good storm brewing in the southern hemisphere. It wasn't the perfect storm, but it had a lot of good things about it for some of the spots we like to surf in Baja. We had some good satellite fixes on it, and the data looked really good, so I decided to pull some buddies together for a trip. I called Peter [Broulliet], who I've been bopping around Baja with for years, and told my son Tyler to get his act together. Then I read in the paper that Layne [Beachley] had lost early in the US Open at Hungtington and she mentioned in the article that she might be going to Cabo. I knew that Layne and Ken [Bradshaw] always wanted to go to Baja with us. They were staying at Jodie Nelson's -- I've known Jodie since she was two years old. So I jammed over there and rousted Layne. "I hadn't surfed eight hours in a day since I was a teenager."
-Layne Beachley
LAYNE BEACHLEY: I had just lost in the quarterfinals at the US Open in Huntington. The next morning, the doorbell rang. Everyone was out surfing and I had just woken up and Sean came over and proposed a trip to some random spot in Baja. I had never even heard of the place. I wasn't even awake yet. I was delirious. I was exhausted. I was depressed. I was ready to slit my wrists. [Laughs.] So I told him to pass it by everyone else and see if they wanted to go. I said it sounded good, but I didn't even want to deal with it. The next thing I know, we're going to Mexico. We woke up the next morning, packed our stuff and hit the road. SEAN: We pulled up to the spot right before dark and people were saying, 'You should have been here a few days ago.' But I have a technique where I can identify new swells compared to old swells, and I knew that the new swell was already beginning to show. We were just in time to avoid the crowds who were on it for the first swell but couldn't hang around for the second one. When we arrived, we could see the new lines, even in the dark. It was super high tide, but there were still good breaking waves. That just confirmed what we already knew to be true. Sure enough, when we woke up the next morning, it was going off. JODIE: I couldn't believe it. We got there and the swell was just hitting. We timed it just right. Everything was really perfect. Show up, waves are pumping. LAYNE: Drive down there, no problems. We got perfect waves, had a great little palapa, fantastic crew, the crowd was mellow and the swell was the best it's been all summer. It was so easy. I couldn't believe it. JODIE: When I first paddled out, before I even caught a wave, I just had a grin ear-to-ear. I was laughing and I didn't even know why. LAYNE: Ken and Tyler were counting my turns from the back of the wave. They counted 11 or 12 vertical snaps off the lip. I never realized my legs were so weak. After the 11th turn, I think I started lactating. [Laughs.] At the end of every wave, you just turn around and paddle out no matter how far in you'd ridden it. You just wanted to go out and catch another one. SEAN: This wave -- it's a treadmill. LAYNE: I hadn't surfed eight hours in a day since I was a teenager. JODIE: What's weird is it's so close to home, but I got that same feeling I get when we go on Indo trips. The beauty of the wave and the water -- it seemed worlds away. But it was so easy. It made it hard for us to appreciate how difficult it is to get that wave that good. TYLER COLLINS (Sean's 17-year-old son): When we showed up with so many people, everyone was like, 'At least they're girls.' But they quickly realized what the situation was out in the water. The girls were the ones taking all the waves and paddling circles around everybody. LAYNE: There we were being blessed in the best place I'd seen or surfed in so long and then some guys were throwing us attitude when we first paddled out. Brooke and Jodie and I outsurfed them to the point where they didn't come out again. I don't know where they went; maybe they just sat on the beach and watched us. We felt like we had taken over for a couple of days. It really was empowering. We earned respect not only for ourselves, but also for women's surfing. It's about time guys took notice of the abilities and capabilities that we have. We went out there on the two best days they've had all summer and gave it our all and had a fantastic time doing it. We were obviously the three most vocal in the water -- as I am anywhere -- and we had such a good time. It made the guys realize that not only are girls good surfers, but we enjoy what we do. I think guys get too uptight in the water. They have too much testosterone -- too much to prove. We don't feel like we have much to prove to anybody. We just go out and enjoy it and that proves enough. TYLER: My opinion has definitely been swayed as to the level of women's surfing. I've never seen a group of girls surf so well on such a good wave. I expected they'd do OK, but they killed it. I was totally inspired. LAYNE: There were times when it was so perfect and there were so many waves and the guys wouldn't always paddle as far. So I would paddle up to them and say, 'OK, I've allocated myself as the priority buoy. If you want priority, you've got to paddle around me.' Then I'd go outside of them, and then I'd get the set and they'd be cheering me into it. TIM [Tyler's 17-year-old buddy]: I've never really traveled or surfed with girls before, and we roll up there with three of them. They were always messing around with us, punching us in the stomach and stuff like that. Not to kiss their butt or anything, but they had so much style, I was really impressed. LAYNE: I actually got bored with my surfing. I was trying to perfect my technique, and then when I got it down, I should have started going for more. I just didn't want to waste a wave trying to pull off something I didn't know how to do. I just hope we get another opportunity to go down and do it again. I don't care how small it is, that thing is perfect. It's ridiculous! Take me or lose me forever, Sean. SEAN: I've been going down there for close to 30 years, and Layne probably surfed it about as good as I've ever seen anybody surf it. People live a lifetime to get the waves that Layne got, I swear to god. LAYNE: I've lived 28 years to get the waves I got. MORE WOMENS SURFLINE HOME PAGE |
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