It was a great trip to Mexico - we had waves everyday, a great place to stay, good fresh food and the requisite "bumps in the road" (not talking topes).
Our Vartanian Quiver on the lawn at House of Waves; I'm the only convert in this crew
Enjoying an empty line-up during "SUP time" in the afternoon
We arrived in Ixtapa all in one piece, Moe, Carly, Sam, I and our friends Mike, and Ashley. After succumbing to the persistent and unflinching car rental clerk we paid the Mexico insurance (which supposedly we didn't need)and headed north. We drove the hour north to Los Llanos, picked up provisions and then on to The House of Waves, our home in Saladita for the week. The next morning Moe watched our 17 month old, Carly, while I headed out for the early session. It was classic head high, glassy, consistent point surf. Great waves but the only problem is everyone on the beach surfs the morning session including Corky Carroll, Saladita's requisite retired surf pro. During one of my long paddles back up the point I was approached by Corky and given "the talk". "This is not the place for a Stand Up, you can go over there to the outer reef or way over there to the river mouth." I say "look Corky I'm respectful of everyone else out here, not in anyone's way and further more I'm just picking up scraps in the middle; you won't even see me." He continues "The problem with you picking up scraps on the inside is that when someone pulls up and sees you surfing on a stand up, they're going to think that Saladita is a good place to stand up paddle surf and we don't want that here." As is the case with most conversations in the line-up we were interrupted by some wave ridding (thank god!). When we resumed Corky made one last attempt to regulate "ok well at least try not to come out when it is busy in the morning, it's already too crowded at that time and I have a hard enough time getting waves." The next morning I chose to prone surf Maureen's new Vartanian surfboard and loved it. I paddled up to Corky and thanked him for my re-introduction to prone surfing. I chose to play nice and for the rest of the week, I basically watched Carly while Moe surfed the crowded Corky sessions, and I SUP surfed before and after them. There was always at least an hour of light in the morning before any of the crowd showed up and everyone would go in around 10 am, leaving the place relatively empty the rest of the day - "SUP time".
Aside from all the great surfing we ate well too. I love the fresh basic food in Mexico- mangos, bannanas, avacados, fresh seafood, rice, beans and fresh tortillas...and limons with rum. We had two great meals at Tony's in Los Llanos, fish tacos with blue corn tortillas one night and fresh langostas (lobster) the next night. In fact, from our patio at house of waves, we watched a lone skin diver, dive for our lobster dinner earlier that afternoon.
I believe it behooves us as SUP folks to KILL IT! but also be compasionate and understand the age old consept that you get more bees with honey. SUP will continue to grow and there will be conflict with non-SUP surfers. I suggest you play nice because the fact of the matter is we get more waves, stay out longer and have more fun than prone surfers, so give them a break and let them have some waves.
