SLIDE PROTOTYPE GRID LAYOUT Conceptual Design Documentation 1720xx-Alex Knost-LayoutGrid Created | 240710.1600
DOWN HERE Photos and Words by Chris Klopf
A
new day. My watch broke last week, and I don’t know what day or time it is anymore. It doesn’t seem to really matter anyway. Outside, brisk winds are whistling loudly through the coconut trees, the sunrise glinting off the leaves. A new swell is pounding, echoing softly from the hillside. The waves went from almost flat yesterday to pumping last night, amidst a colorful sunset. Today’s dawn revealed a fresh southern hemi hitting from Tahiti, and the northeasterly winds are throwing huge plumes of spray off distant waves on the reef. This place is deserted, like a Wild West ghost town. Scrawny dogs lie in the middle of the road while Papagayos blow large clouds of red dust that covers everything in their path. The reddish dirt slowly absorbs into your skin and all your clothing, giving them a semi permanent tint. The roosters crow, and the fresh swell pounds a bass backbeat to the loud, prehistoric, guttural sounds of howler monkeys. The sun is filtering morning light through a teak forest, and multicolored parrots cackle and eat fruits in the Jocote trees outside my cabina. A coconut drops off a tree; a large iguana clatters across the tin and tile roof. All these sounds together are creating a symphony verging on sensory overload, piercing the predawn silence like this just about every morning.
It’s a whole different reality down here, a radical contrast to the hectic ratrace lifestyle in California. I haven’t heard a phone ring, the dreary daily news, or received any junk mail or overdue bills for months. Calling the states and the wife on my laptop, she says the water pipes are frozen again, and there’s a series of strong winter storms bearing down on Northern California. I talk two hours for the cost of a local cerveza. Up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning to do some stretches and loosen up. Chug two cups of coffee, chew on a PowerBar, and guzzle a liter of agua before heading out the door to the beach with just trunks and swim fins. The past three days I’ve had this same routine, and once again no one is on la playa. I kick out lazily through the 80-degree, ultra-clear blue water, some clean, four-foot barrels breaking just out the back. I backdoor a sandbar bowl on my first wave and get some silver and blue tunnel vision before getting abruptly whomped. For some unknown reason, I keep swimming out here without my waterhousing, absentminded? Go figure. The waves here are beautiful and pristine, with no other surfers of any type, and you see fish streaking across waves when you’re dropping down the transparent faces. Once again, I’m in a really good mood the rest of the day.
>>Jared Mell, liftoff. DOWN HERE 造 SLIDE 造 25
>>Raul Hernandez, in the tornado funnel. 26 造 SLIDE 造 DOWN HERE
>>A fantastically open invitation.
The heat down here is intense, and it’s baking hot daily, even in the shade. The wind is your friend, and the stronger the gusts are, the longer into the day it will blow offshore, sometimes lasting into the evening. Swimming out in the late afternoon with my camera, I’ve learned to kick away quickly from the everpresent bait balls and occasional feeding frenzy accompanying them. The sun filters through the backs of the waves, making mini cathedrals of green, highlighted with golden ceilings, and there are vivid rainbows reflecting from the offshore spray. Back at the cabina later, we check out my photos. The images are verging on an almost psychedelic portrayal of what went down. So stoked. Thanks to my 15 years of coming down here, many as a parttime resident, the guys I’m shooting with are dialed in. This small town of 300 is made up of a lot of Santa Cruz and Florida expats, with some local amigos, Europeans, Peruvians, and a couple of Brazilian and Venezuelan surfers. Everyone knows each other, and a top priority is keeping your cards close to your vest. Keeping secrets is important in this fragile area, and sometimes a disrespectful visitor is reminded harshly of this fact. This is still a place where you give respect if you want to get respect. All guests are politely informed of these unwritten rules by
yours truly. There is no police presence in this area, and none is needed. Rip-offs are dealt with quickly, and “the boys” take care of their own down here. I’ve been coming down to this zone a decade and a half and consider it my second home. We love it here so much that I bought a 4x4 truck and a piece of property with a small casa, just one house back from the beach. Having a great group of amigos and amigas living year-round in this quiet, dusty, little town also made this an easy decision. Down here is my alternate, tropical reality, still a timeless paradise. Something like Hawaii must have been like back in 1960. Change down here is inevitable, though, and unavoidable. It’s coming. Roads that were nearly impassable before are now paved. The crowds are getting more aggro and intense, skill levels and wave etiquette be damned. There are still those days, though, when all the variables come together perfectly and the crowd just can’t figure it out. It’s NOT over yet! Sometimes it’s like a dream: The sun is melting into the ocean, reflecting golden and red sparkling highlights, and no one’s out except our small crew; backlit, wedging A-frames coming through, consistent ruler-edge pipes reeling off everywhere. We’re still, literally, nailing some magic. Life is good.
>>Nate Adams follows the yellow-lipped road. DOWN HERE ¤ SLIDE ¤ 27
92 造 SLIDE 造 DOWN HERE 28
>>Technicolor tuck. Jared. DOWN HERE 造 SLIDE 造 29
>>“Mr. Smooth,” on the right path.
Usually I fly into this zone early in the season and stay as long as possible. This year we had a bit of a shocker though, as our plans dissolved when my good friend and occasional traveling partner, CJ Nelson, had his beloved father abruptly pass away. Mark “Pops” Nelson was just 65 and held in high esteem by the Santa Cruz and international longboard communities. Pops had a heart of gold, and his extended aloha was well known and legendary. It was a wakeup call for me; life is fragile, and every day is a gift. CJ was out, and our trip was put on hold.
swells are rapid fire, just one after another, and there’s a new one every two or three days, extremely unusual for this time of year. One of my best friends down here is a Santa Cruz expat and singlefin aficionado Tony Roberts, a 20-year resident. TR declares it the best early season in the two decades he’s lived here. Everyday is offshore with no break in the swells, seemingly Groundhog’s Day for the next two weeks. “Frijoles” has the best sandbar in years, freight trains and perfect zippers for days.
Time passes, and a solid south swell is predicted on the weather maps. Jared Mell’s onboard, and we abruptly fly into the best early season I’ve ever seen, with nonstop swells lining up across the Southern Hemisphere. Out of all the guys I’ve traveled with down here, Jared, who is of Guatemalan heritage, seems to acclimatize and blend in like a chameleon best. He is the guy most likely to move down here, and he seems to thrive in this environment.
Flashing back six years, Justin Quintal went on his first real surf trip with this exact same crew – Jared, Mikey, and myself. Since then, their collective surfing ability has improved dramatically. Justin Quintal was 15 years old at the time, and “The Grom” seemed meek, shy, and withdrawn back then. I recall asking him repeatedly if he remembered to bring a good supply of mother’s milk. Things have decidedly changed this trip. The Grom has grown a mustache, and an abundance of hair on his chest, wears a multicolored wife beater, and has obviously gotten a lot thicker and stronger. He constantly pounds Imperial cerveza and shots of guaro with the local boys, pounding his shot glasses hard into the table, laughing loudly the whole time. His favorite phrase is “hell yeah!” Back
The surf is so perfect that, at the last minute, he extends his trip indefinitely. We are taking watershots everyday for weeks on end when, 21 days into our trip, Justin Quintal and Mikey DeTemple fly in and join us from the East Coast. The south
>>Mikey DeTemple melts water. 92 ¤ SLIDE ¤ DOWN HERE 30
>>Tyler Warren, storming castle assault.
>>Scarecrow style. Justin Quintal. DOWN HERE 造 SLIDE 造 31
>>Frontside flying monkey attack. Mikey.
>>Nate enters the Emerald City. 92 造 SLIDE 造 DOWN HERE 32
>>“El Rojo” peaks behind the curtain.
>>Tyler, speeding through a twister.
>>There no place like home for Max Fitz. DOWN HERE ¤ SLIDE ¤ 33
>>This is definitely not a dream. Tyler. 34 造 SLIDE 造 DOWN HERE
DOWN HERE 造 SLIDE 造 35
>>“Pickle” pets the lion. 36 ¤ SLIDE ¤ DOWN HERE
>>Quintal, not in Kansas anymore.
in the fall of 2010, Justin received a rare wild-card entry into the prestigious Vans Joel Tudor Duct Tape Invitational, in Virginia Beach. Justin dominated and went on to win the event, cleaning house against the best retro guys in the world. He then went on to win the very next Duct Tape comp, held in Long Island, New York. Another Duct Tape first place prompted Mr. Tudor to publicly state, “Who the hell is Justin Quintal?” The kid is definitely going somewhere. Mikey DeTemple is a scholarly looking, mild mannered but heavily opinionated New York Yankees fan, with owlish glasses. This odd persona hides his Mr. Hyde complex as a fierce, veteran, competitive longboarder. Mikey sits out the back, only riding the choicest set waves, a habit learned possibly from his past decade as a crafty East Coast competitor. Out in the water, Jared “Mr. Smooth” Mell blends in, going almost completely unnoticed until he drops into another perfect wall. He has a habit of slithering slyly, chameleon fashion, into the more flawless peelers. Further inside, Justin is frothing, just babbling and paddling for everything, riding 10 waves for every one or two the other guys ride. He’s the only goofyfoot, and he’s positively owning
the lefts. A two-week long gourmet wave buffet ensues, until, finally, Jared and Mikey bail out, back to reality and the good ol’ USA. Justin, hearing of another solid swell, extends his ticket an extra week. We’d been hearing rumors of a little-surfed and neverphotographed left reef/point called “Urchins,” for obvious reasons. It’s located at the end of a bumpy dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Justin is once again frothing, and we drive down a hidden 4x4 goat trail with the new swell hitting, dead ending at a sandy perch looking down on a rocky left point, … with no one out. A hazardous, boily takeoff, the wave races close to the jagged rocks, sucking out rather fast and ledgy. We get beautiful shots with the rocky point as a backdrop, a few oblivious local fisherman are the only spectators for miles. Finally, after an hour of selecting only the makeable ones that have just the right angle, Justin gets suckered into a sketchy one, and it deposits his cordless noserider into an urchin infested and rather sharp lava cove. His board is literally demolished, ripping all the glass off the front. The shots are in the bag, though, and The Grom bails out to Florida the following day, surfed out and his mission complete.
>>Considering the wicked Urchins reef.
DOWN HERE ¤ SLIDE ¤ 37
>>Ten toes fit for ruby slippers. Jared. 92 造 SLIDE 造 DOWN HERE 38
DOWN HERE 造 SLIDE 造 39
>> “The Grom,” hucking backside lollipops.
>>DeTemple, somewhere under the rainbow.
40 ¤ SLIDE ¤ DOWN HERE
>>Justin clicks his heels three times.
Tyler “Pickle” Warren and retro stylist Nathan Adams fly in the following day. Tyler’s friend Nate is 21 years old, 6’2”, and 140 pounds. He’s very humble and quiet, freckle-faced with a messy shock of unruly red hair. He’s a young master of the singlefin, and his surfing is kind of a combo of early Nat Young with a nod to Mark Richards. Tyler is a slightly eccentric artistic type who can ride any type of board to it’s full potential. We have an ongoing sarcastic banter, and I consider it my mission in life to make sure his head doesn’t get too big. Tyler wears many different hats in the style department. Pickle is scrawny with blond hair combed straight back, a la Mike Hynson in the early-’60s. He shapes most of his own boards, and they seem to work really well. He wears ridiculous, square, black framed glasses and reminds me a little of Clark Kent. When Pickle paddles out, his super powers become readily apparent, shedding his goofy persona and just lighting the place up. First day, and it’s another stealth mission to Urchins. Upon arrival, the elusive left reef is deserted again, with no one even on the beach. We have yet to see another surfer at this desolate, picturesque spot. It’s solid, overhead, and draining on the reef; the boys are straight out there. Some backside power moves go down on the short retro boards, and we nail some great shots. Later that night is the largest full moon in 20 years, the “super moon,” as they call it. The following morning there is an astounding, 11-foot high tide with plenty of swell, and the beach sand is completely covered up with water all the way back to the trees. As the tide turned more favorable and the sun dropped behind the clouds on the horizon, we entered the water. Tyler and Nate proceed to put on an extraordinary show, perching 10s on the tip with soul arches, pulling into stretch-5 barrels on long, reeling walls, combined with a beautifully airbrushed sunset. I’m getting pounded >>Considering the wicked Urchins reef.
in the impact zone, there’s sand in my ears after every other detonation, and I’m getting dragged down the beach by the strong current. Despite it all, I’m getting totally abstract shots with the smorgasbord mixture of light and clouds. We come in when it is completely dark, with the super moon lighting up the hike back to my truck, totally stoked again. Those icecold cervezas tasted especially good later that evening. Days pass, and the predicted big south swell is finally hitting full force. The coveted right reef has awakened after a long siesta. This jealously guarded righthand reefbreak needs a large south swell and just the exact amount of westerly direction to really work correctly. On this swell it’s really firing, and Tyler and Nate are joined by Santa Cruz expats Forest Folger and Tony Roberts. Square, thick, dumping barrels are hitting the reef perfectly, and the big swell is washing in tons of jellyfish. Tyler comes in late in the day covered with painful red welts from his ankles to his neck, with bit of a sunburn for a capper. The waves, however, are well worth it, and, in the following week, we score heavily. The next several days are just all-time epic. On the very last day of our trip, the swell’s dropped a little, but the boys are amped to shoot and surf prior to our international flight. I try to slide the lens plate on my tripod head and the fluid head screw abruptly snaps, my Libec tripod is instantly dusted. Pissed off, I grab my wetsuit and stick my hand inside to turn it right-side out. Immediately, a large black scorpion stings me. I shake him out and squash him with my sandal, shaking my head. Ten minutes later, the wind shifts to onshore, at 7:00 a.m. What a shocker! It’s over, a done deal, and definitely an unusual last day. All good things must come to an end. We are totally surfed and shot out, anyway.
DOWN HERE ¤ SLIDE ¤ 41