Editor’s Note: This feature is presented by our partners at Baja California Sur.
There’s a lot to be said of an open, lonely road. No one to pass. No one to race around you as if late for a meeting. Just the arroyos and sage brush, and the steep desert mountains of the Sierra Madre in the distance to occupy one’s imagination as it drifts from the long drive.
Mexican and American surfers have traveled the Baja California Peninsula in search of the lonesome lineup for as long as anyone can remember, and as far south as land allows. I’ve chased a little. Not enough to say I’ve chased a lot. One place that always intrigued me, though, was a dusty village in central Baja California Sur: Scorpion Bay.
That easy, empty feeling. Photo: Nico Campagna
San Juanico is a place of pilgrimage for the traveling surfer. Especially for those willing to rough it. Countless families I’ve known have packed up their groms, stuffed trucks or vans with more boards than food, and ventured for surf while camping along the way. Scorpion Bay has always offered just a little something extra – the feeling of being out there.
In late August, an opportunity arose. My friend and filmer, Nico Campagna, planned a road trip from San Diego with several friends and I was offered a seat for the trip. But fatherhood. I’m deep in it. Like three deep. So my schedule was much tighter than Nico’s. I did have a window, though. I’d have to skip the road trip and fly into Loreto, on the Gulf of California, and travel west across the Baja Peninsula to meet them in San Juanico. Our schedules were off. We wouldn’t have much time to hang but we might meet up for a surf or two.
So I kept track of their trip. Once, they were south of Ensenada the road is more open and the pace slowed. There was little in the way of supplies other than the few small towns every hundred or so miles. There were three, all seasoned surfers. They had their secret spots along the way south where they would camp and search for waves.
At one point, along a rough dirt road just inside the border of Baja California Sur, they heard a blast from the rear of their truck. Pulling to the shoulder, they scrambled from the vehicle. It was simply the skid plates rattling off the rig in an unnerving explosion of metal and dirt. Nothing a few zip-ties couldn’t fix. There was little in the way of swell to compensate.
An important meeting at the arroyo. Photo: NC
Meanwhile, I was having my own technical difficulties. I’d arrived at the airport to find that the plane had mechanical issues, delaying my flight into Loreto for another day. When I finally did arrive, I was greeted by a glorious scene: the blue skies and azure waters of the Gulf of California. I clumsily aimed my phone’s camera from the van as we weaved through a steep canyon and the Sierra de la Giganta – the mountains that surround Loreto.
Passing small farming communities where large tractors rumbled along the highway from one field to another, wreaking havoc on the pavement, we finally turned due west toward the Pacific Ocean. Following a long arroyo, we reached the small town of San Juanico in the early afternoon.
Still no swell.
I settled into a cool little hotel, Casa de las Luces, owned by Daniel Urrea, a local who I’d heard had traveled the Baja, searching for waves himself. He’d been up and down the coast countless times. He and his wife, Narda, had such a gentle way about them. This was home for a few days.
But the ocean looked like a lake. I used a paddleboard to tour the iconic Scorpion Bay and explore. It’s truly a grand phenomenon, spanning miles in an arc as one looks out from San Juanico. Beat-up fishing boats lined the sand on the south end of town, owned by working people of the village who ply these seas for abalone and other fish to sell as trade. To the north, the famous points we’ve all heard so much about. For as far as one could see, the setups were easily distinguishable. And beautiful to the imagination (it was flat after all). The points are long past being a secret. Expats with campers lined the cliffs. Or French who’d rented a van in Texas. A few Kiwis, too, who’d just ended up here. Still, the hard, lonely road down the Baja keeps the place free of the commotion found in places like Southern California.
Yeah, not bad. Photo: NC
After paddling up the coast to explore the points, I headed back to the little inlet where I’d launched, catching an ankle-high wave in. When I reached the sand, a man, his wife and young daughter were enjoying the sunset. The little girl happily played in the warm water as mom and dad relaxed. The man offered me a cold Tecate. He was a surfer. And an abalone diver. I asked him if he’d seen many sharks while diving.
“Not many,” he said in good English. “Not until the water gets colder. Then we see a few whites now and then.”
We sat there and enjoyed the evening. There was no traffic noise or lights. The town has only one paved road.
“There has not been many waves lately,” he said. “But they’re coming.”
Other than several restaurants and hidden cantinas, nightlife in San Juanico mostly consists of a street light and the front stoop of bodega, where cold cervezas go down like an icy waterfall and you can watch the wonderful world go by. The wonderful world of San Juanico is full of fisherman, and farmers, and local school teachers. I met all types on those worn cement steps.
A good place to watch the world go by. Photo: NC
I’d officially missed my crew of friends road tripping. They’d started the drive back before I could meet them without really getting much swell. But at the Casa, I’d met two radical families. They’d traveled together, miles down to Cabo and now back north, arriving in San Juanico relieved by the quiet solitude. Tim and Paul, the dads, both surfers from Encinitas, have done countless trips down the peninsula and take pride in sharing the trip with their hardy little packs (Tim has three kids and Paul, two). “Baja really holds a special place in a lot of core surfer’s hearts,” Tim told me. “I’ve been to a number of other countries with surfing as a guide and nothing is like the raw adventure of doing the drive with the family in search of waves in Baja.”
They were excited for the forecasted swell, too. They invited me to surf with them in the morning, offering a ride to a nearby beachbreak – a magnet for waves. With the new swell building, we lucked into a glassy morning of shoulder-high surf. The waves had perfect shape and we hooted with joy. Tim, Tim’s young son Wyatt, Paul and myself traded rides in our own lineup, with our own little peak. We surfed until the wind came up then returned to San Juanico, hoping it’d be onshore on the other side of the bay.
As I peeked over the cliff edge, my hopes came true. The wind was blowing out to sea. The swell was starting to arrive. I bounced a bit recklessly back down the worn dirt trail on the well-used e-bike I was borrowing from Daniel to grab my board.
When I returned, surfboard under arm, sunscreen lathered, I carefully slithered down the lava-rock cliff face, a little trail worn in by flip-flops. I tip-toed out over the sharp rocks until the water was deep enough that I wouldn’t tear a finbox.
The Bay, pre swell. Photo: NC
The lineup was joyful. There hadn’t been surf in days. A dude on a fish from Tucson traded waves with a crusty Aussie on a soft-top wearing a padded skull cap. The take off for the right-hand wave was easy, with a shallow rock sometimes creating a convenient whitewater chip in. Once on your feet, it grew as you cruised down the line, waiting for the right section to make a turn, or, if capable, tap the top of the wave with the right timing.
I wasn’t going anywhere. It was one of those warm, sunny days of easy paddling you didn’t want to end. As the afternoon wore on I was joined by locals – the young Mexican surfers absolutely ripped. It’s not often you can sit in the ocean with other people, waiting at a tight takeoff spot and enjoy yourself. The local Mexican surfers let out cheerful howls at the prospect of finally surfing real waves.
At one point, as darkness approached, I was paddling back out to the lineup when an overhead set approached. As luck would have it, everyone was out of position. One of the locals, Jose, yelled out at me: “Go, go, go.”
I pivoted, took two quick strokes and popped to my feet, immediately feeling for my tail as the drop went steep. The wave formed into a perfect wall as I screamed down the line. I could hear the bellows from the surfers out the back when they knew I’d made the wave. In the twilight, I tip-toed back out of the water, completely giddy. I could almost taste the cold cerveza going down, followed oh-so-closely by the celebratory tacos.
Early the next morning, a little sore and sunburnt, I crested the cliff edge again to examine the lineup. It was absolutely firing. Scorpion Bay, two feet overhead and showing off in all its glory. The lineup was filled with locals and those who’d been waiting weeks for it to look like this.
My time here was up. I had 40 minutes to jump in the water so I respectfully sat on the edge, waiting for a wave to swing wide that would stay open so I could get up away from the crowded takeoff. I paddled back and forth most of that time, dodging sets and surfers, but caught one gem that made the three-hour drive back to Loreto so much easier.
If you’re looking for clubs or eateries or stone walkways meandering through plazas, San Juanico is not it. The place is real, in a real part of Mexico that I’ll return to forever, simply for its simplicity.
The great writer, John Steinbeck, took much from his travels down the Baja Peninsula, dedicating an entire tome to his adventures. But it’s a quote from another of his classics, East of Eden, that probably describes Scorpion Bay best: “All great and precious things are lonely.”
