Orderly Update, on Quatros Casas

‘I braved the sandstorm to urinate in the protected confines of a 3x3 rustry corrugated tin shack marked ‘Area 51’ in spraypaint. It rattled and clanked. When I stepped out and peered into the darkness of the valley with my headlamp, the glowing eyeballs of circling dogs shone back at me. They want our food. They ate the sand where we poured out the bacon grease. Zack was bit in the ankle today by one of them. Two of the dogs are half pitbull, the other two are part Doberman. I hope they don’t get any funny Ideas’

Hola Amigos. We’ve been camped out in Villa Maria for the past two nights, on the outskirts of the desert Oasis town of Mulege, on the banks of the deep blue sea of Cortez, after crossing the desert on the treacherous and narrow Baja Highway one. It’s been a nice little stopover, the campground is beautiful, we’ve got the internet, and the day was spent sitting under the shade of a cabana reading, surfing the net, writing, and Troys been working on Blackbird, a beatles song he downloaded the tabs to, and after hearing him fumble the notes about two hundred times he’s finally starting to get it, and it’s quite a beautiful song. Jay is getting a Massage from Gaylene, a kiwi and a professional Masseuse, and I have a felling she’s gonna charge him an Arm and a leg for it. The Tent is packed up and we’re preparing to head to Scorpion bay, where there’s a long mushy waves that, according to Jay’s research, will be packed with surfers. I’m not looking forward to crowds. We’ve been surfing these rare and amazing point breaks but all I need is some beach break to have fun. Jay keeps saying “We can surf beach break anywhere”, but I’ve had one solid day of Beach break this whole trip, weeks ago in Ensenada before coming down with a cold. So though Beach break is anywhere and everywhere, It remains just out of my grasp. It’s the best place for a surfer at my level to develop good wave sense and get strong, but Jay will have none of it. He shakes his head whenever I say “I’d be happy with some good old beach break.”
“That’s like going to a fancy restaurant, and instead of getting a cheeseburger, ordering the Filet mignon.” Jay says. Everywhere we go we run into Americans who only want to talk to other Americans so they can complain about how hard it is to find a decent hamburger.
I Haven’t said much about our stay at Quatros Casas- ‘The four Houses’ We were there for six days. It’s a gringo run surf hostel about seven miles up a rugged dirt road from the main highway, near the town of Camalu. There was weed there, and I spent much of the time there stoned- which was nice. My days


‘Right Now we are so very far away. I’ve never felt this far away from everything that is. Everything that ever was.’
The wind outside is howling, and spitting shrapnel. I spent an hour in the dark making emergency repairs and fortifications to my Sierra designs three season tent I got from Gordy before he ran away to Taz. The tent became severely lopsided in the wind, so I anchored it using thirty feet of 5mm perlon climbing chord, equalizing the line off three anchor points on the fly and securing the lines around the spare tire from Jay’s van. So far, aside from a zipper problem, the Tent is working fantastic. It is my home now. Thanks Mike (Gordey).
We ran out of Water this afternoon, but there’s plenty of Tecate. Troy picked up two case of the swill, and it comes in one litre bottles shaped like giant stubbies called Cuagumas. Troy says people can subsist on beer without water, but after watching him spend the morning stumbling around in the dust clutching his swollen, sunburnt head, I beg to differ.
‘I rammed down 6 eggs, a can of mixed vegetable, a cup of minute rice, a can of Tuna, a peanut butter sanfwich, the last of the orange juice, a cigarette, and four cups of coffee this morning.’
There’s an empty swimming pool here called the Showbowl, that you can skateboard in. The pool is modeled after the original Z-boys pool, and the coping is taken from the bowl used in the movie “Lords of Dogtown” about the original skateboarders who kicked off the whole movement back in the Day. You see Richard, the man who built Quatros Casas, was one of the original dudes. Tony Alva is a longtime friend of Richards. Tony Alva was a character in Lords of dogtown, and he put skating on the map. I met Tony Alva once in a videogame, He insited I do a bluntside on a rollercoaster in a virtual recreation of Santa Monica. Theres a wall of photos taken from skateboard magazines showing various legendary bowlmasters pulling off insane tricks in “The Showbowl” My efforts were a little less spectacular, but I tried my damndest, and skated that bowl and hour or two every day over the course of my week there. The Concrete wave did wonders for my surfing
We hung out a fair bit with a surfer dude named Zack. Interesting guy- a little strange- he had the deep, resonant voice of Martin Sheen. If he stood outside my tent quoting the Monologues from Apocalypse now, I wouldn’t know the difference. But Zack has been out of contact with what we consider to be civilization for a while now, and he speaks a surf dialect so thick with spanglish and surf/skate slang that it can be considered a form of pidgin. Zack had a bad back, but he shook it off and skated the bowl like a freak. There was some other people coming through the place hitting up the bowl- Guys who could skate well but haven’t in a while, they would drop in, make a sketchy lap around, and then smack the pavement with a thud. I managed to avoid any serious wipeouts, but this Ensenada kid who came down just for the bowl managed a compound fracture in his upper arm after taking a spectacular and awkward bail. Not only that, his tent blew into the ocean in the winds. His dad came to pick him up and take him Home.


‘I surfed my ass off so hard yesterday. Jay’s birthday. I had the ocean to myself. Jay and Zack watched from our campsite up top the dirt cliff, they said I was charging out there. I caught wave after wave for two hours and never spent more than five minutes in the lineup. I got caught on the inside, pushed under by a heavier wave that tumble dried me into a tangle of sea kelp. I was Bella Lugosi after he screamed “Lets shoot this fucker!” I made it back out to ride again. I caught 2 lefts, 5 long rights, 3 late and straight, and only 4 wipeouts. I got pinched under a closeout, and for a second I could see the whole world from the inside of a blue rifle barrel made of sea water, kelp mechanisms readying to release the firing pin. I got a hard bottom turn in with my knees skimming the water. I did little shuffles up and down the board, keeping it going in dying waves.
Quatros Casas offers up a wide, gentle reef break. Imagine a ½ mile wide duckbill stretching west just under the surface of the water. The Waves form up way out there, and roll in slow. One of the waves in each set is wreathed in a golden crest, and that’s the one you paddle out to meet at it’s breaking point. The Break point shifts around depending on the size and direction of the wave, so lining up is tricky business- like playing pong on a 200 foot wide video screen.’

The killer surf Session I had on Jay’s Birthday was a one off. All the ingredients fell neatly into place. The Endorphins were already flowing before I got into the water from the skating, which had me balanced and light on my toes. The weed phased out extracurricular thought, and I acted totally on instinct. It’s important not to think when surfing. But I burned myself out that day and my arms were like spaghetti for three days afterwards. I spent most of that time in my tent drawing, and filled about fifteen pages of my sketchbook. The tempo and feeling of this trip is really starting to take shape. My head was clear and still as a mountain lake.

‘Nothing but time and flies here, but time does not fly. It laps at the boulders in a gentle circadian rhythm. Between each breaking wave is a moment. Sometimes that moment passes quietly, and at times that moment collapses with a thunderous roar, to usher in a bold new era, that lasts between 8 and twelve seconds. We just rolled in here for a few passes of the sun to watch the sets come home to roost.’