The swell picked up on a few days and my surfing did too (as if I had a choice). The waves on this particular break were strong hollow waves that challenged me to take risk and pull into situations that I've not done before. I'm glad I did now.

The Big Swell

The Perfect Wave (Las Olas Perfecion)

Eventually the BIG swell showed up and with that the jet skies showed up as well. I asked them one day to tow me into some waves on a smaller day, but being the surf bums they were they kinda forgot and when the big day came around there was no way I was gonna be pulled in to a twenty foot face if I hadn't even been able to try it on a ten foot face. Instead, my dad drove Pete and I to I little beach up the road a bit, called Paraiso or Paradise beach, when it got out of control at the big spot. Paraiso didn't get the swell as well so we were just messing around on some fun chest to head higher's. After awhile though we got board with that wave wanting a little more and we knew we had to make some sort of decision.

Tube riding became the challenge for me as I pulled into one after another, making out of some and getting "WORKED" by others. I'm a "Tube Rider" Yippee!!!

Too Big and Too Risky... Time to Move On...

Well, the swell was obviously much too big for me or even Pete to handle and the fact that my biggest board was a 5' 4" and Pete's was a 5' 9", so we needed to check the forecast again before making our next move. We were a little worried about what to do because of the road block blocking the breaks south of us or having to make about a nine hour drive north to a spot that may not have the right swell angle to catch this swell. My dad left me and Pete to pack and he went into town to take care of the forecast and exchanging more money for our trip ahead. We knew that the break down south would have waves but it would be sketchy getting past fully loaded angry Mexicans and as for the break up north we would be risking not getting any waves at all and losing a day or two of our trip to driving. The whole time I was crossing my fingers that the north break would catch the swell because I knew if it did if would be the best surf of the trip for sure.

Dad's Forecasting Skills Scored Us the Best Waves of the Trip

When my dad got back he gave us the details of the forecast and what he thought we should do. To my delight the swell angle was just borderline to go north, but it would probably work. I'm just going to call this wave, olas perfecion because I can't reveal it to you or as I said before, I would definitely have to kill you. There are already so many surf breaks becoming known in Mexico it is getting hard to keep them secret any more, but I will as long as I can. Olas perfecion is the ultimate perfect wave. It is one of those waves that you could mind surf the rest of your life after seeing it. The wave breaks on a point and reels left for 300 yards along a cobblestone beach. The water is usually a beautiful blue and the wave will break so perfect on a big swell with surprisingly ultra thin lips that can be tucked in under or hit with all the might one can muster.

So, we headed north with our fingers crossed and an impatience in our hearts to see if this perfect wave was going to be working.

The Sun Setting After a Great Day of Surfing In Mexico. Pete and I enjoy an evening of eating and relaxing under the palapas in a fishing village restaraunt.

Dad's Driving Skills in the Winding Mountain Roads have been proven with his Forteen Years of Mexican Surfing Vacations. I call it "The Mexican Express", most call it SCARY.

It was an excruciatingly long drive through windy mountain roads for about nine hours. We reached our hotel late at night and crashed. We were so beat from surfing that morning, packing, and then being cramped up in a little car the rest of the day that we passed out as soon as we hit the sheets. When I woke up in the morning I could hear what sounded like some pretty big surf, but I could not be sure if I was hearing a good size wave or just a loud shore pound hitting the cobblestone beach. Our hotel, El Delfin, was not right on the point. We had to take a ten or so minute drive to get to the point, but behind the hotel was a beach break that was always a good indicator wave. However big it was behind the hotel the point itself would always be the same size or a couple feet bigger. When I woke in the morning I went outside to take a look at the break behind the hotel. I sat and watched it for about three or four minutes and never saw anything over a one foot wave come through. I was so bummed and knew that the point would not be much better. I came to the conclusion that I was just hearing the shore pound against the cobblestone beach and not an actual wave. I went back and reported my findings to the two guys. We just kinda sat there moping that we had made the wrong call coming so far north and that the swell had not made it there.

Well, Pete went to sit outside on the balcony for a bit and just enjoy the morning air and all the sudden comes back out of breath and stuttering, "It...it...it is hu..huge!" I was thinking WHAT?!! Come to find out, that the sets where coming in slowly that day and you really had to be patient and sometimes wait for ten minutes before seeing a set. I rushed out to see if he was just pulling our legs but I was shocked to see a solid six foot set coming through! We pilled the boards on as fast as our bodies would let us and drove to see how the point was.

"We had definitely made the right decision! The point was reeling perfect lefts and not many people had discovered this yet so the place was practically all ours."

We had definitely made the right decision! The point was reeling perfect lefts and not many people had discovered this yet so the place was practically all ours. My dad paddled out for the first time of the trip just because it looked so good and he could actually handle this place. I always enjoy when he comes out because I can see how happy he looks to be surfing and it is funny to see him take off on some waves. It's always either over the falls or butt squiggles down the line for him.

We all surfed the perfection for hours until we could literally not lift our arms to paddle. I caught sooooo many good and fun waves getting so much as seven or more turns on some waves, I could be satisfied for the rest of my life (but not really I still would like to surf that wave every day of my life if I could.) It stayed good all day long and even got better when the wind got on it a bit and the tide filled in. I was almost hoping that it would start to shut down so I could get out of the water and revive myself. I did not want to leave such fun waves and I could tell Pete did not want to either but we were about to drop dead in our tracks. We all inhaled our dinner that night and fell asleep around seven o'clock.

The next two days got gradually smaller but still provided extremely fun waves to surf our hearts out all day long on. We met some really fun local guys (I must say they were not all the greatest role models, lol) who showed us around town and told us about some other surf spots that might be fun too. One guy that seemed to be a little more under control was Boca or translated Mouth. He was always hooting and hollering out in the line up when people caught waves so we started to call him Boca. His friends all called him Symrf though so we ended up settling for that.

All the guys were talking about a cool water fall about an hours drive away so we took Smyrf to show us the way. After a long surf session we headed out to cool off at the water fall. It was about a mile long curvy walk down to the pool at the base of the falls. When we got there it was beautiful! There was a rock that you could climb up to and jump off of that was about thirty feet up. I didn't realize how far up it was till I was actually getting ready to jump. AHHHH! I almost feel like a chicken saying that because Smyrf and Pete decided to climb where no one had ever climbed before to the top of the falls which was about a sixty foot jump! I climbed almost to the top but only to watch as they both took the jump. After jumping, both agreed that they would never do that again even if they were paid, they felt as if they had cheated death and if I wanted to try they would do everything they could to stop me. So, I took their word for it and was satisfied with just taking the normal jump. We took it easy the rest of the time we were there, climbing in a cave behind the falls and sticking our arms through, and swinging from a rope that was tide to a tree. It was definitely worth the hour drive because we all were cooled off and got to pick mangos from the never ending forest of mango trees. YUM.

An afternoon at the cool waterfalls in the jungle made for a great time too relax and get away from the hot beach. If you look you can see me jumping from the falls. What a blast that was and scary when Pete jumped from the top.

After surfing for three days at Olas Perfecion, we came to the conclusion that we had caught the best waves of the trip so far and couldn't be any more satisfied. Unfortunately, the swell was starting to leave though and we had to make another drive to catch at least two or three more days of surf before our trip was over. Pete had broken his board the last day anyways surfing those lefts so we were okay with having to leave there and go search for some other waves even though we knew they would not be as good as the ones we had surfed for the last three days. We packed up and headed back down south for the remainder of the trip hoping that we could score a few more fun sessions before having to leave.

(continued...)

Florida East Coast Surfing Photographs

East Coast and Central Florida Surfing Photographs (mostly) of Sebastian Inlet, RC's, Cocoa Beach Pier, 2nd light, New Smyrna, South Florida's Reef Road, Jupiter some of Central America and various other areas.

We hope you enjoy watching Savannah and her surfing friends grow up together and encourage parents and competitors to send us photographs with your stories to include on the site.

Here are some surfing pictures to look at now:

2009
Ron Jon's Photo Shoot
Sebastian Inlet Pro
Juno Pier NSSA
Sixteenth Birthday
Satellite Beach NSSA
Roxy, Ron Jon, ESA Allstars & Regionals
Spring Break 2009
Start of Summer
Mexico Trip

Hawaii Surfing 2007
Hawaii North Shore
Hawaii Part 2
Hawaii Part 3
Hawaii Part 4
Hawaii Part 5
Hawaii Part 6

Mexico Surfing 2009
The Black Sand Beach
The Perfect Wave (Las Olas Perfecion)
A Great End
Mexico Surfing 2008
This Years Trip
La Ticla
Santa Cruiz
Mexico Surfing 2007
Surfing Mexico 2007
Big Mexican Waves
Point Breaks in Mexico
Surfing Blahs of Mexico
Mexico Surfing 2006
Mexico Mainland Surfing
Mexico Surfing 2006
Mexico Surfing Adventures
Mexico Surfing Pictures
Mexican Girls Surfing
Tube Riding Mexico
Mexico Surf Sequence

Rip Curl Grom Search
2008 at New Smyrna

SIMA Surfing America
2008 USA Championships & Team Trials

2006 NSSA Nationals - South California
Point Mugu TubeQuest 2006 ESA Championships - Cape Hatteras
Cape Hatteras, NC, Surfing
Cape Hatteras 2008

More Photos and story on Wet Magazine's website of Savannah's Cape Hatteras Trip.