Chilling in Huatulco (Wah Too Ko)


No . . . not the high rise hotel zone of the same name, but the small town where all the workers of the tourist zone live. After such a mega session of non-stop paddling and surfing we are famished and exhausted. We find an anonymous little hotel above a small clothes store for 150 pesos per night from the suggestion of one of the Australians who was headed back up north and had stayed there a few days before us. The women who runs the store is very friendly and smile as we walk through the back of their store up a narrow flight of stairs to the exquisite wooden doors. With a huge ring of over-sized keys no less. There is no AC, but a wonderful high powered fan to keep us cool through the hot humid nights. Billy has to shout at me several times: "WATCH OUT!" as the top of my head almost gets chopped off by straying too close to the fan blades. I guess they don't expect six foot five inch tall people to rent these rooms. The room even has a nice balcony to dry towels and take a peek at the Oaxaquena town that appears to be bustling with activity during the morning, but more relaxed and laid back at night. BZ has a nice open gash on his hippy head, the cause obvious - a stray board. When I talk to people who have never surfed and sit at home and watch North Shore and Blue Crush and then expect to just paddle out and catch waves right away, I shake my head and make sure they understand: this is a dangerous sport. The biggest danger is not sharks, which is usually the excuse preventing most people from ever getting off their couch and trying surfing in the first place. The most common injuries are caused by your own board - and on occasion if you are surfing with arrogant or inexperienced surfers, by someone else's board. You have to cover your temples and face every time you go under the water.




Well it has only taken me three days to live up to my nickname; except in Oaxaca I am not predisposed to the luxuries of having an emergency room nearby. After two huge days in a row with absolutely stellar surf conditions sunrise to sundown, the third day starts off nice. The swell has dropped off a bit, but by this time I was dialed in to this intricacies of this unique sea playground. Shredding early on the ultra- sheet- glass conditions I score my first in and out pig-dog backside cover-up as well as lots of nearly vertical re-entries off high slashing turns. But my second session is awful. A huge white van full of young guys from Mexico City shows up, boogie boarders among them, and they proceed to just clog the already shoddy lineup. The wind has finally switched, there is a jumble to the water, a lumpiness that we have not seen here before.




The ocean is finally winding down her wave song, a beautiful and powerful solo that has contained the winds of some storm far off in the Antarctic. By the early afternoon it is as scorching as ever and the high tide makes the paddle so absolutely ridiculous that after a couple of piss poor rides I am getting cranky. I force a late drop with a local snaking me down the line forcing me in perfect position to . . . get squashed by the lip. Snap! Fin gone. I never even notice the missing crucial component until attempting my next ride and, when I feel the looseness and instability. Long jog back to the car. Find my extra fins after finding the hidden car key. Long jog back to the top of the point. I never manage to get a single good ride from that point on, and I am thoroughly and completely drained. But the numerous sessions and multiple hours in the water have taken a toll on my body. I made the crazy rookie mistake of leaving cold water wax on my board and not switching over to warm water wax. When we first arrived, during the mad dash to be first into the lineup on day one, I wasn't about to sit on the beach and melt and scrape the wax off my board, then re-wax the whole thing again while my three man posse trade perfect tubes. But the melted wax forms gaps and pits on the deck of my board, and the continuous rubbing and dragging of my chest across it birthes these horrible cuts on the skin above my ribcage. The rash guard I had brought in an attempt to alleviate just that problem was so tight that it GAVE me a rash under my arm pits. So after the first day it was pick my poison: aggravate the underarm rash by wearing the rash guard and save the chest, or aggravate the chest cuts by going bare chested and save the underarm rash. What a soft skinned man with all that neoprene always between me and my board surfing cold water in California. So I rotated the poisons and aggravated them both while surfing a ton. Of course, I never thought about the pain or the possibility of infection until just this moment, as the conditions have changed from offshore and perfect to onshore and warbled. By this point we are in the rental, delusional from pushing our bodies to the extreme edge of our physical capabilities, and listening to the soprano tubas and trumpets blast another fast paced tune on the local radio while cruising north on Highway 200. The warm wind is in our faces and the humidity has faded ever so slightly, but in a way that is perceptible by all of our senses.




We are on our way north to Puerto Escondido, the Mexican Pipeline. A shockingly powerful wave that breaks boards and backs with the same crushing ease. When the swell drops, and the less exposed point breaks down south are simmering down, Mexpipe becomes an option. The place is a sheer magnet for south swells, 'like a catcher's mitt' a friend once claimed. BZ is going to test his ability for speed and riding in the tube. As for me, I am going in the hopes to escape without another injury or scar and with my board all in one piece.

ER Harris