FOREWORD
Borderline Irresponsible
Mexico doesn’t take reservations. I learned this two days after receivingnews that I’d be moving up the masthead here at the magazine. I got ane-mail from Greg Long that I knew would be coming, but wasn’t ready to hear.“Google Earth trip is on. Let’s go. Get the kid and the crew ready —this isour swell.”
So instead of spending the first week at my dream job getting organized,stuffing my calendar and getting acquainted with my desk’s caress —I wentto Mexico. Just dropped it all, left the laptop and BlackBerry at home andfled south with the winners of this year’s Google Earth Challenge,12-year-old Stephen Page and his dad, Doug. Armed with very littleinformation and a loose plan to hook up with local (and cover boy) DiegoCadena, we set off for an ultra-remote and more than likely dangerous regionof Mexico to uncover a new wave that, until now, has only been scoured fromspace (see “Lost and Found,” pg. 100). On paper, this was borderlineirresponsible.
But if you’re like most of us who’ve put a surfboard beneath our feet,the allure of Mexico is often too much to deny. Its promises of mysteriouspoints, raw landscape and eternally sketchy situations offer up the perfectescape from the banal Twit-filled lives we live here on Planet Stars andStripes. So after taking into consideration all the risks that come withunexplored Mexico —Swine Flu, decapitation by drug cartel bandidos, and theskunk factor —and the possible repercussions at work, I said screw it,rolled the dice and trekked into an untouched and prehistoric place where aworld-class wave has been reeling off for decades in desolate solitude. And we completely scored.
Now, if that’s not enough to make a trip to Mexico worth the unforeseenobstacles, then by all means, answer your BlackBerry —it’s corporatecalling. But for those of us who are drawn to the south by romantic visionsof dirt roads and lonely points, then we give you this magazine as an ode toa country that has long captivated our wanderlust as surfers unlike anyother place in the world. A place that continues to be labeled as “unsafe”by mainstream media. A place that your mom, wife or girlfriend would ratheryou skip. A place that asks you to plan nothing and expect everything. Aplace where as long as we can fishtail across pot-hole laden back roads withVan Halen’s “Panama” blaring from the speakers while a few cans of Tecatebang around the bed of our truck en route to the coast, we’ll be headingback at a moment’s notice until the end of time. —Travis Ferré