Jalama

We had a plan. After we dropped both girls off at our eldest's dad's house the wife and I were going to grab some dinner and drinks in Santa Barbara and go feral for the night with the intention of making our destination - Jalama - by the crack of dawn. The van was loaded with everything we needed and more. A twelve pack, two bottles of wine, two surfboards, snacks, lamp, astroturf, DVD player and a shitload of pillows to go with our down comforter. Camping in a van has its luxuries.

As planned, we went well in to the evening at the Brewhouse. We ate, had some drinks and listened to a couple of dudes play an acoustic set. We think they were tweaking or coked out. Not sure on that though. We managed to find some street parking on a quiet residential street behind the place and bunkered down for the night after closing our tab. We had too much.

4:30am rolls around and I wake up the Missus to let her know we need to get on the road. The stories about Jalama - "the list"- had me wanting to make sure we got there when the gate opened to guarantee we'd find a spot. I downed a couple of Advil for the road.

It was a foggy drive most of the way down Jalama Road. Deer were everywhere. We rounded the corner and approached the gate. The Ranger didn't think it would be a problem for us to get a spot. We were number 12 on the list. We parked in the day lot and I went for a surf while the wife slept.

From what I've read Jalama has a reputation of being a pretty hefty break. It's open to pretty much everything as it's located on Point Conception. I'd been keeping an eye out on the reports for the past week or so and, if my information was correct, they'd been having sets up to DOH recently when the southies were working. Not so much upon our arrival. And that's putting it nicely.

It was obvious windswell. Now, I loves me some windswell. And it looked good at first glance. Peaks up and down the beach with some 4ft sets. However, upon closer inspection, you could tell they were backing off big time. I'd see the whitewater begin to crumble and then all but disappear. I chose to walk down to Tarantulas to see if it was working, but, as I got closer it was obvious that it was the same story. I chose not to complete the hike and paddled out under the cross on the bluffs. I got in to maybe 3 waves. It just wasn't going to work. To put it in to perspective, this was a Summer weekend morning and there were only three of us out. That's how bad it was.

We grabbed some breakfast, I cracked my first beer, took another nap and finally met at the flagpole to get our campsite. It was just as the guy said - no problem getting a spot. The Ranger even helped us pick the best of the available sites. We set up camp and chilled for a bit before heading back to the beach. It was 12:30pm now and it was clean. No wind. In fact, it was clean until 5:00pm. It was also in the mid 80s on the sand. Just epic conditions with no waves to speak of. I paddled out anyways and caught maybe 3 more where the estuary dumps in to the ocean. I was hot in the 4/3. No booties, of course.

I'll post more later, but, I thought I'd put up a couple of shots of our setup. That bed was as comfortable as it looks...