Fig’s Trip to Cabo Includes a Key Story About Lost Beach

Rockin’ Fig, just back from a surfing trip to Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas, was full of stories about big waves, rental cars and a secret spot they named Lost Beach.

We scored some pretty good surf, Fig said. It rained for the first two days and was cloudy the third. We were supposed to return on a Friday, but we stayed an extra day, making it a five-day trip.

Tell me about this place you surfed.

Well, on Friday the weather cleared, the clouds went away and the waves were perfect, solid double overhead. The next day, it picked up another couple of feet, and that made it 12-foot solid. We only had three guys out.

Wow! Did you check out a lot of places on the tip of Cabo--like Zipper’s, Shipwrecks, Costa de Azul?

Yup. My friend JP--John Parmenter--was driving. We had a rental car, and he lived up to his nickname, the Terminator.

Terminator?

Yeah, he’s a pro surfer. But we should have named him after a race car driver because of the way he flew around those Mexican gravel roads headed for Shipwrecks. We would get up at 5:30 a.m. and dawn patrol, and it was like being in the Baja 1000.

Tell me about this secret spot called Lost Beach, on the Pacific side.

Well, JP had the car keys and then lost them as he ran down the beach into the surf. The waves were kinda walled up about six to eight feet, but some were makeable. On one big set, I lost my shark-tooth necklace that I’ve had for years.

Then, we get through, and JP can’t find the keys to the car. It’s 100 degrees out. We’re baking in the sun, and we’re 50 miles from civilization. We’re just in a bad spot.

Luckily, I told the others I needed to get in the water and cool off. I start walking toward the waves and I noticed something shiny sticking up in the sand. I bent over and it was one of the keys! I grabbed it and there they were! We were saved.

Who had the best waves of the trip?

Well, JP got some. And on the trip there was Phil Fein and myself. Phil is a former knee-boarder, but on this trip he did win some respect as a surfer. But, I gotta say, I was the one having the better waves on the bigger, outside sets.

“Oh, yeah?” countered Fein, who had overheard Fig’s boast. “Well, who had the first barrel, Fig? Huh? Huh?”

Yeah, Phil, but who called the right beach? Huh. The Figster, that’s who.

“Hey, I said it was gonna be good near Shipwrecks. John was the one who wanted to surf another beach on the Pacific side,” Fein said.

Well, Bucky, I called it from Huntington Beach when I told both of you guys that it was gonna be good on that side of the Baja tip.

“Hey, Fig. Tell Dave about the 20-pound yellowtail I caught when we went fishing down there. It was the BIGGEST. Tell him. Tell him how big it was,” Fein said, egging Fig on.

Well, how about my 17-pounder, AND I got a 15-pound yellowtail. So who got the most fish? Huh. That’s 32 pounds of fish right there.

“Yeah, but I got the biggest fish, didn’t I? And, I also got the first barrel, too. Didn’t I, Fig?”

Oh, gawd. You guys finish fighting. I’m gonna collect my notes on my trip to Costa Rica and we can talk about that next time. We didn’t find the big point break waves you guys did, but we did have major thunderstorms, lightning, washed-out roads, crocodiles and mosquitoes the size of B-52s.

Healthy sign: After canceling its last show, the Action Sports Retailer, the marketing bible for manufacturers of surfboards, surfing apparel and other related sports, will hold a trade expo at the San Diego Convention Center on Sept. 10-12, said publicist Glenn Wilk.

For those in the biz, it’s a healthy economic sign. Bonus includes a surfboard shaping room on the show floor, where such legends as Mickey Munoz, Ken Bradshaw, Gary Linden, Pat Rawson and Bob Hurley will work. For information, contact Wilk at (714) 966-0200.