Weekend Escape: Mexico : Surf Camp : On a remote beach in Baja California, dudes call a board meeting

Dipping one wing, the single-prop Piper Cherokee swooped around the towering sandstone pillars that stood guard over the rocky beach.

We gazed out the window, five surfing buddies from Ventura. Three more followed in a chase plane with some seats removed to make room for our most crucial cargo: eight surfboards.

This was it. The long-promised surf spot on the Pacific in central Baja--a place so remote it takes 14 hours from the border in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, if you can find it, if the roads aren’t washed out, if you don’t mind bushes scraping paint off your car.

We soared merrily above it all, skipping the tire-chomping potholes, the teeth-jarring dirt roads, the pedal-to-the-metal truckers who seem to love playing chicken with turistas. It took us only a couple of hours to wing our way from Brown Field Airport near San Diego to this stretch of coastline, where the nearest town is Catavina, 60 miles inland on Mexico Highway 1.

We were ready to spend a three-day weekend frolicking in surf that was free of the urban crowds and pollution that show up all too often at Southern California beaches. Each of us ached for the curious ritual that makes surfers happy: the adrenaline rush of launching yourself off of big waves, paddling until your arms turn to rubber, getting sand and seawater drilled up your nose.

And we seemed to have everything we needed. Surfboards, wetsuits, wax. Everything, that is, except waves.

“Bad sign,” said my friend, Ken McAlpine.

The ocean was just plain flat. McAlpine is a typical adult surfer, an otherwise rational human being who takes leave of his senses in the hunt for waves. I’ve known him to spend all morning checking different beaches for waves--without success. Instead of heading home, delusional optimism will drive him to one more surf spot.

We had no time to ponder the poor surf. We were facing a substitute thrill: landing.

“Any of you done any bush flying before?” the pilot had asked us before we took off. He was met by blank stares. “This should be quite an experience for you.”

Kevin Warren, owner and chief pilot of Baja AirVentures, the outfitter in charge of our weekend adventure, had noticed this surf spot next to a relatively flat mesa during a reconnaissance flight last year. The airstrip is 1,200 feet long with a dogleg turn toward the end, followed by a 200-foot rock-strewn apron. Just beyond is a cliff that plunges several hundred feet to the rocky shoreline.

Coming in for a landing, our pilot slowed the plane to nearly a stall. The plane shuddered as the back wheels touched down just past a stack of abalone shells, natural reflectors glinting in the sunlight.

All five passengers erupted into applause.

Delusional optimism had infected us all. We needed to get to the beach to check the surf, just in case. . . .

The waves weren’t much the first day. Occasionally, a chest-high wave would roll through. But the water was spectacularly clean. The sun was warm, the cobblestone beach ruggedly beautiful. And we had it all to ourselves.

Most of us surfed until it was nearly dark, clowning around on long boards that we shared. Wispy stratus clouds lighted up the sky in a palette of yellows, oranges and reds. The sandstone cliffs, chiseled by the wind into craggy minarets, glowed with the warm colors of the sunset.

“This sure beats hanging out at the trash heap,” Jim Thonis said.

Thonis was referring to our camp, which we had breezed through on the way to the beach. Sheltered in a canyon out of the wind, it’s an old fisherman’s encampment fashioned out of a pickup truck camper shell and wooden shed. The surrounding area is littered with rusting carcasses of abandoned cars, overturned boats, fish nets and other trash. But 50 yards in any direction lies immaculate, undisturbed desert, with a rich display of yucca, cactuses and creosote bush as far as the eye can see.

By the time we hiked up the canyon from the beach, Warren and fellow Baja bush pilot Jeff Kurtz had transformed the camp. They had laid out AstroTurf to keep down the dust, and set up a small tent city. The trash disappeared into the darkness.

We spent the evening lounging in beach chairs around a fire of fragrant mesquite wood. A warm Santa Ana breeze wafted through, as rock and reggae tunes played on the boom box.

*

This was camping, but it was hardly roughing it. For $395, all the essentials were included: three meals a day, transportation and a place to sleep. Most of the tents were equipped with thick, comfortable pads and warm sleeping bags--though a couple of us had to settle for thick blankets because of a recent theft.

Warren and Kurtz prepared meals and cleaned up afterward. Breakfasts and lunches were simple: breakfast burritos, granola bars, coffee; turkey sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, chips and salsa. Dinners were more elaborate.

We feasted the first night on spicy chicken and vegetable curry, with generous portions of salad sprinkled with radicchio and other gourmet greens. The second night we stuffed ourselves on lobster bought from two local fishermen.

The only thing we hungered for were big waves. Warren assured us they were on the way. As we prepared for bed on the second night, we could hear the sound of waves raking the cobblestone beach.

It wasn’t long after sunrise that all eight of us were in the water, spread out among three points where the waves would break, then peel along the rocky shore. The swell continued to build all day; the largest waves would connect between the points.

I had some amazingly long rides, perhaps 500 yards. And more than my share of spectacular wipeouts. I was delirious with happiness. To maximize our time surfing, our Baja bush pilots broke camp and, at the last moment, whisked us directly to the waiting planes.

One of the planes had sprung a hidden oil leak. Warren fed the engine by bleeding a quart of oil from the other plane. He assured us of his flawless safety record in four years of flying charters into Baja, a fact confirmed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Both aircraft made it back to the United States safely, soaring over the usual Sunday night backup of cars at the border. We zipped through customs at Brown Field. Border Patrol agents there are apparently used to seeing slap-happy surfers with glassy eyes tumble out of planes operated by Baja AirVentures--the only air charter adventure outfitter flying into Baja. (Other outfitters either drive in or connect with travelers who take commercial fights to La Paz or other major cities.)

As we transferred the boards and gear from planes to cars, Warren cautioned us to drive safely back through Los Angeles. “Now,” he said, “you’re facing the most dangerous part of the trip.”

Weiss writes for The Times’ Ventura County Edition.

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Budget for One

Gas: $15.00

Holiday Inn, Chula Vista: $53.90

Baja AirVentures, 3 days: $395.00

Tip: $15.00

FINAL TAB: $478.90

Baja AirVentures, 386 East H St., Suite 209-221, Chula Vista, CA 91910; tel. (800) 221-WAVE.