Surfing Todos Santos

In Wednesday’s ‘Lectronic, we invited fellow surfer-sailors to share some of their favorite breaks (without giving away the location, of course). Kurt Roll, who crewed from Mexico to New Zealand aboard on Dietmar Petutschnig and Suzanne Dubose’s Las Vegas-based Lagoon 440 cat Carinthia, shared some of his Mexican surfing-sailing adventures:

"While getting Carinthia ready for the Puddle Jump in La Cruz, I regularly took the dinghy out to the point. It was a six-mile trip and my only complaint is that I was by myself surfing great waves.

"Here are some pictures of some surfing Todos Santos Island off Ensenada. I had my new Catalina 320 Pura Vida at the Corral Marina for the ’90 day yacht club’ in the winter of ’00. Each weekend I drove down and anchored in between the two islands. In late October, the waves would come in about 4-5 feet and were perfect. In November, the waves were more consistent, growing to 5-8 feet. By December, 8- to 12-ft sets were coming in, some bigger and some smaller. In January, it got out of hand but very exciting — two weekends in the 20-ft+ range!

"I quit after dropping in on a 15-18 footer. I made the bottom turn and then couldn’t outrun the lip on my nice Linden gun. I was held down for two waves and remember hearing the rocks clanking around on the bottom. After finally catching my breath, I was more than happy to film the ‘young guys’ eating it from my boat while enjoying a beer. It got to where the only ones making the waves were the tow-in guys. Watching these huge waves was mesmerizing and awe inspiring — I’ll never forget it.

"This was my 20th year racing the Newport to Ensenada Race. I always look at Todos and think of the amazing time I had out there. The hiking and kayaking there were awesome, too, as was trading beer for lobsters with the super-friendly fishermen. The lighthouse keeper lived out there with his German Shepherd and loved it when we brought Marlboros and goatsmilk caramel suckers. I can think of at least five other places in Mexico I’ve surfed while sailing but that’s another story."