Tales of the Magnum Mobile Wave Chaser

"I'm over relying on other people," Jamie continues. "I figured out in life it's always best to be self sufficient. I never want to be on someone else's time or agenda when the waves are giant."



Since then he has made it his mission to make sure that the same scenario does not happen again. To be able to reach all the big wave spots along America's West Coast, Sterls and his partner Troy came up with a plan which will allow them to access every spot from Alaska to Mainland Mexico.  "We bought a '93 Ford conversion van with a fold down bed in the back and comfortable enough seating for six passengers. Behind the van we are towing a double axle enclosed trailer that can hold a jet ski, tons of boards, and what ever else we want."

From their home in Hawaii Sterls and Troy will be able to leave at the drop of a hat to chase the biggest swells the Pacific Ocean produces. These swells more often than not end up being the biggest on the West coast of America. "I plan on surfing anywhere the conditions and swell will favor. I'm looking forward to exploring new spots that I have not yet surfed, ranging from northern Baja all the way up to the frigid waters of Alaska."

While Jamie and Troy's idea is to keep the van based in central California, the first objective was to take the set up on a serious maiden voyage.  Half of this voyage involved driving across a major portion of the U.S. and deep down into Mainland Mexico, ultimately arriving at Puerto Escondido.  The plan for the summer is leave the "Magnum Mobile Wave Chaser" in Puerto until November, when Jamie plans to drive it back up the coast and station it in Central California.    

Jamie has been visiting Puerto since he was 16 and has made it his summertime home base.  "It's a lot like Hawaii" Jamie says.  "It's big and barreling, and every so often it gets too big to paddle into."

Back in 2006 Jamie had the opportunity to sample some truly giant Puerto.  With the help of friend and fellow Red Bull athlete Coco Nogales, Jamie was towed into waves that up to that point were arguably the largest ever ridden at the infamous beach break. It's been two years now and Jamie has been anticipating the next huge swell. "I'm going to be ready. At the end of this trip my ski will be there with all my gear, and when the waves come, I'll be on it!"

On this maiden voyage Sterls invited "Cabo" Charlie Stevens, a 20 year old who grew up in Cabo San Lucas and now resides in Carlsbad, and my self, a freelance jack of all trades from the Big Island of Hawaii. Here is how the trip has unfolded so far:

Our whole first week was spent in Southern California visiting Jamie's sponsors, accumulating all kinds of gear and food provisions, mapping out our route, and getting completely prepared for the long road ahead. Jamie was determined to make sure we had everything we needed before we departed. Once we hit the road, we got on Highway 10, headed east and joined the massive convoy of huge semi-trucks leaving the golden state and transporting their various good across the country. Driving among these trucks was actually very nerve wrecking since our trailer and van would be blown wayward every time one passed us. Fortunately we made it through Arizona without incident, and after 12 hours of driving through the night we finally decided to find a hotel.



We pulled over in a random tiny town in New Mexico called Lordsburg to get a motel room when we noticed our van was leaking serious amounts of oil.  The handy man that worked at that particular motel came over while we were looking at the engine, and offered to help us fix it. This was the weirdest little town ever and we were real skeptical of this guy "Johnny" who offered to help us. We didn't have many options since there was only one mechanic in the whole town and it was Saturday evening and everything else was closed on Sundays. After some serious deliberation we decided to trust Johnny and took the van over to his house.

It turned out to be the most classic and memorable part of the trip. Johnny's house was composed of a small cluster of Adobe shacks, which his elderly father, whom we befriended, had lived in his entire life. While Johnny wrenched on the van we spent hours talking story with Pops about all kinds of things and had our first opportunity to practice our Spanish.

In the late afternoon this huge storm came rolling down the mountains, across the plains, and right onto us. It started as a huge wall of dust like you would see in old movies, dark brown and probably a thousand feet tall, being pushed by a super strong wind, similar to hurricane force winds in Hawaii. After everything, including us, was covered in dust it started raining super hard and it started flooding all around the house. Johnny and his dad weren't fazed at all, but we were all tripping, agreeing that it was the strangest weather any of us had experienced.

We stayed there in Lordsburg until the evening of the next day and hit the road again, driving across the majority of Texas and ultimately arriving in Corpus Christie. The city of Corpus Christie is in the southern most part of Texas, right on the water in the gulf. Upon arriving we realized the oil leak was happening again, and Jamie decided to take the van into the Ford dealership to get it fixed correctly. Luckily we had a friend in Corpus and she put us up at her place while the van was being worked on. It ended up taking the Ford place five days to finish the van so we had days and days of cruising in the hottest place ever! It actually ended up being a lot of fun staying there because the pad we were staying in was a five-bedroom, three-story house with central A/C and was situated right on a canal with its own private boat dock.

We put the Red Bull jet ski that we were hauling into the water and had it docked in front of the house the whole time. We did a bunch of fun stuff with the ski, wake boarding, towing with regular surfboards, whipping each other around on an inner-tube, and I also got to learn how to drive a jet ski for the first time. We also got to surf some real Texan waves, only two-foot but surfable, and real fun for the standup paddleboard Jamie had also packed into the trailer.  After some good ol' times in Texas, and with the van in tip-top shape, we were ready for the next part of our journey.   



Once we hit the road and crossed the boarder in Brownsville, a constant feeling of anxiety kicked in for all of us.  We had been hearing all kinds of crazy stories about traveling through Mexico so we were all on our toes the whole time. We instantly ran into some problems at the boarder with paper work stuff but once we got through that, it was just a bunch of reading maps, asking people for directions, and trying to figure out what roads to take. The roads in Mexico varied from the worst one lane roads filled with deep potholes I have ever seen, to the smoothest, wide, freshly paved roads (these were the toll roads, or Cuotas, some of which cost us as much as $40 to travel on). The toll roads were a savior because they would stretch for many miles without having to go through all the little towns, which had these tedious speed bumps they call Topes.

Since we were towing a fairly large double axle trailer behind us which was hauling around 3,000 pounds, we would have to slow down to literally 1 mph and let each set of wheels slowly go over the Topes one at a time.  Each town had anywhere from one to ten or twelve tope's, and they would appear out of nowhere, so there was a lot of hard braking going on last minute style!  

We stayed in one large city along the way called Vera Cruz, which reminded me of a Mexican version of Honolulu. Vera Cruz is a major tourist destination for all the local Mexicans, and pretty much everyone there was on vacation. It was a very unique city with a real festive atmosphere along its oceanfront. The outskirts of the city were paved with cell like housing for the poor. These barrios were the largest I've ever seen, rolling on for miles and miles out away from the city. Thousands and thousands of people living in these tiny concrete structures that were all crammed together side by side and were virtually identical. Seeing that made me so, so, so, grateful to be from where I'm from, and to live where I live!  

After one night in Vera Cruz we headed inland, hoping to reach the city of Salina Cruz that was located on the opposite side of Mexico, before it got too dark. A major rule of driving in Mexico is to never drive at night. There is the possibility of hitting wild animals that are in the road, and also the threat of being ambushed by Banditos. Just outside of Vera Cruz we encountered an awesome toll road that was straight and fast, and on this road we were able to make way better time than we had expected. We left Vera Cruz at about 8 am, which was on the Gulf side of Mexico, and made it to Salina Cruz, on the Pacific side, by mid afternoon. At that point we realized that we were only about 6 hours away from our final destination, Puerto Escondido, and we collectively decided to push into the night and keep driving. 

We arrived at Puerto at about 11:00 p.m., after 15 hours plus of driving.   We went straight to a late night taco stand for dinner, and then out to a nightclub called Cabo Blanco, which rages on Monday nights, and coincidentally it was Monday night.  We hung out until closing, and then Jamie had a few friends come over to our new pad and we finally got to unpack the "MMWC"(Magnum Mobile Wave Chaser).
 
After days and days on the road it felt so good to be able to spread out all our gear, and start to organize all the great stuff we had brought along with us.  The trailer had safely transported a jet ski, beach trailer, nearly 40 surfboards, a stand up paddle board, fiberglass and resin for the local shapers, a barbecue, various food items, chairs, an umbrella, Jamie's Kettle Bells he uses for training, all my camera gear, and bunch of other random accessories.

Before we knew it, it was close to getting light so we grabbed our surfboards, put our fins in, waxed up, and were in the water as soon as we could see the waves. We ended up having a lot of fun that morning, but we didn't last very long after not sleeping at all.   

Unfortunately our first week here happened to be Puerto's first episode of heavy rains so far this season.  This past week we scored a few beautiful sunny days and the forecast is looking promising for the upcoming week.  

We have all felt very at home here in Puerto, with such spacious accommodations and good friends around.  "The quality of life in Puerto Escondido is top notch," says Jamie.  "One of my favorite things about this place is going uptown to the local outdoor marketplace".   The market has a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and all kinds of things you don't find in the states.  Our daily diet here in Mex consists of fruit smoothies every morning, fresh salsa, beans, rice, tortillas, ect.  It has been a real treat to have our own kitchen and to be able to cook our own meals at home with all the fresh ingredients the market has to offer.  

It is now July 16th and we are all psyching on the new approaching swell.  Early this morning Sterls and I ran way up the beach and Jamie surfed his own private reeling left sandbar barrel.  It was like a quarter of the length of desert point, but all sand.  Sterls got some of the longest 3-4 foot sandbar tubes he's gotten all year.

The approaching swell arriving this weekend is an 18 second period ground swell, with a super southerly direction. These are the perfect ingredients for a Mexpipe tube fiesta. We've got the Red Bull Ski all laced up, our paddleboards are waxed, and our tow boards are strapped. It should be an epic last week here and we are all going to take full advantage of our final days here at the one and only Mexican Pipeline. Stay tuned for the next chapter in the real life adventure that is Jamie Sterling's life.