Surfing Mexico | Outside Online

Outside Magazine, May 2005

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Riding with the Ghost Dolphin (cont.)


	"SURF WHENEVER YOU CAN": Perez riding the foam at a local break (Photograph by Kurt Markus)

TEN MEXICAN STATES NOW HOLD CIRCUITS of torneos to select teams to go to the annual nationals. Each will send as many as 30 competitors in all categories. Serious surf competition in Mexico is booming, the result of a maturing homegrown scene fueled by access to global culture via the Internet, movies, and television. While there are no Mexicans on the World Pro Tour, and their best surfers need more pro experience to be truly competitive, the nation has fielded surf teams

Garcia was El Campeón, and every time a wall of green water rises out of the sea, a surfer may sense his ghost gliding like a dolphin down the line.

to the World Games in Brazil, Ecuador, and South Africa in the past five years. Two contenders of note: Raul Noyola became the first Mexican surfer to win a World Qualifying Series pro-tour competition in 2001 and, last August, won the Mexpipe Open, in Puerto Escondido; and one of the country's best female surfers, 20-year-old Sofia Melgoza, of Guadalajara, has had promising results in international events. Meanwhile, surf clothing and gear companies—like Mexpipe, Olea, and Squalo, the biggest, which operates 50 clothing retail stores in Mexico—are springing up and providing sponsorship for competitions and individuals. Mexican shapers are producing beautiful boards in Cabo and Puerto Escondido.

On my fifth day in Mexico, Leon and I drove the five hours down the coast to Acapulco for the Torneo Evencio Garcia Bibiano, a Guerrero State selection qualifier that Leon would have to win in order to go to Ensenada. Garcia, for whom the competition was named, was the legend Leon had first seen compete in '78. He was from Acapulco, and at a 1985 championship here at Playa Bonfil, south of town, he used the home-field advantage and devastated the competition. He was a quintessential fearless big-wave rider and the first native to do aerials and floaters and 360s. On his last heat, he already had more than enough points to take first place, but he had a few minutes left before the horn, so he paddled back out for one more ride—just for show. Before a crowd of a thousand spectators, he took off on a steep left, and it closed out and collapsed. He seemed to kick out over the back side. His board flew into the air, then . . . nothing. The board washed onto the beach, and no one ever saw him again.

In a superstitious culture, Garcia has become the resident spirit of Mexico's waves. Surfers will tell you with a straight face he was transformed instantly into a dolphin who still patrols and protects surfers. He was El Campeón, "the Champion," claimed by heaven, and every time a wall of green water rises out of the sea, a surfer may sense Garcia's ghost gliding like a dolphin down the line. I met a 25-year-old top surfer named Julio Cesar La Palma, whom everyone calls La Pulga—"the Flea"—and when I asked him if he has a hero, he blinked and put his hand on his chest. "Sometimes when I dream," he said, "I dream that Evencio Garcia is surfing in my body."

If Garcia were there on that Sunday in November, he would certainly have heard "Guantanamera" booming out of the giant speakers next to the judges' platform—not the old song but the hip-hop version by Wyclef Jean, Celia Cruz, and Lauryn Hill. Leon was out in the surf loosening up. I recognized him right away even from a distance—his bullet head, his constant roving back and forth, hunting. In surf, he rarely stops paddling, even between sets, his eyes on the horizon.

"Guantanameeera—"

According to the big posted roster, Leon's finals heat was coming up. At the top of some crumbling steps off the sand, wedged between a palm tree and a shaded slab of concrete covered with plastic chairs, where surfers were eating sopa de mariscos (seafood soup), was a beat-up white Chevy van with PRENSA painted in block letters across the front. It didn't look like any press van I'd ever seen. A wooden skeleton in sunglasses was chained to the grille. A faded Xerox of a dog was taped to a window, with the words CUIDADO! PELIGROSO! I could see why: Chained underneath were two tawny pit bulls.

A short, thin-faced young man with a sparse mustache hustled around from the back of the van. His loose hair hung down his shirtless back. He had skull tattoos and a skull pendant, and his official government press card hung on a necklace of shells and claws of black coral, along with a fancy Nikon. I introduced myself, and he ducked his head agreeably. "Andale," he said, and pushed aside a bamboo curtain across the van's open side door. He sat against a bag of dog food, under a poster of Bob Marley.

Oscar Diego Morales, a.k.a. "Fly," is a roving reporter for Planeta Surf La Revista, a magazine by, for, and about Mexican surfers. It's slick and fun, splashed with Aztec design motifs, crisp action photos, and ads for Mexican beachwear. The second issue had just hit the stands. Oscar told me that surfing in Mexico was at a tipping point. It was growing more popular by the month. "Every time a good swell is forecast, more and more people come out," he said. Then suddenly, hearing a particularly irresistible riff from the speakers on the beach, Oscar leaped out of his seat and, bent over, began to do a crazy little dance to the music. He sat back down. I asked him how many dedicated surfers he thought there were now in the country, and he began, remarkably, to tick off each major break.

"Puerto Escondido, 60 . . . Acapulco, 25 . . . Ensenada, 50 . . . Mazatlán, 15 . . . San Blas, 15. Nobody knows," he concluded. (Matt Warshaw, who wrote the seminal Encyclopedia of Surfing, estimates there are 30,000 native surfers in the country, though Mexicans say there are far fewer.)

"What's with the skulls everywhere?" I asked.

"Skulls? Oh. No matter if you have green eyes, blue eyes, white skin—in the end everybody is going to be the skull. It's the true face at the end of our life."

As I left the van, a small pickup skidded to a stop at the end of the sand street, and ten shirtless teens with boogie boards and shortboards jumped out. Some had fade haircuts with long, red-streaked tops. Earrings, eyebrow piercings, blond-streaked ponytails.

"Hey," I called, "where are you guys from?"

Playa Princesa, a break a few miles up the coast.

"Are you students?"

Most of them worked as lifeguards and in restaurants for a few dollars a day. Another generation.

Back down on the beach, I found Leon. His final master's heat was about to start. He was with some other surfers in the shade of a palapa, stretched out in a plastic chair, drinking from a water bottle. He looked much too relaxed.

"Isn't your heat coming up?"

"In a few minutes. I am ready." I was more nervous than he was. I felt like a soccer dad.

We heard the blast of a horn announcing five minutes to go. Leon stood, stretched his arms back like a man waking up, grabbed his tiny board. How long can a warrior keep going to war? He reminded me of the graying soldier in The Seven Samurai, the one who would always survive on seasoned judgment, discipline, and patience. Then it occurred to me that I was Leon's age and I was just starting. What would I survive on?

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