Recently was away in Sayulita, Mexico. It’s a small surfing town that’s situated 45 minutes North of Puerto Vallarta. I had a great experience while out there: was surfing every day, took a day boat cruise that takes you to a beautiful island with a hidden beach (Marieta Islands), went out scuba diving to some amazing sites and ate tons of Mexican food! Watch the videos of the “Chica Locca” Tour and the scuba dives, the videos will speak for themselves 🙂
Even though I had tons of fun, I still think that this town has a few shortcomings compared to the recent trip I did to Nicaragua. I was a little disappointed that it had no motorcycle rentals. I would of loved to do some exploration on a motorcycle. Also the night life wasn’t really good, and the prices for everything were too high in my opinion. But besides the shortcomings, I still had a blast!
Awesome weekend trip we did to Neah Bay! I really enjoyed that spot! Waves weren’t the greatest but enough to have fun. Enjoy the little video that I put together 🙂
Recently had an awesome trip on my motorcycle! Road 2100km over the long weekend, stopping at various locations for fun activities like surfing, and sand dunes ATVing. Here’s how my trip went:
Apr 02 3:15pm – 1 hour before my departure Decided to do a road trip on my motorcycle this weekend. Leaving today right from work, I will ride South as far as I can get the rest of the day. I don’t have any destination in mind, but I do have a few surfing locations in mind that I would like to surf at. I got my playlist ready with lots of music and a couple audio books. The weather forecast is a mix of rain and sun, so this trip could either be awesome or a nightmare. I’m still excited to see how far this trip will take me, and I will report my progression on this post along the trip.
Apr 02 9:55pm – First food break at BJ’S restaurant in Portland, Oregon
After a long time riding, taking my first break at the restaurant. So far I was lucky to avoid the rain, but it is getting colder by the minute and all my layers don’t seem to help no more to keep me warm. I’m also super soar from this past few hours of riding. Not sure how much longer I can ride lol….
Energy drinks helping me with my ride 🙂
Apr 03 130am – 30 miles pass Eugene
It was getting very cold, so decided to get a room for the night. Will be up bright and early tomorrow morning to continue my journey. Night!
Apr 03 6pm – From Crescent City to Gold Beach
Woke up early morning, jumped on the bike and kept riding south until I got to Grants Pass. Took a half hour coffee break to get some warmth back in my legs and hands (it’s hard to believe how cold it can get!). From there I took the highway 199 to Crescent City. Stopped at a seafood restaurant, where I was served the biggest breakfast portion, that’s what I love about USA, big tasty portions for cheap! I was going to surf there but the conditions weren’t that great. So decided to ride north up the Oregon Coast. Did a few stops to check the view and take pictures. I didn’t think I was going to get any surfing today because I was running out of time. And out of the blue, I found a rental place that rents good quality surfing paddle boards (my preference) at a hotel right on the sea – Inn of the Beach Comber. The staff was super nice and gave me one of the best rooms for the cheapest price, as well gave me a good deal for the board. It definitely made my day!
I went out surfing, it was a little ruff out there. Got caught in one of the bigger waves that crushed my face right into the sand down below. I lost some confidence and got a little scared afterwards lol. Now having a beer and relaxing. Will go to bed early to start the day early!
View from the hotel room to the beach
Highway 199 to Crescent City
Oregon coast
Oregon coast
Oregon coast
Apr 03 815pm – Mexican food
One thing I might add, I love love love Mexican food! Just ate 3 delicious pork tacos, couldn’t help myself to order 3 more!
Apr 04 230pm – ATV at the sand dunes!
Just stopped at Frorance (the dune city) for a quick Mexico food break. And give my body a break from this morning ride up the coast and the atv that I rented on the way here for an hour. I gotta say, I had tons of fun exploring the sand dunes on an atv! The area that I was at is much more serious than the previous one I rented the atv close to Pacific City. It has lots of unexpected drops, where if not careful could result in some serious injuries. But the area was unbelievably awesome! Will have to come back to explore more!
Oregon coast
ATVing
Sand dunes
Sand dunes – steep hill ahead 🙂
Sand dunes
Sand dunes
Oregon Coast
Apr 04 540pm – Quick stop at the Sea Lions Cave
After seeing an attraction sign, decided to do some touristy stuff and go check out a big natural cave filled with sea lions. Had to pay an admission fee, and take an elevator that takes you down into the cave. I found it to be very interesting to observe the sea lions, and my though was: ‘it’d be cool to take a paddle boat or a kayak inside that cave!’…. Perhaps an adventure for another day lol
Waves crashing outside the cave
Sea lions chilling in the cave
Sea Lions Cave
Apr 05 9:30pm
Got home around 5pm today after a long ride home. My body was very sore from the past few days. But I missed the gym and my training, so decided to finish the day good by going to the gym!
A spontenous decision led me on a short trip to Kelowna Friday night. There were a few places that I felt it was time I go and check out, ne of them was Big White. It is a ski resort that I’ve heard nothing but good things about! The other place was FlowRider; it’s an indoor surf that I was really curious to try.
The drive is roughly three and a half hours from Vancouver. Driving in the middle of the night, I was able to make it much quicker. This time I drove by myself, so I decided to spend the night in the back of my SUV. Putting the seats down gives me just enough room to make a bed. Unfortunately I didn’t sleep that well because it was very cold. I had to wake up a couple times to turn the engine on to warm up the car. On a positive note, I woke up super early and was only 10 minutes away to reach the mountain to go snowboarding!
Big White
It was my first time visiting this place and my overall impression was really good. It felt like spring conditions, yet still a little cold to ride in a shirt. The mountain wasn’t as big as I expected it to be, but the terrain is really fun and playful. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to give it my all since I’m still recovering from my knee injury, so I had to take it a couple of notches easier. I will definitely have to come back on a good snowy day when I’m fully healed!
FlowRider at H2O Adventure Fitness Centre
FlowRider is a company that makes artificial wave machines that one can surf on. With growing popularity it is becoming a sport on it’s own. It has been awhile since I have wondered what it’s like to ride it and if it’s anywhere close to riding actual waves. The closest flowrider we have to where I live in Vancouver is in Kelowna. And that location has only one of the simpliest designs that flowrider holds. Yet, I was still excited to try it out!
Here are my thoughts: flowrider, even though it’s fun, doesn’t feel anything like surfing real waves! But it was fun in it’s own way! I could see this being even more fun once one got better at it! I also think that the skills learned from riding it could transer over to surfing, so it could be a good learning tool. Now I am really curious to try out other flowrider designs such as the 10’ barrel wave; they have one in San Diego (Wavehouse).
Sunday Motorcycle Ride
After a good night sleep in my own bed, which felt amazing compared to the sleep I had the previous night in the cold car, I decided to go on a motorcycle ride with an excited passenger, Carrie. We rode to Whistler on the Sea to Sky Highway, stopping at various site seeing sites and exploring some dirt roads. After a day of riding we were both very sore and Carrie started to have muscle spasms, luckily by that time we were almost home. Despite the uncomfortableness of my motorcycle and the pain it caused from riding on it for too long, Carrie would still love to go for an even longer ride! 😛
The past week we have stayed in Tofino for Surfing over Christmas Holidays. We were supposed to go down to California, but because we were sick, we decided to do something more low key and go surfing in Tofino for a week.
The surfing and weather conditions were really decent, I had my share of fun. I feel like my surfing skills are slowly improving. I’m now starting to feel like I understand the wave better when I ride it. At times I feel like I am “one” with the wave and I’m starting to “play” with it a little more. The more I surf, the more I appreciate the sport. I still got tons to learn, but it seems like it always gets better!
Got a chance once again to get away over the weekend for another surfing trip with a couple of friends. We arrived to our hostel at Seaside, Oregon, late Friday night. Right before bed, my friend has realized that she had forgoten her purse at Safeway, which was an hour and half drive away. It was closed at that time, so she had to wait until the morning when she was able to make a call to find out if her purse was found. We were all in a bad mood, if the purse couldn’t be found, the trip would have been over for us. Luckily it was found and we picked it up the next day early in morning.
After a long morning drive, we arrived to Seaside beach where we were ready to surf! It was a very cold day Saturday morning, the air temperature didn’t rise above 5 degree celcius. Putting on and taking off our wetsuits wasn’t very pleasant, luckily this location has a warm shower that makes it a little more bearable to accomplish.
The following day, Sunday, was such a beautiful day! The temperature rose to 15 degree celsius, a nice sunny day, with an offshore breeze. The waves weren’t very big, but they were perfect to have fun on! I caught dozens of waves. One wave in particular made this trip worth it. I was riding the wave and I squatted down low on my board so the wave was above my head level. I looked to the back and I saw the wave breaking right by my shoulder and when I looked forward I could also see the wave still forming in front of me. At the same time I skimmed my hand through the wave… The feeling was unbelievable! I felt so connected with that wave!
The drive back was long and arduous, I felt very tired the next day at work too. But the trip was very fun!
Setting myself up for the next wave!
Seaside Surf Spot
Beach view from Seaside Downtown
Seaside Hostel’s Backyard
Warm shower at Seaside Beach… Made the cold experience more bearable!
It has been a while since I’ve had a true “Ohhh Shitt” moment. This weekend I have re-experienced what it is like to really be scared. This time it was being in the ocean, having huge triple overhead monster waves coming towards me…
The excitement started at the beginning of last week, when I looked at the wave forecast and noticed 16 feet waves over the weekend on the Oregon coast. I was a little nervous since I have never surfed waves that big. The biggest I’ve surfed were 10 footers, and already I thought they were big! Little did I know then that once I get to Oregon, the waves would be as big as 20 feet high!
Wave forecast to be 16 feet
Friday morning, I packed my bag, got all my SUP surfing equipment, and headed on public transit to meet up with Carrie at her work. We could then take her car straight across the border for the 8 hour drive from Vancouver, BC to Pacific City, Oregon. Taking all my equipment on public transit was extremely cumbersum, I’m sure I annoyed tons of people, but they were very polite and inquisitive about my SUP surf board and my upcoming trip.
Public transit with my big cumbersome board
The drive to Oregon was long as always, but a good old school playlist, anticipation of the next day’s surfing, and good company made it worthwhile.
The following morning, while checking into our hotel, one of the workers was telling me about the local warning that had been issued for the big wave conditions. It gave me chills, but I was determined to try to catch something big that day. After having breakfast at a buffet by the beach, we checked out the surfing conditions. The waves were as big as expected, but it was hard to judge their true size since they were further away from the shore.
First, we went to the surf rental shop by the beach so Carrie could rent her surfboard. Unfortunately, they refused to rent any surfboards that day due to the size of the waves. They told us that the waves could be up to 20 feet high at the moment, and they were only getting bigger as the day progressed. When I heard that I felt fear running through my body, a part of me was telling myself that I should stay on shore, and forget about surfing that day. That’s what a smart person would have done, but I felt like I had to do it, especially when I saw a small handful of other people swimming towards the bigger waves. I knew that it was possible to surf those waves since others were going for it. I also knew that my experience wasn’t good enough for those conditions, still I decided to go for it.
I got into my wetsuit, got my SUP board, and was ready to jump in! I noticed that one other surfer was on his way to go surf the big waves, so I followed and asked him if it was cool if he could show me the way to get past the white wash. Every beach has a way to get past the white wash. Most of the time this involves catching the rip current by the rocks that takes you out to the bigger waves, which was the case at this spot. He explained to me that once the opening was clear (no waves crashing into the rocks), I had to commit to it and just go and let the rip current take me out there without turning back. I was nervous following him, since the path we had to take was surrounded by rocks and boulders. Once in the water, we waited behind a big boulder for the waves to calm down, I was doing my best to keep my cool and tried to avoid being thrown into one of the bolders and damage my SUP board. As the waves became calmer, he gave me the sign to go, we paddled into the rip current and before I knew it I was out in big wave zone. I paddled out as far as I could from the rocks into a safer zone. My chest was pounding at that time from fear, but I kept telling myself to keep calm, panic doesn’t do anyone any good!
The spot by the rocks where the rip current takes you out into the sea…
After a few minutes I was able to calm myself down and get myself excited to catch a wave! I saw the next set of waves rolling in, and was ready to catch the next one coming. I paddled as fast as I could but I wasn’t going fast enough to catch the wave. As I turned to look back for the next wave, I saw a wave that was much bigger than the one I was just trying to catch. Not only that, I was at the wrong spot of where that wave was going to be crashing! The wave was very big, it must have been bigger than 15 feet. At that moment I knew that I was in trouble, there was no way for me to avoid having that wave crash on me. I took a few deep breaths, and let the wave take me down for a spin. I felt my body tumble inside the wave. I was trying to relax and conserve my oxygen, not knowing how long the wave would keep me inside. After what felt to be an eternity, I was finally able to float up and catch a few more breaths until the next wave took me for another spin.
After that set of waves passed, I was able to get up on my board and get back out to where I thought would be a good spot to catch the next set of waves.
About half an hour had passed by, a couple other people who had come out had already dissapeared, I’m assuming that they have caught their wave and went back to shore. So I was there by myself, which made me slightly nervous. Meantime I was trying to catch a few waves with no success. I looked out at the horizon and I noticed something big coming. At that time I was contemplating that perhaps I should catch any coming wave, and head back to shore. As that next set of waves was coming, I saw the first one that I was going to try to catch, and once again had no success. After that wave had passed, I felt the wind drastically picked up, and I saw the next set of waves coming…. Those waves were the biggest waves I have ever seen! They were slowly creeping towards me in the near distance, they were enourmous, at least 20 feet high! At that moment I knew that I had to get away from the breaking point, there was no way I wanted to get swallowed by that monster! I was paddeling as fast as I could to get away from the breaking point! Luckily, it barely missed me and it broke right beside me. I was able to feel the force of that monster that I nearly missed. I had to do the same thing with the next couple waves that were just as big, if not bigger… After those waves passed, I decided that I’m not ready to be riding in these conditions yet. I will need at least a couple more years of experience to ride monsters that big!
As I headed to shore, was feeling a little dissapointed not to have caught a big wave, but at the same time happy to have experienced that experience without drowning.
Coming back from the surf session…
The rest of the weekend, we decided to go on a hike and watch the waves as they were crashing on the side of the cliff. It was a sight to be seen!
Trail hike we went on after the surfing session
Watching the waves go wild from the top of the cliff
Sunday night, we drove to Seattle to go to a restaurant called “Crab Pot.” I gotta say, the experience of eating there was amazing! I stuffed myself with so much delicious food, it was very painfully gratifying!
Next day we drove home… Even though I didn’t get what I came to Oregon for, to ride a huge wave, I still think that the experience was worth it! Really fun weekend overall!
I wouldn’t really call this much of a trip since Squamish is only an hour away from the city, but it’s a fun place for windsurfing. Saturday early morning, I loaded my equipment and headed to Squamish. Once I got there, I quickly assembled my sail (which is becoming easier these days, I used to really dislike doing it), put on my thick wetsuit and jumped in the water. Like always, I was having a blast windsurfing! It’s one of my favorite sports!
As the day progressed, the winds picked up to 30knots, and I was riding with a 6.0 meter sail, which is quite big for winds of that kind of intensity. I felt overpowered while riding, and was feeling a little nervous too, but I still kept at it as much as I could until I had no more energy left and my legs started cramping up. I came home in the evening exhausted and very bruised from all the falling, and I passed out to be ready for Day 2.
Day 2 – Flight to Campbell River for Skydiving
Last year I promised my sister to take her to Campbell River where she could take her First Jump Course (http://pacificairsports.com/learn.php). Early Sunday morning, I pulled myself out of bed, and headed to the airport to prepare the airplane for the flight. We took off from Pitt Meadows Airport and flew to Campbell River (a little town in Vancouver Island). It’s only an hour and ten minutes flight on the airplane, compared to having to drive and take the ferry (which is a hour trip), sometimes it’s worth being a pilot J. Once we got to Campbell River, my sister and her friend went to the classroom for the course, and I went off to start jumping. I did four skydives that day, and I even had time to finish writing an exam for my B licence. Overall it was a very productive day!
We flew back late that evening, and got home at 11pm. Feeling even more exhausted than I did the day before, I passed out once again for only a few hours of sleep till I had to wake up for Day 3.
Day 3 – Trip to La Push for Surfing
I had heard lots of good things about La Push, but never found a chance to go until that day. The Twilight movies had been filmed there, so if you’ve seen those, you’d know it’s a very beautiful place. I was very excited to go surfing there. So excited that it was enough to get me out of bed super early on Monday morning.
The trip to La Push from Vancouver is about 5 hours if you plan everything well and reservations for the ferry are made in advance. Obviously for us it was a new experience, and a learning curve, too. We didn’t book the ferry (never making that mistake again). It took us seven and a half hours to get there, and I was even thinking of turning back before arriving because I didn’t think we’d have time to get back that night (I had to get back to work the next day). But then I thought, ‘no way! I’m gonna get there and get back no matter what! Even if it means not sleeping the whole night to drive back home the long way if I miss the last ferry!’ And we did, we got to La Push, and it was indeed a beautiful place! The waves weren’t too big but they were really fun to play with. I caught a few really fun waves that definitely made my trip worth it! On the way back we caught the late ferry, and arrived home around 1 o’clock in the morning. I was a walking zombie the next day at work, but that’s the price to pay if you want to have fun!
Doing a variety of sports and activities is a lot of fun, but it can also be head wrecking at times. You might ask, “How could it be head wrecking?” The answer is simple- too many choices to pick from. Every week I try to come up with something fun to do over the weekend and I always get a few good options that compete for my time. Last Friday, I came up with a spontaneous idea, that I should try to do as many activities as I possibly can over the weekend.
What better place to do it than in one of my favorite weekend getaway spots in Oregon!
I searched the Internet to come up with a plan of things to do and places to go. This is what I came up with:
– Leave tonight after my training, then drive 7 hours to Hood River
– Wake up bright and early the next day to go on an amazing trail hike
– Treat myself to a Birthday present: An Inflatable SUP board for surfing
– Go windsurfing at the Gorge – the best place for windsurfing
– Drive to Portland
– Go Go-Karting
– Go Skydiving till dark
– Drive to the coast when traffic is low at night
– Next day wake up early to go surfing with my new toy on the Oregon Coast
– Go Dune Buggy or Quad
– Either go back to a different surf spot or go skydiving in Washington or.. Both!
– Drive home
Obviously nothing ever goes quite as planned, although I did manage to do most of the activities on my list. I wasn’t able to go windsurfing because the wind hadn’t started to blow at the usual time. I couldn’t go skydiving in Washington at the end of the weekend, because I arrived too late. Also, so much driving has been involved in this trip (roughly 1700km). But the weekend has been a lot of fun otherwise! Here’s how my trip went…
Friday evening, at 8pm, a friend arrived and we took off to Oregon. I was going to do this trip alone because it’s difficult to find people who want to go on a trip like this, due to the fact that there’s very little rest involved. But fortunately my friend came with me, which made it much easier on me since we got to take turns driving. After a long drive we made it to Hood River, Oregon, at 3am. We parked the car at the start of the trail hike (Eagle Creek), and slept in our vehicle. After 3 hours of sleep we woke up feeling extremely groggy. We started the walk up the trail. The calmness of the trail was peaceful and the fresh air was slowly waking me up. Something I find really cool about this trail, is the fact that it trails right on the side of the cliff. The first spot the trail leads to is called “Puchbowl falls.” It’s a really beautiful spot with a river, a couple waterfalls, and a few cliffs to jump from. The trail continues to other spots, but today we decided to turn back to save time for other activities.
After the hike, we ate a quick breakfast and drove to the store so I could buy myself a birthday present. I was going to get an inflatable standup paddle board, but after taking a peek at it, I didn’t think it would be a good choice to ride waves with. The owner of the shop showed me a few other boards and I fell in love with one particular board: A Mistral 9’2 Wave board. It’s an expensive board, but just by looking at it I could tell that this board would be awesome on the water! So that turned out to be my birthday present to myself. I had also gotten a used sail for windsurfing. Time sure flies by quickly when you’re shopping for toys! By the time I was done it was already 12pm. I was supposed to be windsurfing at that time, but the winds didn’t cooperate with my schedule. Since it wasn’t expected to pick up until 4 pm, I decided to skip windsurfing and head for a drive to Portland where I would be going Go-Karting and Skydiving.
We arrived to the Go-Karting race track about an hour and a half later without any major traffic delays. The track is a cool location and there were lots of go-kart owners parked with their trailers waiting to race. We signed in, bought 2 races (12mins each) and waited for our turn. Even though its only for fun, every time before I race I get a little bit nervous and feel competitive, trying my best to get a high score. This feeling always turns into an adrenaline rush as soon as I start riding! I felt like a kid again, and I really enjoyed the design of that track! After we did two races, we were off to go skydiving at ‘Skydive Oregon.’
Once we got to the drop zone, I wasted no time except for what it took to get all of my information filled in because I was coming to jump at a new drop zone. I then got my parachute inspected, got a good briefing on the drop zone protocols and was ready to go jumping. I jumped twice, then quickly packed my parachute. I was ready to get going to the Oregon Coast to hopefully get the last bit of sunlight for surfing. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time for surfing. We parked by the beach and got some sleep for the next day.
We woke up at 6am. We had a little more sleep than the first night, and boy, we really needed it lol… We were driving around trying to find a place to get some breakfast, which was a challenge all in itself as most of the places we went to were closed! We found a lil coffee shop by the beach, had a quick breakfast there and headed to go quading. Wow, now that was an experience! It was my first time quading, and now I’m in love! It was one of the most fun things I have tried so far! The area was enormous, filled with many trails, sand dunes, and a really nice beach to ride on! I will definitely have to go back there again.
Right after quading, we drove to the beach (literally parked our car on the beach), and I went to try out my new surfing stand up paddle board (SUP). The beach, “Cape Kiwanda” was beautiful!Unfortunately, it didn’t have the best surfing conditions for an SUP because it was super windy, which made it very tough to stay on top of the board. I still managed to catch a few waves, even with the added difficulty. After a few hours, I packed up my stuff and we headed to Washington, stopping at one of my favorite Mexican food places in Seaside of course!
After a long drive, we arrived to another drop zone in Washington. I was hoping to do one more skydive before heading home. Unfortunately, I have arrived there too late, they finished jumping for the day. I was disappointed, but relieved at the same time, I was really tired by that time lol. So we decided to drive home. I arrived to my house around 1 am, ready to wake up for the next day to go to work.
Although I didn’t finish everything I had intended to do from my list, I still had lots of fun! Watch the video from this trip to see my adventure for yourself!
Ever since last summer, I fell in love with windsurfing. And like any other love story, there is always “the place” where that magical thing happens. For me, it was in Hood River, Oregon, also known as The Gorge. The gorge is definitely one of my top destinations for windsurfing, not only for its good winds, but it is also a very beautiful place!
We have left our home town, Vancouver, around 7 pm on Friday evening. After a long drive we have finally arrived at our hostel around 2 am. The hostel that we stay at is right across the bridge from hood river, called Bingen School Inn. It is literally an old elementary school that has been transformed into a hostel. It still has the whole school look inside, I find it very nostalgic being there. Reminds me of the old times when I was still a little boy in elementary school. It’s a very cool place!
Early morning, we woke up, had breakfast and head over to the windsurf rental shop. I rent all my gear from Big Winds since they got really good quality gear. The day turned out to be not the greatest for me for windsurfing, since the wind conditions were very strong and choppy, making it hard for an Intermediate rider like myself to ride. But I still had some awesome moments!
Later that day, we got a few drinks and head over to a very little lake (20 minutes east from the Bingen town). The water there is warm and it has a nice 30 foot Rock to jump from. It was a perfect way to end the day!
The following day, we woke up early after a late night of being out in the bar, to head to the Oregon Coast for Surfing. The beach that we have went to is called Short Sand Beach, recommended by the Seaside Surf Shop. It was a very beautiful place! And so was the drive along the coast, some scenery were very beautiful! Unfortunately the waves were very small, but they were still fun to play around with on a Standup Paddle Board.
On our way back, we drove along the coast which was a very more interesting drive than along the main Highway. The trip has been very satisfying , the only downside was a lack of sleep and the speeding ticket that I got on the way back 😦 lol….
Edgar Bullon 