I had heard a few stories about trips to Mexico—mostly the sketchy ones, thb—but I didn't really know what to expect. Luckily my pals Foster Huntington and Trevor Gordon had been down a few times before, so I felt confident enough when I recently tagged along for a Baja mission. After sleeping a few hours in a San Diego parking lot we crossed the border at dawn. The further south we drove, the less pavement we saw. As the roads turned to dirt the idea that we were heading towards the middle of nowhere started to feel comforting and exciting.

Our whereabouts on the map was usually up for debate as we zigged and zagged our way from fishing village to abandoned coast. Luckily we packed a dinghy. It's name was the H.M.S. Dingus and Trevor and I rock, paper, scissor, shoot-ed for the opportunity to cuddle with its outboard motor in the backseat of the pick up. I won, and it was worth it. We used the Dingus for finding waves that we couldn't get to by car and for fishing. We caught a lot of fish. And a lot of waves.