How would you like your lobster...

...pink is the answer. For those that know me this will make so much sense!

Well, not much to add to the other posts other than I give up on surfing for now, its bloody impossible and don't talk to me about patience. I've tried and tried. The ankle is no help!

I have instead turned to the dark side and taken to body boarding. Cut your surf board into a smallish square you cant sit on and sand all the fibreglass off and you have a body board. Add fins (to your feet) for propulsion as you have to hang onto this thing with your hands and you have more water born anarchy! Those that do it well are very good I however splash around like an injured dog doing doggy paddle most of the time, getting washed around in the white water and generally wondering what all the fuss is about. That is however until I caught my first wave and rode it properly. This is where you should add a pinch of salt.

The wave was enormous. Its called overhead because if you stood next to the wave that's where it would be. This was at a point break called shipwrecks on the East Coast of Baja. It was en evening swell with plenty of big waves coming in. I managed to splash my way to where the waves weren't breaking and sat around waiting. For what you ask, well a big enough wave that could treat me like a pair of dirty socks in the spin cycle. Waves were coming through but out the back you wait for a bigger than usual to catch (suicide if you ask me.) IT came and I decided this was the one. I paddled like a spastic dog and lined myself up with a certain resignation. Normally at this point the wave overtakes you, your in the wrong place, everything happens too fast and your choking on salt water having forgotten to hold your breath or keep your mouth shut (my friends know this all to well!) before you know what's hit you!

When I opened my eyes I found I was hurtling along the middle of the wave (this is the magical bit) going sideways! Oh bliss, this is what its all about. The wave breaking just behind me and me racing ahead down the curving front face of the wave! A friendly Ozzie was behind me egging me on on the same wave, I looked round and was so surprised I ducked into the wave and out the other side. Oh man what a ride i was 'stoked' (I asked the ozzie if this is the right terminology) Splashing around in the aftermath of the ultimate ride (so far) i was happy but dazed by my success. I was then duly pounded by some massive waves that tore the body board from my arm leaving me to swim patheticly to shore like a broken stick (mostly floating), H was in the same predicament geting pounded by the huge breaking waves and was also washed up on the rocks. The ocean extracted its price.

Now, however, I dig the body board and like to get it into the teeth of the wave (as they are mostly smaller than the shipwrecks break) and really blast down the thing. I haven't pulled off such a stylish wave since but I'm working on it.

Oh, and yes, I'm mostly pink with a hint of burn.

¡Sun, Sea and Surf!

So we have had a very lovely week staying on a beautiful beach on the East Cape of Baja. Best of all its free and theres surf! So for the last few days we have been out of temptations way and unable to spend any money- a very good thing since we splashed out on a new surfboard for me. Its lovely.
So we have pretty much been sunning it up. Doing the basic beach stuff. Swimming, fluffing around on the surfboard (wouldnt quite call it surfing yet), collecting shells, making campfires, slack-lining and boozing. We have enjoyed it so much that we have come into town to fill up on drinking water and to get a proper shower, and then its another stint at the beach. Its a tropical 35 degrees at the moment so our tans are coming on well. Patrick and I are having a competition to see who can get the brownest arms. I have a sneaky suspicion that I will win.

Patricks ankle is coming on well. Still looks like a pudding but he has managed to surf so its slowly getting there.

I would say I hope your all having just as much fun but I feel I may run the risk of sounding like Im gloating!

Taco eating & T-Shirt tanned!

Hola. We have now reached Cabo San Lucas on the very South tip of Baja - its nice but a bit of an American tourist trap which we expected. For Americans it's what the Costa Del Sol is for the Brits. Today we took a boat trip over to Lovers Beach and got to dip our big toes in both the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez. Bobbed around on the waves and poked around with Patricks snorkel. P helped me to be brave and I even managed to look down on the glass bottom boat. Decided the best way to conquer the shark/underwater fear is to tackle it head on. The plan then, is to buy a surf board and get my arse in to the water. Unfortunately that is proving a little harder than we expected as the one and only surf shop has run short of surfboards. Delivery is over due so fingercrossed!

Fun in the sun...

...comes pretty easy down here. We are relaxing as best we can with all the stress´ life has to offer. We still don´t have a surf board as the manager/owner of the shop we hope to buy from went to the US to buy more product a couple of weeks ago and has not returned. Ho hum, manyana eh! We have been to lovers beach at the tip of lands end, very impressive, some snorkling and general floating around plus sunning one self. The days are hot and the nights reasonably cool. we have to find another much cheaper place to stay for afew weeksbefore we start the trip back up the pininsualr and then on to San Fran.

We're cursed you know...

... I swear all the bad things I ever did are catching up with me! Or I'm just getting a little overwrought and tired! You choose.
Yesterday we thought we'd had a major electrical failure. Nothing in the van was working and H and I stood looking at each other. You could hear the desperation and panic in the air! Loads of 'Oh shit' started flying and for a moment I thought that was us. I was already mentally driving back to vancouver. So in a very despondent mood I wondered off to the internet to e-mail some people and say hi in an effort to lift our spirits. 10mins later H arrives and tells me the next door RVer is an electrician and has some tools with him! Silver lining I hear you say. Well you couldn't be more right. I asked if he could have a look at it and 20mins later he had us back up and running. The neutral wire in the plug had parted for some reason. He cut the plug and gave us one of his own which he re-wired! Bless this angel in disguise. We can now still take pics and listen to our tunes. So we're off to go and park on a beach for a day or so before heading down further south. Wish us luck and touch all the wood you can see!

Putt, putt, putt, stall, lurch, stop...

...is how Cynthia breaks down. We put the flashers on and got out our refective triangle and stuck it in the street. We went to a pay phone to call the recovery people, thank god we got breakdopwn cover! The phone went dead halfway through the conversation so we moved to a hotel over the road from the van and used their phone. The police turned up and checked us out but we got the thumbs up for putting our triangle up!

We'd been driving back to the campsite after a very pleasent evening at Ocean Beach, San Diego. We'd seen a truly beautiful sunset, had a nice meal and had been able to catch up with all of you via the blog. Driving along the lights began to dim and kept getting dimmer until we came to a complete standstill at an intersection. This was followed by a telephone conversation from hell with the breakdown people. We were finally towed rather than fixed but of course we had no idea where to get towed so asked the mechanic. We went with his suggestion and ended up sleeping the night away in Cythia in an industrial estate, outside an RV repair shop, which was incredibly noisy and of course I worried about what might be wrong $$$ so no sleep for either of us. At 8:00am the following morning we discovered the mechanic at the RV repair centre was away until monday! No help to be found there. We then walked 20mins round the corner to another shop who as it turns out wont touch RV's. We then turned to our two internet options and called Hannah's mum in the UK and Todd inVancouver. We can't say thank you enough to both of you for all your help. You were legends. We got the numbers for about a dozen different garages whose websites stated they did mobile RV repairs. We phoned pretty much all of them only to discover they where now pizza shops, someone else'ss mobiles or a renting company for something else entirely! Finally one of the Garages who did fix RV's turned out to be round the corner but we had to get towed there. We realised our only hope was to push the breakdown cover a bit harder and get them to tow us again.
So two+ hours on the phone and no breakfast puts exactly where we were last night, putside a garage hoping someone can help us. We get to the Garage and they appear nice, talk to us etc. They go over what's most likely wrong and will fix it today no problem! We go to the beach to chill out, when we get back there's good news. It was a wire. One wire had burnt through and was dissrupting the charge to the van's battery, hence the lack of power. A $30 repair later and were back on the road. The guys at the garage were great to us. Thank god.

So another terrible nights sleep in an industrial estate wasting our $18 campsite, followed by a morning of stress and hair pulling has got us a repair and a cheap one at that. Hurrah. Oh and I got a haircut.

New photos...

...www.canadaamericamexico.com for photos