Well the story of our little family starts with the fact I've never really ridden a fiberglass board. I have always had a foam board and I have only ever long boarded.
Honestly I could probably count the number of times I've been surfing on both hands. But it is one of the major passions of my life, regardless of my amateur skills.
And it is also my single biggest goal this summer--to get better at surfing, and to do it... a lot.
The first weekend we were here in town Jade and I had made a run to Costco to stock up on food. While we were there we noticed their foam board selection. Not bad. And honestly it was a great price, only 1600 pesos, about $125 USD.
The benefits of foam boards are awesome for beginners. They are more buoyant and much thicker which makes them more stable and easier to catch small waves. They are also much more durable which is a HUGE consideration. Fiberglass boards are very delicate and break or ding much easier.
But Jade hadn't had a chance to begin looking for his board yet. He was planning on checking classifieds and surf shops and we had some other big purchases at the time so I decided to hold off on my Costco board.
A few weeks later Jade had his heart set on a board. A Canadian family in Nuevo Vallarta was selling it because they were moving back. We went to check it out and although it had more damage than we were expecting, it was also more beautiful than I knew! I fell in love with it and it was a pretty fair price.
As we were coming to find out, boards here are more expensive than in the states because most of them are imported. People have to pay the price to get the boards down here and there aren't a lot for sale at one time so cost and demand keep the prices up. A good deal on a new long board is usually around 8,000 Pesos! (Roughly $630.) And a good used board is usually 5 to 6,000.
We found this board for 3,500 P ($275).
Of course Jade did his research. The shaper, Steve Clark, is from San Diego and has been shaping boards for a lot of professionals for a long time. He makes really high quality boards and is known for using an especially strong foam. His trademark is putting a stamp of Duke Kanamoku on his boards. Duke was a Hawaiian swimmer credited as one of the first men to spread the sport of surfing around the world.
So he came home with us and Jade named him Duke.
So since Jade was set with his board we quickly scheduled a trip to P.V. to Costco to pick up mine. However when we got there, they were out! Jade took 3 laps around the store to make sure he hadn't missed them. I was out of luck.
We called back every few days to see if they had received another shipment but it was taking MUCH too long for me.
We decided to spend a morning surfing in Sayulita, trading off with Jade's board. He wanted me to see how a fiberglass board feels but mostly I think we were both tired of waiting to surf!
We invited Ethan who is an awesome surfer. In fact, the first time we saw Ethan was when he was playing around surfing the waves right here in Chacala. It's a steep beach break usually so it's pretty rare to see surfers but he was making it look easy. We honestly just watched him for a while, envious.
He joined us and even brought along a foam board he had access to and offered it to me to use.
But when I rode Jade's glass board, my mind was irrevocably changed. I had to have a glass board! I knew it was going to cost much more than 1600 Pesos.
As we talked about how much we could spend on my board it came up that we had a little nest egg we had set aside for a jetski that we had wanted to buy and tow to Mexico with us. It had fallen through at the last minute but the cash had been set aside for our "toy fund." We decided to get a great board that I could keep forever. AND we decided that we should get a cheap short board so we could practice here in Chacala. (Really we just wanted to be like Ethan, lol)
So Jade set out on another internet search. (I am pretty sure it's one of his favorite things to do in life). He said he had been checking the classifieds for a long board that was my size ever since we got here. There had never been any. We set a date to drive to Puerto and check out a short board that was in the classifieds.
There was also one other possibility. When Jade was looking, a while back, he found out that there was a good board shaper, here local. He had read an article on Marco in a Mexican surfing magazine online. Marco supposedly was very talented and was being praised for trying to keep his prices very low. He makes high quality custom boards for just a little more than you would normally pay for a good used board. He had worked in California but recently moved back and opened a shop in Buscerias.
His company ATL, pronounced Atul, is named after one of the ancient tribes from this area.
Jade had contacted Marco and his company/wife, Aimee to see if they had any boards on hand. It takes about 6 weeks for a custom board and although it was tempting... I just don't have that kind of time. I need to be in the waves, like, yesterday!
They had one board. It was an 8 foot (just my size) brand new board that a customer had cancelled his order for. We jumped on the chance to check it out but when we got to his shop on our way to P.V. that day he realized he had accidentally left the board at home.
We were perfectly willing to go to his house to look at the board. Before we left we mentioned that we were looking for a used short board as well. He rustled around in the back room for a minute and then emerged with a beautiful 6 foot board. There was no way we could afford it, not to be our trash board that would likely get broken on the beach in Chacala.
But it had been his own board. And he was selling it for a steal. We even talked him down an extra 500 pesos if we bought both the boards.
So we picked it up and drove down to his house to check out the long board, which was absolutely perfect. We bought both boards. 2,000 pesos for the short board and 5,750 for the long board. Roughly $150 and $450 respectively. They stopped and talked story with us for hours. We finally left when their 4 month old daughter, Lily, started getting fussy.
They were some of the nicest, coolest people we have ever met.What a cool experience! And what an honor that we will be riding his own board that he made for himself, along with a brand new, never-touched-the-water beauty.
When we got the boards home we laid all of them out on the bed so we could clear a spot for them. We named the short board Marco, after his father, and I named my long board Guadalupe. She is a Mexican beauty. No-- it doesn't matter that she's white. She's still Mexican.
And today I actually put her in the water for the first time. We went to Playa de Tortugas! Which turned out to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We surfed there for 3 hours and it was PHENOMENAL. I am 100% satisfied.
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