Mexico or Bust

North to South; Tracing the Gold Coast Solo

Text and Photography by John O’Dwyer

“You’re crazy.” “You’re an idiot.” “You must have some kind of death wish.” Believe me, I’ve heard them all and quite frankly, I happen to agree with each one of them. Truly sane people don’t attempt to traverse the entire coast of Southern California alone on a personal watercraft.

When I first discussed this idea with a friend of mine he said, “I didn’t know you had a Jet Ski.” “I don’t,” I said. “Any ideas where I can borrow one?”

He didn’t and after a few weeks of searching for a cheap used one, I realized there was just enough room on my MasterCard for a new Yamaha WaveRunner VX1100.

Day One

It’s a foggy Saturday morning in early July when I drop the craft in the water for the first time. Outside the breakwater of Dana Point Harbor, I point my compass due west towards Catalina Island and squeeze the throttle. I consider today a training exercise. The goal is to see how far this baby will go on a single tank of gas and what speed I can average across three foot seas. These are questions I posed to several Yamaha salesmen over the last few months but could never get a satisfying reply. It seemed that nobody had ever done more than a couple hours’ worth of figure eights with one.

About eight miles from shore, it becomes pretty evident that I will wear out before the WaveRunner does. She’s purring like a kitten, I’m panting like a dog. Ten miles out, I lose all sight of land and, lacking a rudder, spin like a teacup at Disneyland. Another mile into the shipping lanes and the current seems to be going in three directions at once. I decide not to risk my life tracking through the fog looking for Catalina. Dejected, I point the bow towards a small hole in the clouds where the sun is breaking through. It’s 7:30am and so I’m guessing that’s east.

Day Two

Practicing along the coast of San Clemente, I conclude the wisest and safest way to navigate from Santa Barbara to Mexico will also be the easiest, keep the land to my left and the water to my right.

Roughly a mile north of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, I happen upon a 23-foot jet boat bobbing close to shore. From a distance, it appears the four passengers are trying to warn me of some unknown danger but as I get closer, it becomes clearer that they are the ones in distress. Their motor has quit and they are about five minutes from getting washed up on the beach. I throw them a line and tug them out to safer water until a real emergency crew arrives. Good karma, I figure, for when I’ll need a tow. This spontaneous rescue mission gives me a warm sense of pride and purpose. The only downer to it all is that the vessel I am towing just happens to be a brand new Yamaha as well. If engine failure can happen to a twin engine SRX 230, it can definitely happen to me.

Day Three

Wanting to check in with someone who might offer me some words of wisdom, I speak to Mark Gerner from PWCOffshore.com that sponsors a group of riders who compete in various open water racing events. Mark is the 1,000th person to tell me that no reasonable human should ever attempt a 300 mile journey across the ocean without at least one chase boat and I promise him I won’t. Not because I don’t respect his opinion and obvious concern for my safety but because I know his time is very valuable and I don’t want to waste any of it explaining that I am stark raving mad. I want to move on to more useful topics like what, besides two chase boats, someone might need to complete the journey.

Just for starters, Mark recommends a GPS, a backup GPS, dual compasses, waterproof maps, a freshwater hydration system, hooded wetsuit, some floating goggles, lifter wedges, a good helmet, VHF radio, first aid kit, space blanket, two flotation devices with neck support, emergency flares, flashing strobe light, a signal mirror, an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, extra spark plugs, and some knee and back braces. In short, about $3,000 worth of things I don’t have, though a cursory search of my garage does net half an old dive suit, a moldy pair of ski goggles, and a Pearl Jam CD.

Day Four

A buddy agrees to play hooky and drive me to Santa Barbara. Somehow, we manage to avoid discussing that even at 70 mph in the carpool lane this trip has already taken most of the day and only represents a small portion of the expedition I start tomorrow.

Day Five

If anyone is entertaining the notion of taking an 8-foot boat across 300 miles of ocean, do NOT, under any circumstances, tune in to Shark Week on The Discovery Channel before going to bed. It’s now 4:30 in the morning and I haven’t slept a wink. A little anxiety to be sure, but all that underwater footage of great whites circling the stranded mariners of “Oceans of Fear” did not help.

At 7:30am, my buddy backs me and watercraft down the boat ramp in Santa Barbara. The plan is to meet up in Ventura Harbor in two hours and assess the sanity of continuing this adventure after I’ve gotten a few nautical miles under my belt. I thank him for the ride and tell him where the latest copy of my will is. A little before 8am, I round Stearns Wharf and head for checkpoint one.

The first hour is kind. Soft, gentle rollers lightly buffet me southeast towards Ventura. As the land curves inland, I cut across the bays to save fuel. At times, this pays off; the further from shore I go, the more dolphins I encounter. Other times, the seas get so big that I regularly get swamped under wave after wave of whitewater. The first time this happens, you really think you’re going to die. You look down but everything is gone; the front of your boat, your handlebars, your elbows. For the longest instant, it feels as if you are standing chest deep in quickly rising water. You wonder how securely you sealed the hatch of your storage compartment. You pray the engine doesn’t stall. You imagine the deep blue view sharks have of you pathetically kicking against the current. But then, your WaveRunner rockets back to the surface with you still in the saddle, cursing God like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.

By 10am, thick fog and inexperience amount to me missing the entrance to Ventura Harbor. Rather than beat against the current, I call my friend on my cell phone and tell him to meet me in Port Hueneme, 15 miles to the south. At the guest dock, we look at our watches and wonder whether there’s enough daylight to reach Marina Del Rey. We both think there is, but the bigger concern I have is running out of fuel. There are no places to stop between here and there and thus far this morning, I have seen exactly zero other boaters in this desolate seascape. At the fuel dock, I top off the WaveRunner and inhale four soggy Pop Tarts faster than Kobayashi downs dogs at Nathan’s Eating Contest. Leaving Port Hueneme, I briefly flirt with idea of Anacapa Island eight miles offshore but decide I’m pushing my luck already. Instead, I point southeast and hunker down for the longest stretch of the journey.

The first hour of any lengthy voyage always feels the longest. Landmarks take forever to appear and the tiniest oscillation in rpms makes your heart stop. Bad fuel? Something in the impeller? It’s hard to press these thoughts out of your head but by hour two, your mind comfortably numbs. With every new cape, a decade of memories pass and I stop for a swim and shot of fresh water. Around 1pm, a conspicuous patch of green grass marks the distinct campus of Pepperdine University. It’s the first inch of coastline I actually recognize and I call my buddy to celebrate. Somewhere in Malibu, he pulls over to snap a picture of me passing by and I race him to Marina Del Rey.

Day Six

It’s 10am. Marina Del Rey is huge. Just getting out past the jetty takes an hour. To entertain myself through the tortuously long 5 mpg channel, I try to plot a course on my GPS for Long Beach, Newport Beach, or Dana Point. Unfortunately, I haven’t spent enough time with this device to figure out how to navigate with it. No matter what I do, it plots a perfectly straight line to my destination; a bright red vector clear across neighborhoods, freeways, commercial downtowns, and mountain ranges. This would be fine if I were piloting say, a large bulldozer, but for the seaward route around Palos Verdes, it proves quite useless. Fortunately, it’s a perfectly clear day and I don’t need anything but my burning eyeballs to navigate around the massive headlands.

Once around, I sneak inside the enormous breakwater that protects the Port of Long Beach and hit full throttle for the first time. The sensation is incredible. Within seconds my hair, my wetsuit, even the deepest puddles of my footholds are whisked bone dry. My speedometer registers a blistering 54 mph and sea life everywhere dive for the bottom.

Back outside the breakwater, the same curiosity that compels cross-country travelers to drive 200 miles out of their way to visit the World’s Largest Ball of Tin Foil compels me to visit an oil derrick off Huntington Beach; a senseless diversion considering the time of day and gathering sum of clouds. So with 40 miles to go and less than a third of a tank to do it, I make the truest line I can for the cliffs of Dana Point. Around 3pm, the skies darken and it starts to rain. An afternoon breeze transforms those gentle undulations into a frothy chop. The next hour of this trip can be likened to riding a mechanical bull in a freezing cold shower. I attempt to draft the wake of a large motor yacht on the same heading but apparently, they find me an eyesore and lacking the power to outrun me they choose to empty their holding tanks in my face. Their stink bomb works to great effect and I have to give up the chase or suffocate in their sewage. It’s cold, dark, and very wet when I finally sputter into Dana Point Harbor on my last bar of gasoline. At 9pm, I induce my own coma with a six-pack of Coors Light.

Day 7

The morning fog has reduced visibility to about 25 yards and it doesn’t take a GPS to know I’m somewhere off the coast of Camp Pendleton. I can hear a steady barrage of small arms fire ripping through the stillness like massive sheets of Velcro being torn apart. Suddenly, it occurs to me that in my haste this morning, I completely forgot to close the drain plugs in the bottom of my WaveRunner. If my motor were to break down now, I would immediately start to sink. I weigh the pros and cons of pausing to dive below and close those holes versus the possibility of being mistaken for a military training target and decide stopping the leaks is actually the higher priority.

The marine layer is thick and the ocean, motionless. Stopping in the middle of this milky white cosmos leaves me with the distinct feeling that I am already dead and just crossing the River Styx. With the engine off, I lean overboard and grope around the opaque cream until I find the two bubbling holes. A few moments later, they are sealed and I’m back to idling my way through the white velvety limbo with the sounds of Armageddon fading fainter and fainter behind. Stiffness creeps into my muscles. I’ve exhausted the entire Karma Sutra of riding positions. No amount of Advil can dull the saddle sores I’ve acquired. I pinch the throttle a little tighter. Point Loma is near.

Around 11am, the sun blazes through and I instantly regret wishing it had. It becomes unbearably hot and I find myself wasting precious fresh water washing the sweaty sun block out of my eyes. The passage around Point Loma is complicated by gigantic forests of kelp. I do my best to avoid the larger cables churned loose by a recent storm but can’t help grating a little coleslaw along the way. I hopscotch my way through the worst of it and then tear wide open for the U.S. Mexico border. I only have a couple gallons of fuel left but am too mentally exhausted to make prudent decisions now.

At the border, there’s really nothing to do but kill the motor and snap a few pictures of the hazy Tijuana skyline. I note how similar the geography is, but how different the rooflines are. Just 20 miles north of here, gorgeous glass skyscrapers reflect pristine blue skies and well-manicured parks. I thank God for the good weather and to be born on this side of the fence. I call a friend in Orange County and tell him to meet me at a boat ramp in San Diego. According to my GPS, it’s about 90 minutes away from both of us.

Coming home, I marvel at the beautiful simplicity of personal watercrafts. No rudders, no neutral, no sails, no handrails, just a jet with handlebars. Someday, I know they’ll be ruined with airbags, child safety seats, and 5 mph bumpers, but right now they give the operator a little credit. Carve left, carve right, and accelerate your way out of trouble.

Well, not all trouble. About 5 miles from the entrance of San Diego Harbor, I realize I am traveling in the shadow of a massive U.S. Coast Guard helicopter. I assume it’s a mere coincidence.

I assume incorrectly.

Within minutes, I am overtaken by a U.S. Coast Guard interceptor with what appears to be a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the front. I stop the engine, raise my hands in the air and wonder if I remembered to pack my passport.

I didn’t.

The captain circles me suspiciously while one of the crew asks me where I’m coming from.

“Santa Barbara,” I say.

Santa Barbara is 300 miles in the opposite direction. While the officer thinks what to ask me next, I am sure I hear the sounds of 9mm’s being unholstered.

“You came all the way from Santa Barbara on THAT thing?” they ask me.

“Yep,” I say. “Care to see the pictures?”

They do and pull me aboard. They think I am insane, but I am just deliriously happy to see and talk to someone other than myself for a while. They go through every cubic inch of my dry sacs, kindly explaining that they had received reports of a red WaveRunner sneaking up from Mexico.

Yes, I admit. That was me.

“You don’t mind if we take a look inside your boat, do you?”

“Sure,” I say, knowing he is just being polite and fully intends to search me head to toe with or without my consent.

And then right there on the spot, they begin to dismantle my baby. It’s both distressing and comforting to watch them yank the seat off and start probing inside the engine. On the one hand, I worry about their voiding my factory warranty on the high seas. On the other, I’m glad someone is protecting our border so thoroughly. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have bought my just-sailed-in-from-Santa-Barbara story, either.

Thankfully, I pass whatever Patriot Act requirements are these days and so they forego the full body cavity search. Besides, the Navy has just requested an escort for a nuclear submarine currently heading our way. I bid them farewell and thank them for the laughs. They are in fact, a cool bunch of guys. The same goes for the San Diego Harbor police who, having heard about the infamous red WaveRunner charging up from Tijuana on their scanners, met me at the docks with the same set of questions.

It’s 8pm and word of my trip makes its way around my circle of friends. A smattering of emails and text messages sprinkle in. One of them reads, “U R A MADMAN.”