Taylor Steele

Photo by Todd Glaser

A man with no cultural scene will often invent his own. Taylor Steele did just that. When the award-winning producer and director returned to North County two years ago after living in NYC, Australia, and Bali, he sought to reignite the creative community at home, and only one place would do: the historic La Paloma Theater in Encinitas, where he grew up watching films like Searching for Tom Curren on the ratty seats.

“La Paloma is the mecca for surf premieres, but there was no festival here,” says Steele, whose explosive 1992 rockumentary-style film Momentum inspired a generation of surfers to elevate the sport into an art form. His second annual Solento Film Festival takes place Sept. 22-25 at the 1928 Spanish Colonial icon. It’s a legacy story for Steele, who flipped the script with Sipping Jetstreams and Proximity and went on to art direct campaigns for Corona, Apple and HBO.

Last year’s festival debuted to a full house that included industry giants like Kelly Slater, Rob Machado and Mick Fanning. They were lured by more than movies; music has been a crucial part of Steele’s oeuvre ever since his early VHS films helped to boost SoCal bands like The Offspring and blink-182. During this year’s festival, concerts will be held on an outdoor stage at Seaside Reef, Steele’s home break.

One of the festival’s sponsors is Steele’s very own certified organic tequila brand, Solento, packaged in a Chanel N°5-inspired bottle. It’s a long way from the early days of surf films at La Paloma. “There was always the sound of beer bottles rolling down the aisle,” says Steele, legs outstretched on the seats in front of him. “It’s a rite of passage for every filmmaker to show here.”

The post Taylor Steele’s Sacred Space appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

South Mission Beach Courts

Patrick Davis for Life’s a Beach

Friendliest Bike Shop

MJ’s Cyclery

The bike shop sits on a popular commute route and is staffed by affable mechanics who have worked the Tour de France. Hardcore bicycle people don’t have the friendliest rep, but MJ’s is different. They’ve got the skill set to equip racers, but they don’t treat commuters or parents buying bikes like tourists in their world.

Way to Become the Pickleball

PB Tennis Club

One minute you’re casually playing a game of pickleball, the next thing you know, you’ve helped design Gearbox’s newest paddle. The brand is based in San Diego and PBTC is their local court, where they play with locals to gain insights on how to improve their rackets. This sounds like free lessons to us.

Boujee Boat Picnic

Picnic Voyage

When a relative was giving away their boat, local architect Vilchis saw an opportunity to design a 10/10 Instagrammable experience. Now you can class up your day date by recreating The Notebook—a pristinely refurbished tiny boat with padded seats, plant garlands, snacks and drinks, and even parasols. Ryan Gosling not included.

Beach Volleyball Where Everyone Knows Your Name

South Mission

Each weekend on the courts of South Mission Beach, the sand is taken over by 2v2 players—many of which are ESL speakers from various countries. They’ve made this plot of sand their sacred community, where the universal language is bump, set, and spike.

Running Shop That Doubles as Bumble BFF

Milestone Run Club

On any given Wednesday on Hamilton Ave., 100 to 200 runners gather to run the streets of North Park. It’s put on by Milestone Running, a shop created by locals Greg Lemon and Chad Crawford. Go a few times and you’re pretty much guaranteed at least ten new friends—might even get “Smirnoff Iced” during the post-run raffle. You win some, you lose some.

Reward-Based Running

Waterfront Social Run Club

Even avid runners can lose motivation. This year, Waterfront introduced a new tradition: beer stops. The three- mile loop starts at Eppig Brewing in Point Loma, then heads to Fathom Bistro for a beer before completing the next 1.5 miles. Finish up with a post-run brew at Eppig, obviously.

Mission Bay Basketball Court

Madeline Yang

Sailing Lessons by Jack Sparrow Himself

Harbor Sailboats

San Diego’s maritime history runs deep. America’s Cups have a permanent home here. Harbor Sailboats—seven-time winner of the “ASA School of the Year”—offers sailing courses taught by longtime sea dogs. You know, the type of no- nonsense skippers who know how the wind will change by the way the breeze hits their beard hair.

Hikes in Real Nature

Palomar Mountain

If you want sky-high firs, oak forests that shade your path, and mountain peaks that overlook actual foliage (read: no palm tree in sight), head to Palomar Mountain State Park. And, since the inaugural California State Parks Week took place this year, there’s no better time to dust off your hiking boots on one of the six hiking trails (five for running).

An Apparently Easy Climb That’s a Lie

Mission Gorge

A mellow 5.7 climb on paper, The Tower at Mission Gorge will have you clipping the first few bolts like you’ve been dirtbagging in Yosemite all your life. You’ll have to dig deep into your courage reserves to tackle the crux, but you’ll be walking down that mountain with your head held high when the sun starts to set.

Floor Exercise

Mission Bay Basketball Court

Hoops here have always had a magical effect—a full regulation court, smack dab on the beach. The ball smells like sunscreen. No fence; out of bounds is in the sand. And it just got an artful resurfacing in honor of local basketball legend, Bill Walton—who’s been a member of the South Mission Beach Sports Park & Rec for 25 years.

Best Surf Shop Nowhere Near Water

Happy Battle Surf Co.

Yep, in City Heights. Specializing in boards from local shapers, owner Mark Polintan (who grew up on a pineapple farm in the Philippines) has created an infectious gathering place for surfers to support their peers. Like chasing tubes in exotic locations, you never know what or who you’ll find here, but you’re guaranteed to leave stoked.

Best Way to Justify Surfing All Day to Your Family

100 Wave Challenge

Surfers are selfish. No matter how many waves we catch, we always want more. And while there’s no shot we’ll ever change, we can at least direct that impulse toward a good cause. At the annual 100 Wave Challenge, participants commit to riding 100 waves in one day to raise funds for the local nonprofit Boys to Men Mentoring.

See full list of contributors here

The post Best of San Diego: Great Outdoors appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

2012 Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i“The view of the mass swim start of 2,000 triathletes from my position hanging out the door of a helicopter. This is a moment in time you don’t get to see anymore—they now send the athletes out in waves instead of all at once.”

Donald Miralle just returned from the LA Marathon, where he and his team of assistant photographers captured the annual siege: nearly 40,000 athletes methodically descending on the city. From the Dodger Stadium starting line, where Miralle hovered above the crowd at dawn on a cherry picker, to the finish line at the Avenue of the Stars. After capturing the thrill of the start—80,000 legs suddenly in motion—they hopped on motorcycles to zip around the city and capture key moments of the entire 26.2-mile course. His wife, Lauren, and their two sons are happy to have him back on solid ground at their Leucadia home, but they know it won’t be long before the award-winning photographer takes off on his next adventure.

By Jet Ski, helicopter, or his own two feet, Miralle has gone far afield to capture the world’s most prolific athletes (Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in the early 2000s, all the gold medal events for Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps), the largest events (the Super Bowl, the Summer and Winter Olympics), and the most remote locations, like cave diving isolated cenotes in Tulum.

“The moment I get on a scene, I take the camera away from my face and look around, absorb what’s around me,” says Miralle. “When your face is in the scamera, you miss out on a lot of things. I step back, watch the scene unfold, see the bigger picture.”

From the alternate realities just below the surface in the Yucatán Peninsula to the highest bike race on earth in Nepal, Miralle’s massive portfolio is a visual love letter to the great outdoors. His anything-for-the-shot approach has landed his work in The New York Times and Sports Illustrated, and earned him over 50 international awards, including six from the World Press Photo Foundation and seven from the Pictures of the Year International Competition for Sports Photographer of the Year. For our annual outdoors issue, Miralle shares some of his greatest adventure shots of all time. — Erica Nichols

Donald Miralle – Tokyo Olympic diver

Team China in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform diving at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

“This is such an insane sport, where divers have to be in perfect synchronization. This photo captures that dynamic, multiple-exposure movement showing the spins and dives they’re doing.”

Donald Miralle – Tokyo Olympics swimmer

Caeleb Dressel: Men’s 100-meter butterfly at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

“Dressel is one of the most powerful swimmers on the planet. I sat with a really long 600 millimeter lens prefocused to the spot where I predicted he’d come up and captured him bursting out of the water, on his way to get the gold medal.”

Donald Miralle – swimmer

Swimming Team Free Final in the 2019 FINA World Championships

“The moment Team Russia enters the water, where the water is still really calm—I flipped the photo so their reflection at the bottom of the pool is mirrored. I had to really envision what I wanted way before the moment came here. The camera is static, situated in an underwater box that’s weighted down in the pool with about 200 feet of cable running out of the pool and onto the pool deck, where I fired the shot with a remote control.”

Donald Miralle – Chumbo surfing

Professional surfer Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca at Mavericks in Half Moon Bay, 2017

“The California coast was hit by a massive swell, where the conditions were projecting waves from 35 to 50 feet for several days. I was positioned on a Jet Ski, capturing Chianca dropping in and outrunning this avalanche of water.”

Donald Miralle – US Open of Surfing

2014 US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach

“Shot for Sports Illustrated. I hung out of a helicopter to capture this cool, graphic view of the spectators along the pier and the turbulence in the water as the surfer paddles out.”

Donald Miralle – Carlsbad bioluminescence

Bioluminescent waves beneath a full moon in Carlsbad, 2020

“Amid COVID, we were treated to bioluminescence and a full moon. With a couple of friends, we went out to a secret spot at night. It was a stealth mission of them paddling out into the water, myself waiting in the dark to watch them get a wave. Magical.”

Donald Miralle – Reef sharks

Blacktip reef sharks in Bora Bora, 2016

“I was out in Tahiti competing in an open-water race. On my day off, I spent the morning swimming with these blacktip reef sharks and was able to appreciate the beauty of the pristine water there—it’s crystal clear, with a beautiful ecosystem.”

Donald Miralle – Fish and coral reef

Fish moving among a coral reef in Bermuda, 2018

“On my last day of a work trip for Condé Nast, I took a boat out to a reef and free dived about 30 feet down, capturing this cool, pretty sea fan and the fish moving all around it.”

Donald Miralle – Swimmers and turtle

2016 Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i

“I found myself at the bottom of the bay, at six a.m., as nearly 2,000 athletes waited in the water above me for the signal to start. There was this anticipation in the air when I saw this green honu [sea turtle] swim by my lens. I almost couldn’t believe it. It’s one of my more famous photos in sports and captures the mana [soul] of the event and of the Hawaiian Islands.”

The post Award-Winning Photographer Donald Miralle Shares His Top 10 Outdoor Shots of All Time appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Then came hard times. Competitive circuits faded away. Contracts dried up. Bodyboards gathered dust in the garage, even as surfing—which, for the first time this year will become an Olympic sport—hit the mainstream.

There hasn’t been a major contest in California for many years. That will change later this month, though, with a two-day bodyboarding contest and festival at the OB Pier, with professional and amateur divisions. The organizers are using the Bodyboarding US Festival, taking place Nov. 23-24, as a trial run for what they hope will be a North America pro tour with stops in California, the East Coast, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, that could launch as early as next year.

“We believe for the sport to grow and be sustainable it needs events at a national level,” says Washington Teixeira, owner of Bodyboarding US. “We need to create idols through contests like this.”

When Teixeira announced the event earlier this year, competitors flocked to register—a sign of what spongers have always known: Dedicated riders kept the flame alive through lean times. Now a new generation is taking the reins, and maybe leading the sport to another break-out moment.

The father-son duo of Diego and Micah Land, residents of Vista who are both competing in the event this weekend, exemplify this. Now 42, former competitive rider Diego Land has passed the torch to his son, 14, a San Marcos High School student who last year was crowned champ of the California Scholastic Surf Series.

We caught up with the father, a sales manager for an off-road company in North County, on the eve of the upcoming contest.

How did you and your son get into sponging?

I’ve been bodyboarding since I was 10—I basically grew up surfing Oceanside Pier. I competed for a stint. Tried to make a living at it but realized it was a lot harder than I thought. I found free-surfing and traveling to be more enjoyable, so I tried to get exposure that way, shooting photos for magazines.

I introduced Micah to it when he was 6. He latched on to it right away. It allowed us to be closer and for me to share my passion. He loved going out even if it was small. Starting at a young age he progressed really quickly, taking off on bigger waves than I did at his age. Watching him grow into the sport reignited me, and I was like, “Wow, let’s do this together.”

He competed for the first time in middle school. He started getting into the finals consistently and just got better and better. In 8^th Grade he was the state champion for the California Scholastic Surf Series, out of 26 schools.

Are you stoked for this comp?

We’re both really excited. He’s competing at a high school level and to do this on the side will better his ability and competitive skill set. As for me, I’m excited to see what I have left in the gas tank at my age. Everybody I bodyboard with is stoked.

What impact could this contest have for the sport?

It’s going to be great exposure for bodyboarding in Southern California. There are lots of bodyboarders in SoCal, but we haven’t had a contest or series in such a long time. It could bring some life back into bodyboarding. I have so many friends I’ve met through the sport who would like to see something like this contest come back to California.

It’s been progressing for years, we just don’t have that global attention like surfing. The guys that still do it are a tribe. We have so many close friends and people we’ve met. It’s a great group of individuals to be a part of. This contest means a lot to the guys in SoCal that bodyboard. There are a lot of adults and kids who rip on a bodyboard but don’t get any exposure.

What trajectory has bodyboarding been on since its heyday?

In the ’90s, there was a circuit through Morey Boogie, that’s what really started the whole contest thing for bodyboarding. That fizzled away after several years. I wouldn’t say the sport lost momentum, though. It’s always been here.

What is it you love so much about sponging?

There are so many moves we can do on a boogie board. We can get so much deeper on the wave than surfers, and surf shallower waves, whether that’s shore break or reefs. The experience is totally different from surfing.

Five Questions With Local Bodyboarder Diego Land

Bodyboarder Diego Land (right) and his son Micah | Photo by Tony Prince

The post Five Questions With Local Bodyboarder Diego Land appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

The cover story of this month’s San Diego Magazine is my account of going back to Baja for the first time since all the blood. I had written off Tijuana. I knew the violent years were over. I’d seen the crime statistics (you have a greater chance of getting murdered in Chicago). I just had a fear echo.

As a kid growing up in San Diego, there was no shortage of slander about Mexico. The country was like that reclusive man in your neighborhood with the limp and the dead lawn who was known to bury children in his backyard. Adults told us bad men lurked on the other side of the border fence, waiting for white people with nice shoes. They pointed guns at you until you jumped in their sack. Then they called your family and asked for money. You might make it home. All of your fingers would not.

I started sneaking down there in 1987 when I was 14. At 4’11″ and still pre-pubescent, I had all the manliness of a Christmas elf. But I was able to get a fake ID at a small store in Downtown San Diego whose relationship with the Better Business Bureau was probably complicated. I drank buckets of Coronas at Peanuts & Beer, dancing to Salt N Pepa under black lights next to 18 year-old SDSU freshmen and menopausal hookers. I showed Tijuana far too little respect, partially because it didn’t seem interested in much.

I never got drugged or kidnapped. I did get shaken-down by two police officers. Paid one off with $6. The other got $50 after he took issue with the Swiss Army Knife in my pocket and told me I was going to jail forever and ever.

But I also saw another side of Baja. We’d drive 160 kilometers south of Ensenada and turn down nameless dirt roads until we hit water. We parked our trucks on the sand, camping and surfing for days. Just us, a wet horizon and sweet boredom. Gentle old fishermen traded us lobsters for t-shirts, knowing full well we were getting a deal in the exchange. The locals at the occasional side-road tienda welcomed us with warmth, looked after us.

That part of Baja seemed like a home. Like people had roots, a sense of place and pride. Whereas no one—not the cops or the curio shop owners or the bat shit crazy white people—seemed compelled to honor or preserve or make Tijuana better.

Then Nortec Collective happened. That band of Tijuana DJs, musicians and artists stole the spotlight back from the donkeys painted like zebras (zonkeys). My San Diego art friends moved to TJ. Partially because rent was $200. Partially because TJ was the only thing south of L.A. that was remotely edgy or artistic.

And then 2006 happened. The Mexican government stopped doing blow at parties with the cartels and started arresting them. That seemed like great news, but it wasn’t. When you remove the big dog from the yard, the smaller dogs fight over the bone. Up-and-coming cartels fought in the streets for control of the crime market. Tijuana became a bloodbath. Kidnapping became municipal sport.

Now, the dust has settled and—lo and behold—Baja is one of the most buzzed-about food and drink destinations on the planet. “Baja Med” is the name of its famous cuisine (even if some locals and chefs chuckle at it). News headlines about the food scene in the warm-climate region tend to use the word “hot” or “sizzling.”

Two years ago, star Tijuana chef Javier Plascencia told the New Yorker and the New York Times that he wanted to turn Baja into an international food destination. Just like San Francisco or Mexico City. Two months ago, photographer Jaime Fritsch and I set out on a series of day trips to see how far Plascencia and his colleagues had come.

I am a very different sort of tourist than I was in 2006. Which is good, because Baja is a very different sort of tourist destination. The pattern of consumption is moving away from the excessive intake of mediocre things, and more toward moderate intake of good things. Less tequila poppers, more snifter Mezcal.

After spending time there speaking with its innovators, I left with so many reasons why Baja’s food, wine and culture is terribly, terribly exciting. But the one idea locals expressed again and again goes something like this:

The violent years were awful. But this cultural surge might not have happened without them. When tourists stopped coming, Baja created a culture for its own people. They stopped catering to tourists’ wants and desires, and catered to their own. Ironically, that’s what’s made it especially attractive. After all, who wants to arrive in Paris only to realize it’s been designed to live up to American stereotypes of Paris (painters in berets talking snootily about sex)?

I want to experience Baja on its terms, not my own.

My story, “The Baja Moment,” ends with an anecdote some people feel I shouldn’t have told. Driving back from Valle de Guadalupe, we were pulled over by a police officer in Tecate. He said we didn’t come to a complete stop and we’d have to go down to the station. We were intimidated, missed our families, and didn’t know how to properly handle the situation. So we asked if we could take care of the ticket right there. We paid him off.

I was incredibly bummed. It’s my job to tell a true, firsthand experience as an American writer returning to Baja. And now he forced himself into my experience. When I relayed the story to the Baja tourism director, he was livid. He asked for his badge number (I didn’t think to get it), and told me about a hotline that Americans can call in situations like that. If it ever happens again, maybe I will.

But a crooked cop won’t keep me away from Baja. Neither will the fact that in some parts, Tijuana smells like shit. As more than a few locals told me: Baja isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK.

It’s definitely for me.

I hope you enjoy the story. I researched it exhaustively and relay a lot of statistics and ideas from the people who are creating Baja. It’s not meant to be a complete history or almanac. There are so many innovators and important people who helped shape the region’s food and drink scene that I wasn’t able to include simply due to space and time.

I start the story with Derrik Chinn, an American journalist living in Tijuana who has been bringing Americans down to experience the city in a real, non-tourist way for years. I felt apprehensive that the first voice you hear in a story about the region is a non-Mexican. But I wanted to organize the story as the typical American might experience it themselves—start through another American’s eyes—and then get to know the natives and influential people who have been building their native culture for a long, long time. Plus, Chinn is an eloquent, passionate participant in Baja culture.

The hardest part for me with this story is limitations. I could have written a book. I ended up with 5,000 words. But we also needed space in the magazine for Jaime’s beautiful photos. So I cut it down to 3,000 words. Fernando Gaxiola, owner of Baja Wine + Food and the largest importer of Baja wines, has a fascinating perspective on the wine regions that I need to tell. One of my favorite humans in Valle de Guadalupe—Natalia Badan, a sort of spiritual mother of the Valle—isn’t included here at all. Javier Plascencia’s phenomenal assistant Diana Jimenez was basically our tour guide and gave us invaluable insight. We had to cut it for space.

I had so many insightful conversations with people in Baja. We would talk for a half hour, maybe an hour. Then it was my job to bottle our entire conversation into one paragraph. Then take that one paragraph and bottle it into a sentence or two. There are so many great truths and ideas in the story; and yet so much is lost, too.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll present some of those ideas and interviews on SD Food News. Because they were so insightful and helpful to understanding the region, and I don’t like wasting people’s breath.

I’d like to thank everyone who took their time to help me on this story and yet who aren’t included: Diana Jimenez, Fernando Gaxiola, Jay Porter, Antonio from Life + Food and Club Tengo Hambre, Genaro Valladolid (Bustamante Realty Group), Flor Franco and Natalia Badan.

Thanks for reading. Now go to Baja.

Baja. Desert magic.

Jaime Fritsch

The post Behind the Baja Story appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

The cover story of this month’s San Diego Magazine is my account of going back to Baja for the first time since all the blood. I had written off Tijuana. I knew the violent years were over. I’d seen the crime statistics (you have a greater chance of getting murdered in Chicago). I just had a fear echo.

As a kid growing up in San Diego, there was no shortage of slander about Mexico. The country was like that reclusive man in your neighborhood with the limp and the dead lawn who was known to bury children in his backyard. Adults told us bad men lurked on the other side of the border fence, waiting for white people with nice shoes. They pointed guns at you until you jumped in their sack. Then they called your family and asked for money. You might make it home. All of your fingers would not.

I started sneaking down there in 1987 when I was 14. At 4’11″ and still pre-pubescent, I had all the manliness of a Christmas elf. But I was able to get a fake ID at a small store in Downtown San Diego whose relationship with the Better Business Bureau was probably complicated. I drank buckets of Coronas at Peanuts & Beer, dancing to Salt N Pepa under black lights next to 18 year-old SDSU freshmen and menopausal hookers. I showed Tijuana far too little respect, partially because it didn’t seem interested in much.

I never got drugged or kidnapped. I did get shaken-down by two police officers. Paid one off with $6. The other got $50 after he took issue with the Swiss Army Knife in my pocket and told me I was going to jail forever and ever.

But I also saw another side of Baja. We’d drive 160 kilometers south of Ensenada and turn down nameless dirt roads until we hit water. We parked our trucks on the sand, camping and surfing for days. Just us, a wet horizon and sweet boredom. Gentle old fishermen traded us lobsters for t-shirts, knowing full well we were getting a deal in the exchange. The locals at the occasional side-road tienda welcomed us with warmth, looked after us.

That part of Baja seemed like a home. Like people had roots, a sense of place and pride. Whereas no one—not the cops or the curio shop owners or the bat shit crazy white people—seemed compelled to honor or preserve or make Tijuana better.

Then Nortec Collective happened. That band of Tijuana DJs, musicians and artists stole the spotlight back from the donkeys painted like zebras (zonkeys). My San Diego art friends moved to TJ. Partially because rent was $200. Partially because TJ was the only thing south of L.A. that was remotely edgy or artistic.

And then 2006 happened. The Mexican government stopped doing blow at parties with the cartels and started arresting them. That seemed like great news, but it wasn’t. When you remove the big dog from the yard, the smaller dogs fight over the bone. Up-and-coming cartels fought in the streets for control of the crime market. Tijuana became a bloodbath. Kidnapping became municipal sport.

Now, the dust has settled and—lo and behold—Baja is one of the most buzzed-about food and drink destinations on the planet. “Baja Med” is the name of its famous cuisine (even if some locals and chefs chuckle at it). News headlines about the food scene in the warm-climate region tend to use the word “hot” or “sizzling.”

Two years ago, star Tijuana chef Javier Plascencia told the New Yorker and the New York Times that he wanted to turn Baja into an international food destination. Just like San Francisco or Mexico City. Two months ago, photographer Jaime Fritsch and I set out on a series of day trips to see how far Plascencia and his colleagues had come.

I am a very different sort of tourist than I was in 2006. Which is good, because Baja is a very different sort of tourist destination. The pattern of consumption is moving away from the excessive intake of mediocre things, and more toward moderate intake of good things. Less tequila poppers, more snifter Mezcal.

After spending time there speaking with its innovators, I left with so many reasons why Baja’s food, wine and culture is terribly, terribly exciting. But the one idea locals expressed again and again goes something like this:

The violent years were awful. But this cultural surge might not have happened without them. When tourists stopped coming, Baja created a culture for its own people. They stopped catering to tourists’ wants and desires, and catered to their own. Ironically, that’s what’s made it especially attractive. After all, who wants to arrive in Paris only to realize it’s been designed to live up to American stereotypes of Paris (painters in berets talking snootily about sex)?

I want to experience Baja on its terms, not my own.

My story, “The Baja Moment,” ends with an anecdote some people feel I shouldn’t have told. Driving back from Valle de Guadalupe, we were pulled over by a police officer in Tecate. He said we didn’t come to a complete stop and we’d have to go down to the station. We were intimidated, missed our families, and didn’t know how to properly handle the situation. So we asked if we could take care of the ticket right there. We paid him off.

I was incredibly bummed. It’s my job to tell a true, firsthand experience as an American writer returning to Baja. And now he forced himself into my experience. When I relayed the story to the Baja tourism director, he was livid. He asked for his badge number (I didn’t think to get it), and told me about a hotline that Americans can call in situations like that. If it ever happens again, maybe I will.

But a crooked cop won’t keep me away from Baja. Neither will the fact that in some parts, Tijuana smells like shit. As more than a few locals told me: Baja isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK.

It’s definitely for me.

I hope you enjoy the story. I researched it exhaustively and relay a lot of statistics and ideas from the people who are creating Baja. It’s not meant to be a complete history or almanac. There are so many innovators and important people who helped shape the region’s food and drink scene that I wasn’t able to include simply due to space and time.

I start the story with Derrik Chinn, an American journalist living in Tijuana who has been bringing Americans down to experience the city in a real, non-tourist way for years. I felt apprehensive that the first voice you hear in a story about the region is a non-Mexican. But I wanted to organize the story as the typical American might experience it themselves—start through another American’s eyes—and then get to know the natives and influential people who have been building their native culture for a long, long time. Plus, Chinn is an eloquent, passionate participant in Baja culture.

The hardest part for me with this story is limitations. I could have written a book. I ended up with 5,000 words. But we also needed space in the magazine for Jaime’s beautiful photos. So I cut it down to 3,000 words. Fernando Gaxiola, owner of Baja Wine + Food and the largest importer of Baja wines, has a fascinating perspective on the wine regions that I need to tell. One of my favorite humans in Valle de Guadalupe—Natalia Badan, a sort of spiritual mother of the Valle—isn’t included here at all. Javier Plascencia’s phenomenal assistant Diana Jimenez was basically our tour guide and gave us invaluable insight. We had to cut it for space.

I had so many insightful conversations with people in Baja. We would talk for a half hour, maybe an hour. Then it was my job to bottle our entire conversation into one paragraph. Then take that one paragraph and bottle it into a sentence or two. There are so many great truths and ideas in the story; and yet so much is lost, too.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll present some of those ideas and interviews on SD Food News. Because they were so insightful and helpful to understanding the region, and I don’t like wasting people’s breath.

I’d like to thank everyone who took their time to help me on this story and yet who aren’t included: Diana Jimenez, Fernando Gaxiola, Jay Porter, Antonio from Life + Food and Club Tengo Hambre, Genaro Valladolid (Bustamante Realty Group), Flor Franco and Natalia Badan.

Thanks for reading. Now go to Baja.

Baja. Desert magic.

Jaime Fritsch

The post Behind the Baja Story appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

For the noncompetitive dog, there’s an off-leash play area, agility course, and treats galore. Humans can enjoy a beer garden, kids’ area, food trucks, and dog adoptions. Proceeds benefit the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

9th Annual Surf Dog Competition

Dana Neibert

The post 9th Annual Surf Dog Competition appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

For the noncompetitive dog, there’s an off-leash play area, agility course, and treats galore. Humans can enjoy a beer garden, kids’ area, food trucks, and dog adoptions. Proceeds benefit the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

9th Annual Surf Dog Competition

Dana Neibert

The post 9th Annual Surf Dog Competition appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Surfline

Surfline (free):

Get a comprehensive five-day forecast that includes surf heights, wind speeds, tides, and more for thousands of breaks worldwide. A premium membership ($13/month) also offers ad-free live streaming HD surf cams.

Surfr

Surfr (free):

Facebook meets Yelp meets the surfing world. Create a profile, chronicle your adventures, and share photos with members of this online community. You can also tag a location with a social good category (i.e. clean water or medical supplies), and the app will crowdsource user feeds to determine issues and help find solutions.

NOAA Ocean Buoys

NOAA Ocean Buoys ($1.99):

Has the surf cleaned up? Has the swell arrived? This app from the ocean-focused federal agency answers those questions, and provides detailed information on wave periods, air temps, and more.

The post Summer Guide: Surf’s App! appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Surfline

Surfline (free):

Get a comprehensive five-day forecast that includes surf heights, wind speeds, tides, and more for thousands of breaks worldwide. A premium membership ($13/month) also offers ad-free live streaming HD surf cams.

Surfr

Surfr (free):

Facebook meets Yelp meets the surfing world. Create a profile, chronicle your adventures, and share photos with members of this online community. You can also tag a location with a social good category (i.e. clean water or medical supplies), and the app will crowdsource user feeds to determine issues and help find solutions.

NOAA Ocean Buoys

NOAA Ocean Buoys ($1.99):

Has the surf cleaned up? Has the swell arrived? This app from the ocean-focused federal agency answers those questions, and provides detailed information on wave periods, air temps, and more.

The post Summer Guide: Surf’s App! appeared first on San Diego Magazine.