When he is not teaching others how to kiteboard, Peterson is out on the water giving live demonstrations on how to rip. Amy Naff, from Northern California, was also recruited for this adventure. I had seen her ride the large, cold-water waves of Santa Cruz, but I must admit I was a little skeptical about her ability to keep up with the guys on board. Amy would go on to prove that she could handle anything the guys could and would blow us all away when she caught the biggest wave of the whole trip!! And we had some big waves on this trip.

Our timing for phat swells was impeccable. After a long flat spell, the arrival of a storm-generated pulse from New Zealand guaranteed ripable waves for our crew. The Central California Coast just loves a long interval, south swell. This one hundred-mile-long stretch of virgin coast became a giant wave magnet with points, reefs and sandbars all putting a different spin on our great southern guest. The other required ingredient, bulk wind, is usually in good supply in this area. We were not disappointed as a stiff 15-25-mph breeze came up every day we were there.

I had recently purchased my dream RV and it was time to put her to the test. Formerly known as the Nadabus, she used to transport happy campers to the remote Solo Sports camp in Punta San Carlos, Baja California. When my good buddy Kevin Trejo told me he was going to retire her after 10 years of service, I just couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her put out to pasture. I had spent so much time in the beast, had so many great off-road adventures with Kevin and crew, I just had to bring her home. My loving wife Kathy instantly saw thru my thinly veiled excuse that I could use her as a business vehicle to promote our Website, Dubock.com. The truth of the matter was that I’ve always lusted after the biggest, baddest 4WD vehicle of them all.

After officially renaming her the Dubox, we filled her with all of our toys, a couple cases of beer, food for an army, Kirk’s endless supply of tunes and headed into strengthening wind and our close-to-home adventure. Our first view of the ocean was in Pismo Beach, a State Park with a hard-packed sand surface bordered by the blue Pacific on the west and gigantic wind-groomed sand mountains on the east.
The wind was light but there were definite signs of southerly swell. This is the only beach in California where it is legal to drive on the sand.

Every cell in my male hormone-enriched brain was begging me to drop the tranny into 4WD and blast around the sand dunes. It must have been Kirk’s thrash metal mix on the CD player that was telling me to go for it. But common sense prevailed.

The goal of our mission, riding waves not sand, could not be achieved without a few more hours of driving north. The dunes of Pismo would have to wait for some other day. The farther we cruised up Highway 1, the more swell activity we saw. We passed the sleepy coastal towns of Cayucos and Cambria, watching the local people go about their busy days. Did they not know that they had a large visitor from New Zealand scheduled to arrive any minute now?

Near San Simeon we pulled off the road to check the conditions. With the exception of a few gawking tourists, we had the place to ourselves. Signs warning about the dangers of interacting with the local elephant seal population were everywhere. As it turned out, there were more signs than seals.

At one corner of the beach there was easy access to the water’s edge in a small, crescent-shaped sandy cove where we decided it was safe to launch. After negotiating the rising shore break, riders had to keep a close eye out for boils that marked fin-grabbing boulders, which at a lower tide, would cause even a world-class wave rider like Trow to alter his track. Kirk later described it as riding in a minefield. He would know since, about an hour into their first session, Amy ran into some trouble and her kite had to be rescued and dragged to the beach by Peterson.
Kirk swooped in, grabbed the floundering kite and picked his way thru the rocks, landing down the beach some 200 yards. What a hero!! Amy swam in, re-rigged, charged back out and managed to pick off the wave of the day — a huge one that closed out the whole cove. What an inspiration!!

In the meantime, Trow was putting on a show starring our imposing guest from New Zealand. By mid-afternoon, the swell was in full attendance and Trow was carving thru bowls, boils, peaks and pockets. The late afternoon sun turned the hollow low tide waves into diamond-studded barrels. Trow would lurk way outside until he saw his wave, drop in, crank a G-force bottom turn on his 5-foot long directional board and then set up his 10-meter kite to give him enough power to obliterate the pitching lip. He was also drawing crowds of tourists who poured out of giant buses to watch him. They had come to see elephant seals cavorting, snorting and
mating. ‘Sorry folks, none of that, but we do have three kiteboarders tearing apart windswept waves.’ I don’t think anybody asked the tour guide for a refund.

For the rest of the day it was more of the same. All three riders pushing their limits, ripping wave after wave but watching out for each other on a liquid playground riddled with obstacles. Late in the day, Peter ended up on the rocks at the south end of the cove. Rather than stress out about his misfortune, he chose to take a well-deserved break and just kick back and watch Amy and Kirk from a unique angle. Indeed, that’s what this whole trip was about — viewing a familiar place from a new angle.

As the last rays of daylight faded, we packed up Dubox and headed out, completely saturated with wind, waves and personal narratives that would unravel long into the night. The next day we woke up to a crystal clear sky with an ocean surface that looked like sheet glass. The waves had held their size but there was not a breath of wind. As we sipped hot coffee on a low bluff top overlooking a pristine beach, we weighed our options.
We could stay put and wait for the predicted afternoon winds, or we could fire up the bus and make a run up the magical Big Sur coast. Before I could even begin to explain how gnarly and twisted that stretch of road is, the kids were back onboard, jacked on caffeine with the music cranked way up.

A thousand feet above the ocean, carefully navigating hair pin turns on the winding ribbon of cliffside road, we could see our friend from New Zealand still sending rhythmic pulses. At one legendary surfing spot, we stopped to watch a huge five wave set wrap around a submerged rock reef and peel perfectly to the boulder-strewn shoreline.

“Why are there only 5 people out surfing?” Amy wondered aloud. Her question was quickly answered when we saw someone take off on the smallest inside wave and appeared to be simply a speck on the face of a moving mountain of water. No doubt about it, Big Sur equals Big Surf.

We decided to keep moving and try to find something a little more user-friendly with some wind on it.
Later that day we did some exploratory hiking around the northern part of the Big Sur coastline but couldn’t find any suitable kiteboarding sites. The possibilities for excellent kiting in that area are endless, but our time was not, so we made a group decision to backtrack down the coast to another spot we knew would be cranking with wind and waves.

The Dubox was gulping down gas on the twisting mountain road, so we made a fuel stop at the only open gas station on the whole Big Sur coast. After getting over the shock of gas prices twice as high as anywhere else, I struck up a conversation with the station owner. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get him to understand what kiteboarding was and why we were there. He knew what surfing was and he had seen plenty of hang gliders soaring on the coastal ridges, but he just couldn’t get a mental picture of what I was trying to describe. Needless to say, Big Sur is your kind of place if you want to be a kiteboarding pioneer.

After winding our way back down the redwood-lined highway, we got to a spot I’ll just call the Studio because of it’s picture perfect setup. Out of respect for the few locals that ride the place I won’t draw any maps, but the simple fact is, it’s in plain sight from the highway and, if it’s windy, the crew is on it. They like their privacy at this quiet little spot but like most places, the locals will share it with anybody that plays by the rules.
I’ve been bending the “No Photos” rule for about 15 years there, so they at least tolerate me though they don’t necessarily throw out the welcome mat. Showing up with a busload of high profile wave rippers was definitely pushing it, so we made sure to step lightly and leave only footprints.
The wind at the Studio mostly blows side shore. In the late afternoon, just as the sun angle gets perfect for front-lit photos, the dust flying from the surrounding cow pastures adds a golden glow as it mixes with the cold ocean air. Peter, Amy and Kirk knew what I was looking for and proceeded to gouge wave after wave in a feeding frenzy that went until almost dark.

As we stumbled back up the beach, we watched a thick blanket of clouds move in under cover of darkness. That signaled the end of the wind for the next few days, so we packed up the bus and headed home, content that we had scored big in our own backyard.

Glenn Dubock lives in Carpinteria, Ca.