Points Less Traveled
The coast of Southern California has always been the object of man’s desire.
When seen in it’s original, pristine state, it’s easy to understand why.
It’s beauty is unsurpassed.
When modern civilization has it’s way with undeveloped coastline, it invariably changes it.
And while some may enjoy the new housing, or the shopping mall, or the spas, the
masses soon look to the next block of natural landscape, and hold it up as beautiful.
And the whole process starts over again, and again….
Eventually, there’s none left.
Fortunately for us, there still exists a few of these wild and natural landscapes in our
neck of the woods. They require some effort to get to, which is one of the reasons
they remain so untainted.
Thanks to a good friend of Goleta Surfing, we were lucky enough to be invited to
spend a few days at one of these special places; Cojo Point.
This happy group of gentlemen are the world famous Bixby Dicks. Life long friends that
have been frequenting the Bixby Ranch for the past 20 years.
And you can tell they’ve got it dialed in. All the comforts of home, and then some….
No camp is complete without a custom Dale Powers bench.
And waking up to this view?……Unbelievable. Even if it’s flat.
Fortunately, it didn’t stay flat long….
Up in these parts, wind is a factor. So if you see a wave that looks clean, jump on it.
Before the wind does.
And jump we did. Two or three times a day…
As the swell slowly grew, so did the crowd. First in, was this cool little Radon.
Followed by bikers and hikers, and more boats.
The Long Beach based Bixby Company bought the Cojo Ranch in 1913 and the Jalama
Ranch in 1939 and apart from one house and five guesthouses, pretty much left all
the land as open space. Surfers have been boating, biking and hiking in since the
waves were first discovered in the sixties.
Recently the Bixby Company sold the Cojo and Jalama Ranches to an L.A. based company
called Coastal Management Resources, for close to the asking price of $155 million.
Their plans for the future of this gem are anybody’s guess.
After two or three sessions in a day, the boys were good and tired.
But we still had some energy for some extracurricular activities.
It is a beautiful thing to see old friends get together. No matter their daily occupation,
their social standing, their “station in life”, when old friends get together they instantly
become the kids they were when they met. Nicknames are used, old jokes are new again,
and embarrassing stories are exhumed. It’s a great thing to witness….
Such a wild and pristine place, we felt compelled to do a lot of sightseeing as well.
More than once I had to remind myself I was in California, about an hour from my house.
Empty beaches and open vistas kept telling me I was somewhere like Baja.
All the while, this guy was watching over us.
The Mr. Clean is a specially designed oil spill response vessel. It is equipped with lots of
high-tech equipment and is ready and waiting – 24/7.
We couldn’t help but wonder what the guys in that boat do everyday to keep from going
crazy with boredom….
I guess watching us have fun could be somewhat entertaining…..
It sure kept us entertained.
Some of these photos were taken by our good friend David Powdrell.
See his photos of this trip and more cool stuff HERE.
Some folks complain about a lack of easy access to this amazing stretch of coast….
But it’s not hard to imagine how this place would change if it was easy to get to.
There are plenty of examples of that happening up and down the coast of California.
In a society where convenience is king, the best things in life still require some effort.
We hope it stays like that.
