Santa (We´re-coming-to-get-you) Barbara

Leaving Los Angeles will no doubt provoke many feelings in you, whether you´ve been there or not.  Traffic, poor public transport and epic urban sprawl were at the top of my list, and having taken two hours to get from the beach to the station I was finally ready to depart for Santa Barbara. The Amtrak trains have the monopoly on the coast route but grabbing a sea view window seat for the last hour of the 2.5 hour journey was more than worth the extra $10 for the pyscho-hobo-infested greyhound. The aptly named surfliner covers the coast line of southern california for over an hour and approching sunset the views were spectacular, a journey that would later inspire me to seek out a like-minded soul to explore the surf along the coast.

Arriving in Santa B I hit the only the hostel in town to be charged a backpacker unfriendly rate of $35 a day. Thankfully with showers that this time didn´t resemble what I´d only imagine seeing in a POW camp, and a dorm all to myself, I was at least grateful to be clean and have peace and quiet.

Santa Barbara is a great place for a night out but as with any place in America, finding a bar that doesn´t have a million TV screens and is the equivalent of Yates is another matter. The hostel rep Cesar took us on one such night out to classy venue called Sharkeys, and whilst I didn´t think twice about an "over 18 night", the bar slowly began to fill up with many of the local Uni´s (UCSB) wildlife and the bar´s ethos for doing anything for money was slowly revealed. A bar where if you can drink you can´t mingle with the rather attractive yet underaged students. Somewhat of a problem as dancing and not drinking is something I and most men simply cannot achieve! It was only later I discovered UCSB (The University of Santa Barbara), is more aptly known as the University of Casual Sex and Boose)... bugger.

Having explored the little of what Santa Barbara had to offer in terms of culture (one rather cool court house but not a lot else) and in desperate need of some saltwater I picked up a second hand board and hired a car with a guy called Joe from the hostel and headed out north to a hotly tipped Jalama Beach. An hour and halfs journey north in our rather masculine Kia Spectra and I was actually in heaven. The beach is 15 miles down a very windy road that would typically not be out of place in the hills of Andalucia and faces west so picks up the combination of south and north swells.

Keen to test drive my board (6´3" x 18&1/2 x 2&5/8 J7 swallow tail for those of you who care) which was smaller than anything I´d ever ridden, but after a couple of over head right-hand waves (truely awesome) I quickly became too cocky and took a couple of poundings. I´ve never known myself to get bounced twice off the sand in one wipe out but hey the waves were rather forgiving and Joe took a similar number of wipeouts and proved for quite a heated argument as to who had the biggest wipeout. 

Surfing at Jalama beach was exactly what I needed. When you´ve been on the road for days and been conned a few times or been relatively unimpressed with the local tourist attractions, it´s always good to have surfing there to re-charge the wonderlust and reinvigorate the reason you came away in the first place. Further south and around the point apparently lie some of California´s best surf spots, there is however, a catch. They´re all in 100 private ranches that restrict all access, even below the low tide mark. A concept I and I´m sure most of the surfers from back home find rather alien. Well if I can come back with a few hundred million in the bank I might splash out on a ranch, rename it Potions and restrict access to just the London Surf Club!

A few days of boozing in Santa Barbara with Joe, a German girl Joanna, her heavily tatto´d partner in crime Jasmine and some other guys from the hostel I not only reaffirmed England´s dominance of pool but reaffirmed our inability to drink more than Germans or the Danish with copious amounts of water in the early hours, to my shame.

I wasn´t overly struck by Santa Barbara, it´s expensive, a bit sleazy and typically American. But to quote the age old mantra, "it´s the people and not the place", this couldn´t be more true than in Santa Barbara, both the locals and the other backpackers turned a mediocre city (c´mon America, they´re not cities, they´re just big towns) into a worthwhile trip.

The journey south to San Diego was complete with just one extra surf at a place called C-Street in Ventura. A pointbreak with so many people it was almost impossible to get a wave to myself. Not a great session but after getting over my initial panic of seeing fins in the water 20 feet away, it was a delight to share the waves with a couple of dolphins that were very keen to show us how it was done.

San Diego, Ron Burgandy´s Whale´s Vagine beckoned...

For photos see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richsmith/sets/72157625144548706/