Slow Baja

Zachary Plopper is the Associate Director of WILDCOAST, a 501c3 non-profit organization that conserves coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife in the United States, Cuba and Mexico. An avid surfer since his childhood in Solana Beach, California, Plopper started competing at age twelve and was sponsored by the time he was 13. He competed professionally during high school and won the National Scholastic Surfing Association’s collegiate state champion while attending UCSD. A few years later, while in grad school at UCLA, he was surfing Trestles and met Serge Dedina -the Executive Director of WILDCOAST. As they talked and surfed, Dedina suggested that Plopper write his graduate thesis on a new WILDCOAST conservation opportunity in the Valle de los Cirios (Seven-Sisters) region of Baja California. Plopper’s 76-page thesis became the guiding document on the project, outlining the region’s threats and opportunities, and in 2008 -a full-time job for Plopper. Working with local landowners, Mexico’s National Commission for Protected Areas, and international funders, his efforts led to creating the Valle de Los Cirios Pacific Coast protected area, one of the largest private protectorates of coastal land in North America. In this conversation, we cover Plopper’s eleven years of work at WILDCOAST and some of the lessons learned from his years of travel in Baja’s remotest regions. Visit the WILDCOAST website here. Follow WILDCOAST on Instagram Follow WILDCOAST on Facebook

Sports Illustrated called Bisbee’s Black & Blue Marlin Tournament the “Super-Bowl of Billfishing.” Now in its 40th year, with prizes and payouts in the millions of dollars, it is the richest independent family-run fishing tournament. The event was founded in 1981 by Bob Bisbee Sr., who ran a fuel dock, and tackle shop in Newport, California. He was always looking for reasons to go to Cabo, and the idea of hosting a golf-style Calcutta sweepstakes Marlin tournament seemed like a good one. Six boats entered the first Bisbee tournament, and Bob Sr. won the $10,000 prize. Last year, 126 boats and 862 anglers took part, and the prize payout was a whopping $4,500,000! In this conversation, Wayne Bisbee and his daughter Jordyn Bisbee talk about their world-famous Black and Blue Marlin tournament. They reflect on Bob Sr., who passed away earlier this year and how the little competition he started forty years ago has grown into a world-renowned billfish bonanza. We also discuss the Bisbee’s East Cape Offshore -a relaxed, three species tournament in Los Barriles August 4-8, 2020 Visit Bisbee’s website here. Visit Bisbee’s conservation fund website here. Follow Bisbee’s on Facebook Visit Bisbee’s YouTube Channel here.

Trudi Angell has been living in Baja since the mid-'70s. She made her first trip South to attend a 12-day Sea Kayaking course at the National Outdoor Leadership School in Mulegé. Angell fell in love with the people and the place -and stayed six-weeks. When she finally returned home to Calistoga, she quickly bought a folding Klepper Kayak, a roof rack for her 1964 Rambler American, and blazed a trail straight back to Baja. Sea kayaking was taking off as an adventure sport just as Baja was on the rise as a travel destination. An opportunity to guide a kayak trip down the coast allowed Angell to launch her company Paddling South in Loreto. Angell says she was "in the right spot at the right time." With a love for logistics, and a desire to go the extra mile for her clients, she cultivated a great business which she ran for thirty years. While riding on a mule trip with her friend and fellow outfitter, Tim Means, she was amazed by the grace the hired vaqueros showed as they interacted with their families. Angell had an epiphany, bought a horse, and took up riding. Soon, she was visiting ranches near and far. She launched Saddling South in 1987. "This opened up a huge world for me -both for studying the history (of the vaqueros) and learning the Ranch culture." In this conversation, Angell talks about her life and work, and her deep admiration for the vaqueros and traditional Baja ranch life. She shares stories from the 1000-mile Mule trip (the Mula-Mil) that she organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963-64 expedition by Andy Meling, Joanne Alford, Eve Ewing, and others. Additionally, she shares insights about making "La Recua," a documentary film about a traditional overland pack-mule trip featuring 70-year-old vaquero Dario Higuera, a team of 13, and a cast of 25 animals, also known as "Dario's Dream." Listen to the podcast here. Visit the Bell Mare website here. Follow Saddling South on Instagram Follow Saddling South on Facebook

Mike Pearlman, talking about NORRA Mexican 1000, and the making of the Happiest Race on Earth. In the early 1960's, Mike Pearlman was a teenager growing up in Los Angeles when his father, Ed Pearlman, bought a used 1964 Toyota Land Cruiser. Ed was an avid hunter, and the utilitarian 4x4 looked like the perfect vehicle for the upcoming deer season. Not long after, Mike's friend was driving the Land Cruiser on the highway; he didn't know that you had to shift gears manually and blew up the six-cylinder Toyota motor. Ever resourceful, Ed, took the bell housing to a junkyard and found that a 265cu Chevy V-8 would fit. That Chevy V-8 woke the old FJ40 up, and Ed began hill-climbing and drag racing the little Toyota. Soon with the assistance of legendary Land Cruiser pioneers, Con-Ferr, Pearlman had a fuel-injected, hot-rodded 327 V-8 with a hot cam under the hood! Ed Pearlman read about the 1966 record-setting run from Tijuana to La Paz on Triumph motorcycles by Bud and Dave Ekins, Eddie Mulder, and Cliff Coleman. Pearlman thought that he could beat their time in his hopped-up Land Cruiser. He tried and failed, but the idea for the first off-road race, the 1967 Mexican 1000, was born. In this conversation, Pearlman shares stories from the founding of the National Off-Road Racing Association, those early Baja races, and how with Eliseo Garcia Jr., they revived the Mexican 1000 as a vintage rally. Visit NORRA's website here Follow NORRA on Instagram Follow NORRA on Facebook

Edie Littlefield Sundby was arrogantly healthy when she received word that she had stage-four gallbladder cancer. The doctors gave her three months to live. "I had to kill cancer before it killed me," Sundby said. Seventy-nine rounds of chemotherapy, five-and-a-half years, and four radical surgeries later, she was in remission. The battle took half of her liver, ten inches of colon, two inches of her stomach, part of her throat, and all of her right lung. Amazingly, her spirit was intact! While driving up highway 101 to Stanford Hospital for surgery, she noticed the Mission bells denoting the El Camino Real. "I had this obsession to hug them, to follow them, I had to walk the old California Mission Trail. I had to walk all 21 Missions, saying a prayer of thanksgiving at each one." On a cold, rainy day in February 2013 -six months after losing her right lung, she started walking from Mission San Diego to Sonoma. Fifty-five days and 800 miles later, she made it. "When I got to Sonoma, I was soaring; I did not want to stop!" In 2015, when cancer returned, and she knew it would, she reflected on how happy the walk to Sonoma had made her. In an instant, she decided to walk all the Missions in Baja. "It was wonderful to have that to look forward to; I had another walk; I had a mission I had something larger (to focus on) than what was going on inside of me." Through the internet, she found guide and outfitter Trudi Angel in Loreto. "I had the promise of a burro for ten days and a vaquero for five days, that was good enough for me." She walked across the border to Tijuana and boarded a flight to Loreto, Mexico. Tune in for the rest of this inspirational story. Visit The Mission Walker website here Follow The Mission Walker on Facebook

When Jonathan Roldan was departing for a year-long job at a remote hotel on the East Cape of Baja, he needed a break. He had already had multiple careers as a fishing guide, deckhand, chef, broadcast journalist, 900-number entrepreneur, and, most recently, an attorney. A year in Baja would be a nice break from his stress-filled life as a courtroom litigator. After he got fired from that hotel job, he drove up to La Paz -a mere six dollars in his pocket, to start over. He built what he refers to as “a little lemonade stand” and started selling fishing trips. From those humble beginnings, hawking fishing trips, guiding by day, packing the catch, and running his one-person taxi service by night, Roldan did everything to keep his clients happy. He went from selling on commission for other skippers to owning a panga of his own. Eventually, he and his wife Jilly would build Tailhunter Sportfishing into a thirty panga fleet, a waterfront bar, a transportation company, and a staff of nearly 50. Tailhunter operates two full-time sportfishing fleets to provide clients with the absolute best fishing in the best conditions. The La Paz-based fleet fishes north around the fertile Espirito Santo Island. The Las Arenas Fleet operates off the beach at Bahia de Los Muertos and fishes the legendary waters around Cerralvo Island. As Roldan likes to say, he’s blessed to be a part of his client’s vacation, a maker of their Kodak moments. Please note at approximately 40:00 minutes, we had some technical challenges, and the sound quality and volume drop off. Listen to the podcast here Visit the Tailhunter International website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

In this Father's Day Edition of Slow Baja, we talk to fifteen-year-old off-road racer Jax Redline. At two-years-old, he started riding a Yamaha PW50 dirt bike with training wheels. He was so fast, his father had to tie a rope to the bike to keep young Jax from racing away. By the time he was in kindergarten, he had competed at national events like the AMA Amateur Motorcross Championship at historic Loretta Lynn Ranch. From that first 50cc motorcycle, Jax Redline rapidly moved up the racing, and horsepower ranks. From go-carts to mini-sprints to UTV's to his current mount, a 900HP Trophy Truck. It's safe to say young Jax Redline thrives on speed. To fill the void left in the racing calendar due to the Covid-19 situation, Jax Redline and his father Shane, have been in Baja keeping sharp and having fun riding dirt bikes. "I pretty much won the dad lottery!" Jax quickly admits.  We agree. Enjoy the conversation and Happy Fathers Day. Visit the Redline Racing Texas website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

David Kier is a humble historian who has been traveling to Baja since the early '60s. With a copy of Gerhard and Gulick's Lower California Guide Book -known as the "Baja Bible," he sat between his parents on the bench seat of the Jeep Wagoneer as their trusted navigator. He read the map, followed the odometer, the "bible," and kept his father abreast of what to expect on the road ahead. On his first trip, they drove to the fishing village of San Felipe and South to Puertecitos. The goal was Gonzaga Bay, but that was fifty miles further over the toughest road in Baja. When the locals said the road was impassable, his father thought of the fish he was going to catch, dropped the Wagoneer into 4Lo, and five hours later, they arrived. Kier continued making Baja trips with his parents, including an epic tour of 800+ miles on dirt down to the tip in 1966. The journey was so dusty and difficult that they took the ferry to Mazatlan to drive paved roads home. In 1973, he turned 16 -to celebrate, he and a buddy took his Myers Manx to Baja. It would be his first of many trips to come. There were two more firsts that year; he went to the Baja 1000, where Bill Sanders and Pete Springer won in a Land Cruiser FJ40, and he published his first book titled Baja and the Transpeninsular Highway. In this conversation, Kier shares stories of those early travels and subsequent trips for The Old Missions of Baja and Alta California 1697-1834 his book with Kurillo and Tuttle. And his latest book Baja California -Land Of Missions. Visit David Kier's website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

Geoff Hill is not your average Insurance agent. Since his first surf trip in 1990, he hasn't been able to escape Baja's pull. After surfing his way to a degree at UCSD, he joined Baja Bound Insurance in 2003. As VP of Business Development, Hill spends his time sponsoring events that bring people to Baja. When our Lucha Libre Racing Team took on the grueling La Carrera Panamericana in 2006 -we reached out to Hill and were honored to be the first racing team sponsored by Baja Bound Insurance. Nearly fifteen years later, we are thrilled to have his continued support. In this conversation, Hill gets personal about his travels, volunteer and fundraising work, and the people that keep him coming back. If you are planning a trip south-of-the-border, make Baja Bound Insurance your first stop. Visit the Baja Bound Insurance website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

Stephanie Nisan founded The Animal Pad (TAP) in 2010 after adopting a dog that was about to be euthanized. TAP is an all volunteer-run 501c3 non-profit that rescues dogs from the streets of Tijuana and Ensenada. They work through a network of volunteers and shelters in Northern Baja that locate and capture the strays. The dogs are in terrible shape, malnourished, abused, and with life-threatening ailments, including Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumors (CTVT) -a sexually transmitted tumor cured only with chemotherapy.  In this conversation, we learn about the dedicated community of TAP volunteers that find joy in this challenging work. They travel by the busload to work one-on-one with dogs in shelters. Volunteers vaccinate, wash, socialize, and feed them a highly nutritious meal -a luxury for the weaker dogs that usually have to fight the others for their food. Visit The Animal Pad website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook More podcasts@slowbaja.com