While on a recent series of deployments for Visit Baja California Sur—the state ministry of tourism—the team I was working with was charged with creating a “surf guide.” The ministry agreed with our pitch: undersold, experiential, and highlighting a pair of Mexican national wave riders, Leila Takeda and Stosh Lindsey.
While caroming around the desert, the goal was to play the margins, attempting to overlay solid swell, light winds, and uncrowded conditions. The production looked like a band on the run because we were—a case study to accurately reflect the Baja Sur strike-mission program.
The confluence of past experience, local connections, and ripping Mexican surfers worked out. Indeed, the surprising, scalable surfing of Leila and Stosh made it happen. Knee-high to double-o, points to teepees, the understated duo got the job done. A rare and welcome interplay between core surf expedition and governmental support.
[Feature image: Lindsey, reaping the Baja Sur bounty above the lip and at surface level. Photo by Mark Kronemeyer.]
