Original subtitles

We know it's the wrong time of year.

We know it's the wrong boat.

We know we're not skilled sailors. That's right, Dan.

So when we go down, I don't want people saying these guys are idiots. We know

we're idiots. Therefore, we're not idiots. That's my rationale.

That's our... It's what we've got to work with.

And the whole idea of this trip is to inspire other people to suicidal actions

as well.

Pause here for a second.

Well, I am currently on a mission.

I have a story that I want to share with you. What is that?

At its surface, it's about a trip with three friends

sailing down the coast of the Baja Peninsula.

Holy fucking shit.

Holy fucking shit.

But at its core, it's about a deeper discovery of self.

You guys having any second thoughts about this?

I'm not enjoying myself, plain and simple.

a discovery that has changed everything for me.

I believe I have found myself on this journey and lost myself several times

reminded me what I wanted most out of life.

At some point in your life, you've got to make some place a home and say this

where I'm going to be through the good times and the bad.

Now I'm left with this box of tapes and a promise to myself to tell this story

and never forget what I learned in the process.

And it's a home run, ladies and gentlemen. That's out of the park.

Dreams become reality.

We have to let go of the dream because the dream is fictional and the reality

here and now.

Well, point conception, I want to get, like, you know, I want to get around.

This is a good start, going from harbor to harbor and having power and being

relatively warm and having to deal with anchoring and not having to deal with

the inflatable because we're just trying to get around conception because that's

the big change in the weather and, you know, safety and stuff like that, you

know. Northern Central California is a different deal. Oh, so you're just

shooting.

Shooting for conception, yeah. Basically the goal is to get around point

conception as soon as we can.

To this point, it had taken nine months of work and preparation to get our tiny

little boat ready for exit out the Golden Gate and into the Pacific.

That was my first night aboard this small little boat.

Give me an idea.

I am now standing up, and in standing up, I can't really stand it.

Ah!

Excitement.

It's really happening.

For the moment, there were only two of us, with one coming in Santa Barbara.

Between here and there, we had 300 miles to go and two major stretches of land

to get around.

Daniel has been charting our course for the next three days.

He hopes that we pass through this...

stretch of land without any issues with the weather.

We had our first 24 -hour voyage.

In our first days out to sea we found a good window in the weather and the days

were calm and beautiful.

We were now someplace between our dream of adventure and the reality of sailing

the Pacific.

Sailing vessel Rhino calling Santa Cruz Harbormaster's office, over.

From San Francisco, we sailed down the coast through safe harbors, heading

toward the rounding of Big Sur and Point Conception.

Monterey, around, and then this is the run to Conception.

Over the past four nights, we'd stopped in Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz Harbor, and

we were now in our last marina of Monterey Bay.

As we prepped to depart for our voyage around Big Sur and Point Conception,

there was a sobering tone.

Tonight we got a 24 -hour journey around Big Sur down to Morro Bay.

In the next couple of days, we'd be coming out of the darkness an acre just

north of Santa Barbara in a spot called The Ranch.

At 4 .5 knots, it's 23, a little over 23 hours. So basically a 24 -hour stretch.

So if we left Wednesday morning at 9 a .m., we'd be off Point Sur during

the daylight.

It wouldn't be late afternoon at Point Sur. It'd be probably around 11 or so.

We'd be around Point Conception Saturday morning, depending on how far off we

go. It'd be Saturday morning, probably around 10 or so.

Stein, what's going on over there?

All right.

Steiner.

Stein. Where did this idea of the sailing trip come from?

The sailing trip spurred out of the original trip, the trip to drive down to

Costa Rica.

The trip down to Costa Rica started, I don't know, I

think it was a bar room night where someone said it'd be cool to do this.

And I think it was Dan probably that said it, and he said, I'm going to do

I think Hughes may have said it. I think Hughes said something about sailing a

boat around to the islands on the east side, though. Yeah.

Caribbean. Yeah.

I think originally I may have been the first person to be cool to get a

sailboat. We were sitting around bullshitting. And it was after the trip

Costa Rica, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

So I said it would be cool to just have another boat and sail around.

Allow me, if you will, a moment to back up and fill in some gaps.

In 1999, I moved from a small town in Michigan to L .A. and lived on a

Shortly after I arrived, I met Dan and Dennis, along with a handful of other

friends. In a short time, the three of us began to lead impulsive, unplanned,

and unbridled trips by car down to Mexico or up to Northern California.

These trips led to a three -month drive through Central America, ending in Costa

Rica. Now, after Costa Rica, things started to come apart, and the three of

split up. Dan moved to San Francisco to be with his girlfriend, Adrienne. I

moved to Santa Cruz for work and surf, and Dennis remained solo in L .A.

Not even a surf book.

He wasn't trying to find surf, but look what he reveals.

So to this point,

there are three friends, a boat, and an idea for a trip.

What I need to decide is what am I going to tell my administrator.

From here, we would each start to map out a course for how our lives would

change and what we would need to sacrifice to go.

In addition to our personal lives,

we'd each need to learn how to sail, and to do that, we'd need to get a boat

seaworthy enough to go sailing.

Got here another day.

I'm done.

I'm work.

Another project.

Another project complete.

As we inch closer over the nine months, we'd continually be faced with choices

and challenges to overcome.

How do you feel about me leaving on the trip?

I don't like it.

However, every choice came back to two things.

Remain back.

in the order of the lives that we knew, or go forward into the chaos of the

unknown.

The trade

-off for it all was the dream of

traveling 1 ,200 miles by sea to search out seven islands for beaches and

uncharted surf.

Here it is.

San Francisco.

Point Conception.

L .A. Ensenada.

El Rosarito. Point to Eugenia.

To the tip of Cabo. So Dan's talking about departure.

Tomorrow morning, February the 17th. As the clock ticked down towards departure,

the largest concerns were the unanswerable questions that come with

adventure.

I think that my biggest concern about this trip is my transition back.

To masculinity?

Sexuality? What?

Transition back after the trip.

Yes. I'll be coming back without a job, without a lot of money, without a place

to stay for the most part. And no woman.

I just posed the question to Basky, are there many people?

I'm genuinely excited right now about the prospect of exploring in this raging

gale, pouring rain, cold ass temperature in our tiny little inflatable.

This is the happiest I've been all day. We've been sitting snug in the warm in

the morning, dickering back and forth about how fucked up we each are and now,

finally, I'm excited, we're doing something.

But Daniel, the excitement that Daniel shares is somewhat mutual.

However, it has not come down this hard all night or all day until just now.

This is really f***ing coming down.

Really f***ing coming down.

Oh yeah, and they're supposed to be like... Over

the past two weeks since our departure, We traveled south from San Francisco

around Point Conception to an anchorage north of Santa Barbara called The Ranch.

I am indeed, but I don't know if you're getting audio.

Somewhere up there is The Ranch, boy.

During those two weeks prior, we'd spent the majority of our trip in and out of

marinas, transitioning from one painful reality of sailing to the comforts of a

marina. Hot shower.

I just had a fish and chip dinner. Got the electric heater running, lights.

Yeah, this is just the adventure everyone wanted to see.

Now awaiting Dennis' arrival, we were stalled between Santa Barbara, the

and the Santa Cruz Islands, and our pace had slowed.

We're going to be taking this in about 20 minutes.

In addition, we were full in the center of winter.

which left most anchorages exposed to rough seas and the elements of rain and

wind.

Well, we are charging into the great unknown of the Santa Cruz Islands.

Soon to teach our little thingy here on the land and destroy the motor and end

the trip.

These conditions left us with a choice.

To either go outside and suffer in the cold of the elements, or remain locked

inside and avoid it all.

This is raining as hell.

Now it's been raining.

Me and Dan have been exploring with the rain, whatever.

Boring shit.

The whole experience was driving emotions within me that I did not want

with.

It's a beautiful day at the ranch.

We've had a lot of fun.

It's a shame that I haven't been able to film more of it. Hopefully we'll get

more on tape.

The suffering and the struggle were a constant series of highs and lows.

Full of conflict, I was also struggling with the film.

Sure shots.

And the biggest set of the day comes through, and me and Dan are trying to

out. Flips the fucking dinghy.

Anchor set.

I start screaming, where's the camera? Where's the camera?

Dan gets to the dinghy, flips it over, and the fucking case is floating on top

of the water underneath the dinghy. And while I lost my tripod, let's have a

moment of silence.

$4 ,000 in camera equipment saved in a waterproof Falcon case.

Thank you, Mr. Pelican.

All right.

Nearly losing my camera in the surf, I debated often on quitting the entire

thing. I have to believe in myself. I lost that thing today and I said, what

I doing?

What in the damn hell am I... Why am I doing this?

Is it real?

I had a big desire to quit.

Is it a tripod?

Oh, yeah.

Like, this is fucking stupid.

You've got to fucking have your mind more made up, dude.

Thought I'd get my video camera out.

I just was told that, well, I wasn't just told.

I was told a while ago that.

That I need to move out of this apartment.

In February.

And that's right around the time.

That um.

That.

This sailing trip is.

Which you know.

Could be something. But obviously this stirred up some emotion in me.

Um.

Because I.

Am fucking freaking out.

And I dream of.

Making a movie.

And doing something very interesting and very creative with my life. And yet,

I'm scared to fail.

And I'm not happy in Santa Cruz.

And I'm not happy with the way my life's going right now.

And I'm not happy with being up here because it's

lonely.

And I don't know why I came here. And I've been here for nine

months. And I am still really without any

friends. And I've been spending a lot of time here.

I want to share

with you that being in films and being a filmmaker was a dream of mine since I

was a young boy growing up in Michigan.

It was a dream that I had brought with me all the way to LA.

When I first stepped into the

set of a film, I started to see the reality of this world.

And I wanted to be in it.

back you dumbass no i'm not i needed you walking all the way down high speed i

was gonna have you you jackass how could you pull a stunt like that jesus

christ daniel god damn it you're a shitty actor i need to give you more

direction the only challenge with all this is that i had never studied it so i

had decided the only way to do this was to cast myself

as the director of my own film.

You're

going

to love it when it's all done.

It was a do -it -yourself idea that had very little basis in reality

and came with little to no support from anyone I knew.

So I went to sources

outside of my circle of friends and sold a producer out of L .A. on the idea.

We are f***ing making a movie.

I'm not f***ing bullshitting you. I am not f***ing bullshitting you. We are

making a movie, Daniel.

Built solely out of my own delusions of grandeur, the support from one random

producer was enough to tell me on my own idea.

Holy God!

We just spent the last f***ing hour and a half and he told me about his company

and I told him about my idea and we started going back and forth.

And he's totally stoked at my idea, and he saw my movie, and he liked my movie,

and he said, basically, look, after seeing your movie, after talking to you,

after hearing about your idea, I want to invest in you. I'm going to go take a

gamble here.

And he's like, I got four films that I want to make in the next year, and yours

is one of them.

And with that, I was all in at all costs, and the trip was happening.

Wow.

Oh, check this out, Dan. You're not going to believe this shit.

Well, I told you I was working on that film, right?

I've arrived in Santa Barbara. Daniel is supposed to be sitting on my port side,

but he's not.

I'm coming. He's now coming in on my starboard side.

He's crossing. He's already got the jargon. He is passing my bow, and he's

heading to my port.

That's what got him down.

I struggle with on this trip a couple things. My nudity is one of them.

Daniel's nudity.

I will not stand around. I will change naked.

I will piss in front of Daniel. I will shit in front of Daniel.

For short periods of time. But Daniel will get naked and hang out on the boat

for hours.

I got a fucking sponsor of the day.

Adjustable clamps.

Stainless steel.

Little C -clamps. Probably four or five inches.

One of the most valuable uses, right here, Barry. Let me get him on the lift.

See, clamp that mouth shut. If I have to hear one more bullshit about, there we

go. He had now been traveling aboard the boat for nearly three weeks.

During that time, Dan had remained a steady rock of forward momentum, while I

struggled with the idea of staying on board for the entire trip.

I keep hearing you say, this is going to be an incredible experience.

This is going to be. We're eight days into it. Have you not been enjoying what

you've been doing so far?

Oh, yeah, I don't know.

I haven't got mixed feelings.

Now we had traversed the coast from San Francisco down to Santa Barbara,

exploring beaches and islands along the way.

Chili con queso, an essential item.

Peanut butter, also an essential item.

Things you need to survive, Watson.

Finally, we were back in the marina, preparing, resupplying, and waiting for

arrival of Dennis before heading south towards Catalina Island and into Mexico.

Arrival of Dennis Stein.

This is a good tip, Lollipop.

Just set it down.

Looking, Captain Watts.

Perfect. Sorry.

Hey, boy.

So this is the situation.

Two of us might be able to sleep up there. All right?

Dan has been sleeping here, but Dan had slept here in this spot.

How did he sleep there? Oh, his feet can go underneath.

Yeah. That is bigger than it looks, and me and you might consider sleeping

there, and the only thing that would run into each other is our feet.

Or I might sleep with my head up there, and we could have your feet at my head

or something.

You really don't have a lot of feet.

It's fucking, wait until you're out, it's feet.

Then...

Dennis, it's a different trip than you ever thought it was going to be.

It's a different trip.

So what is your biggest concern about those clouds on the horizon?

Very concerned about lightning.

Doesn't look like there's a lot of wind, but we've seen probably half a dozen

bolts of lightning.

We are in lightning, Rod, floating in the middle of the ocean.

Did you know anything about lightning storm before we left?

We now had all three members on board, and we're off crossing the Santa Barbara

Channel towards our next destination of the Santa Cruz Island.

Daniel was peering out into the northwest.

Rushing out to sea in hopes to find surf, the three of us were now stuck

between Santa Barbara and the Santa Cruz Islands with a storm on the horizon.

This is exactly what we had in mind when we thought about sailing the Caribbean

for places that surf.

This is exactly what we had in mind.

Hailstorm.

And Dennis was finally grasping a little bit different experience than we all

had originally expected.

I'm sure you saw on camera that he threw up once. There was a second

time, but also to be included, the cameraman himself threw up twice.

Either time, the camera would be found.

I couldn't find it. We'll get a reenactment.

Bowski throws up like me. Bowski throws up violently.

Like fucking like a cat. His back goes... And then he twitches his

arm.

I'm not exaggerating. Like, that loud.

It is amazing how quickly things can change at sea, and how

much can be lost within a day.

And we decided to shoot over to this potato patch harbor.

Daniel doing the warm -up dance.

His feet have turned blue.

This is what it's about. This is what true surfing do for surf.

For us, that lesson came as a trade -off to surf.

After our risky yet successful crossing to the Santa Cruz Islands.

I don't feel so hot myself.

There might be two times in it.

That surf drove us late into the afternoon, and with darkness closing in,

were forced into a compromising anchor.

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

We worked through the evening and then back off.

Probably right.

Stuck in a cove of waves.

We were doomed to be tossed through the night, drifting towards the walls around

us.

We were in a shelter.

Made me nervous.

Now, having survived, the night fleshed out deep fears and insecurities within

me and left me seeking a target to lash out on for the experience.

Although I puked violently, I actually slept pretty good.

After that second puke, my body had zero energy and shut down.

I want to comment on the fact that Daniel hasn't.

shown any seasickness at all.

Well, he hasn't violently puked, but I couldn't help but notice that his ego,

his ego was puking all over the place this morning.

He felt pretty good about it. No, I'm just trying to start shit, Danny.

I'll take this into the confessional booth and tell you what I really think.

That was a good night.

I don't think you were standing on the second ankle.

Shut up, shut up. I asked if you needed help. If you said yes, I would have came

up.

So what we're really heading right now is 105.

We're really heading at 105 degrees.

So we're really heading a little bit south of east.

So where are we headed?

We were now closing in on being at sea for nearly a month.

In that time, we had traversed from San Francisco down the coast to the Santa

Cruz Islands via Santa Barbara.

From there, we'd picked up Dennis, and were now heading south towards L .A.

Catalina in our sights.

During our time at sea over the past few weeks, we'd seen three major storms,

had more than two cases of seasickness, saw snow on the mountains of Santa

Barbara, and had one day of surf.

Arguably, things were not going as planned.

From the start of this trip, it was supposed to be a surf trip

to end all surf trips.

An original idea of combining sailing and surfing, to reach those places that

few others have.

But to this point, this trip was nothing like what we had assumed.

The hardest thing about the boat is it gets so exhausting.

Like, last time we went out, the boat and I talked about Potato Harbor, the

picked up and it wasn't protected.

I vomited violently.

We had to put down two acres. I couldn't even move.

And then you're wiped out for two days after that. For me, I needed some

resolution.

something that justified all that I had left behind.

I'm making a movie. I'm making a movie, a documentary.

And there's so many things that I want to do to make this thing happen, and yet

there's times when I question myself, and I need to buy this camera, this new

camera, for almost $3 ,000, and I need to

put in my resignation, and I'm stressing like hell about that shit.

meaning I won't have a job after February. I'll be unemployed.

I've made the jump. I've made the leap. I'm going for it. I'm going to make this

dream a reality.

In leaving for this trip, I had put all my stock into the making of this film.

Daniel, we're making a movie, Daniel.

We are fucking making a movie.

But since our departure, it had constantly been in question.

I don't know how I'm going to finish this trip.

And right now I'm struggling with sea sickness.

The documentary may not become a reality.

The dream may in some fashion die.

And that's the truth.

Now after days of rest in the Marina del Rey, we had traveled the 25 nautical

miles to Catalina Island in hopes to uncover some of what we'd left to do.

We're pulling in here to Cat Harbor, and we're looking to moor up.

I'm in Cat Harbor. What's the size of your boat, please? 24 foot.

Island Bahamut.

Where are we headed, Daniel?

South Beach Sergeant Steinerman and I got up at about 4 .30 this morning.

Run from the north side to the south side of Catalina Island while the swells

still...

Try to hit either Shark Harbor or Ben Weston.

Got a 15 -mile run to Shark Harbor, probably 17 or so to Ben Weston.

We'll see. I don't know. I haven't heard great things about the surf on

Catalina, but... Probably a little shark if you think you're going to catch a

shark.

There's one thing that I have learned in life, and that

is that life never measures up to expectations.

I was saying that the peak level excitement on this trip for me has been

about surf and more about getting into a port where we don't have any waves and

the boat doesn't rock and I can get a cheeseburger and a beer.

We had been building the expectation of entertaining ourselves with surf as if

we could drive around and visit the best of it in a car.

I've been sick 90 % of the time.

Every time we go out to sea, I get seasick.

Either nauseous, headaches, or sometimes vomiting.

Those expectations were off the mark and doomed to be challenged.

In its place, there were things to be learned and work to be done to earn that

which we desired.

We have seen, I have seen more rain in Southern California than I knew existed.

This is amazing, and it's...

Painful. Daniel relayed the message that this is one of the wettest springs in

recorded history.

I can't wait for this little fucking spout to break or whatever the hell is

going on.

Well, boys, we're headed from Catalina Island to Ensenada. This is a big jump

the trip.

130 nautical miles, more or less, six knots. We're looking at a 27 -hour sail,

overnighter.

Of the general suffering that we faced at sea, the overnight passages were

arguably the worst.

life preservers on if you see so we'd have plenty of time to be numbed with

hypothermia before we died if we were thrown overboard safety harness so that

it'd be relatively hard for me to jump off the boat but what it does mean is

when the boat rolls capsizes and sinks we'll all free me lash to it so we go

down just as quickly as the boat does to this point we had traversed two

overnights while making the passage south around point conception and big

10 .30 a .m. Wednesday, February 21st, I believe. I don't know what the date is.

5 to 7 foot 12 running. Might win.

Making the rounding a big third today.

44 hours. First overnight.

Those passages always came with great suffering from the cold, damp nights and

the general lack of sleep.

It was hard. Four days out in a sailboat without a marina.

I'm not trying to be a sissy here, but from my first experience, it was

exhausting.

I came back, I was really tired. I slept hard my first two nights.

Now we were taking on another overnight in our passage across the border and

into Mexico.

We are now two hours into a 26 -hour voyage.

In front of us, we had a 24 -hour course into Ensenada, and upon departure,

Dennis was already feeling the seas.

Stein doesn't look so hot. Stein's not feeling so hot.

But he's holding in. He's holding in there.

Stein was mentally hiking that ridge over there. You see Stein? I think I see

Stein.

On this given overnight, it seemed Dan would continue to remain strong in his

role as captain.

We decided to take a break.

Steiner has chosen the apple rooster and the peanut butter crackers.

Dennis,

while struggling early on would later recover and remain optimistic.

Ain't nobody crazy.

Ain't nobody crazy. What is it?

I don't have fucking work.

Look at the sunset.

The only thing I'm worried about is when am I going to throw up and how many

three times.

I'm a little bit chilly, but... I thought you were

never upset.

It's all about stress.

You cannot rack your brain over something you have no control over.

It'll drive you nuts, case in point.

I,

however, began to come apart as the sun set, and darkness followed.

Okay, when I'm done with this trip, I'm going back and putting all my effort

into finding a job.

And all my effort into finding an apartment.

What about finding a woman?

A lot of all my effort.

Putting effort into finding a job and an apartment.

I might be looking for a woman.

You guys are going to make me cry.

Oh, don't cry on camera.

Turn the fucker off.

We are at...

Daniel, bear with me for a second.

We are now at hour what, Daniel?

It's now 10 o 'clock. We left at noon.

We're at hour 10.

Don, how are you feeling?

Lovely.

We missed a couple hours, didn't we?

Hour 10.

Nice. The waves aren't quite as big.

I've been obsessing.

We've been on this section of the road for only

two hours.

Not a lot of sleep.

Dan and Dennis are up there.

I can't seem to get dry.

Everything's damp, cold.

I continue to just want this day.

Okay, so I see this beautiful ring.

That beautiful ring around the sun right there. According to Chapman's pilot

book, which Bowski despises, I'm sure, a ring around the moon is about 65

% chance of...

bad weather, rain, within the next day or two. Ring around them. Sun is an even

better indicator of foul weather within the next couple days.

75 % chance of rain within the next day or two.

Coincides with what the NOAA website said.

And, uh, chance of showers tomorrow, showers Monday, and then we're back to

regular weather pattern of sun and northwest winds.

Have we seen much rain lately?

We actually haven't seen any.

clouds or rain on the trip, and it's been pretty amazing. It's just been very

unlike springtime Southern California. There's been no wind, there's been no

rain, and it's been about 85 degrees for the whole, I mean, we couldn't have

asked for anything better, I would say.

Today's probably 70, it's a little bit cooler than we're used to. This is

being sarcastic, and obviously he's going to have to remake.

We've had snow in Santa Barbara.

He's going to have to remake.

This is the first time I haven't been shivering.

I'm not shivering right now. I've been shivering the whole fucking trip.

We had now been in Ensenada for the past two days, preparing for the long run

south.

Having

traveled

south in February and winter, battling around Big Sur and Point Conception, and

dealing with the highs and lows of the trip, we were now happy to be in Mexico.

and very much enjoying the comforts of being in a warm marina. Where are your

finest clothes when you go to immigration? That's right.

I'm decked out, Datterman.

Looking good, prepared for immigration.

Before departing, we would need to complete our paperwork with customs and

international insurance for the passage south.

We're getting insurance for the boat.

The whole process would end up taking a few days and include

visits to a variety of public officials, but it was a welcome delay in avoiding

what was ahead.

The sea sickness does not leave.

The boat smells like shit.

We clutter it up in about 10 seconds.

Your bag gets wet halfway through the passage.

You can get warm.

You don't want to go outside and you don't want to be inside.

After leaving Ensenada, there would not be another marina along the coast until

we completed the trip more than one month.

and 680 nautical miles south.

The

reality

of crossing into the deep isolation of the Baja Peninsula was in front of us,

and we knew there would be no marina to relax in or recover for the rest of the

trip.

This looks like what the trip is supposed to be right here. So I don't

fucking up and try to rush into town right now and get all this shit done

and fucking scramble. So maybe we try to find somewhere to surf in town on

Wednesday and then do some, do the immigration shit too.

Grab some rats, killers.

The killers is a bitch.

Because I don't want to be rushing around with shit anymore than you guys

Okay. So we moved a little slower, relaxed a little longer.

and took our time preparing things.

We even found time for a surf.

2 .2 kilograms is one pound.

So it's over 500 pounds. One kilo, one kilo, yeah.

So that flag was over 500 pounds. It could be over 500 pounds.

I don't know what you're saying.

It's like a movie.

But from Mexico, from Baja, from traveling.

And the people from Baja. How many times?

Four. I only had four, I think three or four.

How many did you start out with, three or two?

I started out with two, then I had another round, then two, four.

More tacos.

Here's your rough scale 100 miles so we're gonna do about a hundred miles a

little over a hundred miles over the course of the next kind of four or five

days in day sales and then from Puttabaha

What we're gonna probably do want it from one of these guys We're gonna do

gonna get out to Eastless Cedros. Probably we don't talk we will Supposed

really cool out there. There's surf on Cedros and Eastland not to be down But

that's a hundred miles That's either get up at the ass crack of dawn sit and

motor and then sail

We were now departing for a small slice of land just outside of Ensenada called

Isla Todos Santos This

little island small as it may have been

was legend to a big wave When

we arrived We were struck with

excitement at our discovery. It was the best wave we'd seen yet.

Come on, boys.

Set up both big and small waves.

He got washed again.

Then he got caught on the inside and pounded.

Oh, he made it through.

Sitting there watching my friend take in this moment, I was suddenly caught off

guard with a surprise that I never saw coming.

Holy fucking shit!

There's a whale, a great whale, like ten feet away from us.

And Dan's fucking surfing.

There, with the sea and the passing of this giant whale, I became fully

To me, it felt like a messenger of clarity whispering, wake up.

You are my great messenger.

I am here.

I am here. I am present.

At the end of the day, we pulled into a small cove.

And as the sun set, I climbed up onto the deck and felt compelled to open up.

So, when I started the idea for this film, It was under the idea of

dreams, living out your dreams, and making dreams come true.

And I'm creating this thing and having a hard time even enjoying it. I'm

growing my dream.

I mean, you look around me.

I've got birds flying all around me, a beautiful rock with the sun rising.

A seal cave over here.

Baby seals.

Seal Pops.

My two close friends inside.

And I'm not.

I'm having a hard time still.

When dreams become reality, you have to let go of the dream.

Because the dream is fictional.

And the reality is here and now.

The following day, I made my way alone to shore.

While my companions lay rest on the boat, I went back into nature.

to find answers.

Lost as I was, I felt at home here.

The jutting land surrounded by sea, the life, the symbolism,

it all highlighted the contrasting ironies that I had been struggling with

the salvation from it all.

In a moment of enlightenment, I realized that in being both lost and found,

there is always here.

And here is the only place to be.

In Peg's favor, he's pulled off a spectacular three consecutive wins.

At Wednesday night's rumble, I heard a 15 pair for two, pair for two, 15 pair

for four, 16 on the pair board.

And that was how we lost it. Haven't seen the likes of that since Steinerman

first took Bowski to task here in the Stern Arena. Arena.

Arena. Stern Arena.

Stern Arena.

That's correct.

Stern Arena. Bow Arena.

Tonight they'll be back in the Stern Arena for a pair of best two out of

tonight.

Watch Steinerman's left hand.

Tokes stuck with a trainer earlier this week. Steinerman has been working on the

left -hand cribbage. He is soon to be an ambidextrous cribbage player. And we

all know what that means for the pair for three, pair for six, because he's

going to pull the pair for four as a strictly right -handed player.

Balski's got some events coming up, though.

Balski was talking about switching. He's traditionally a green pegger. He's been

a green pegger for the last 13 games.

But he's looking at switching to a brown pegger. He wants to be a brown pegger

because he says that the colors in the pegboard help to throw off his opponent.

And we will see if that is enough to combat Steinerman's switch to have a

dexterous playing here in the Stern Arena tonight.

Well, first, it's chatter.

We were now one day's sail away from Todos Santos and settling into a

anchorage for the evening.

called Punta Santa Rosa.

Reaching land earlier in the day we had seen the beauty of the desert and the

life of an isolated lighthouse keeper and his family on this barren point.

Surrounded by the quiet isolation of the place, we had returned to our protected

little craft for the evening.

With little space and hours before bed, we had only ourselves and time. And with

it, conversation filled the air. Madam, what's your philosophy on existence?

You do not have one?

Philosophy on existence? Just exist?

As long as you live any way you want, as long as you respect other people,

do unto others.

Now, I can't even say do unto others as you would do unto yourself, because as

long as you're going to feed what somebody else is, Jones, all is good.

So then, is some life more valuable than others if it's lived a certain way?

Like with all life equals, all human life equals.

Yeah, it's all human.

So if I'm born and I fucking rape and kill everyone I see, my life is just as

valuable as Steinerman's.

That's where I think that's when you start to interfere with other people's

lives in a harmful way.

Killing, raping, and...

that's when you start to lose value in your life.

But isn't there a... Now, my point is that conflict is inevitable and

inherent. There's a limited amount of resource, whether it's women, whether

water, whether it's jobs.

There's going to be competition.

Yeah.

And so... Competition is fine, I'm saying.

What point is it... Is it harmful?

Mm -hmm.

I compete fairly and get the job, and you starve to death.

I don't know.

Life's kind of weird because you think you got the answers, but then everyone

thinks they have the answers, so it's like, really, who has what answer?

Where is the answer, and is there an answer? There probably isn't. I don't

there's an ultimate answer. No, it's not.

I think there's coming up with a way to live your life that works for you.

It's kind of a selfish thing, but you got to do what works for you.

We've been stuck on an anchorage for about an hour now and trying to get it

We're waiting for a big wave to pop it loose.

We have now surfaced from a night of philosophy on how to live life with a

-life irony on how life is lived. A perfect real -life example of

discussion about impermanence and how you reconcile impermanence with goals or

objectives.

The $800 fortress anchor is now stuck somewhere between 20 and 80

feet beneath our boat.

We've been working on it for two hours, and it hasn't budged. The massive

fortress anchor that had hung off the front of the boat was now locked below

the reef, and with it was holding up cattle.

So the tactic now, which Chapman does endorse, is to pull

up as tight as you can, short of scope so the anchor's running straight down,

and then as the swell raises you,

Within a matter of minutes, you should rip your deck cleats off your boat,

leaving the anchor at the bottom of the sea and you with a huge hole in your

boat.

In order to free ourselves, we knew we'd probably need to cut the anchor loose.

Instead, we fought to hold on to it to maintain something that we did not want

to lose.

It was one point when we were motoring that we were in a tight circle going...

And I was like, why the fuck am I still going? I'm like, I'm just going to keep

going.

I was like, it feels like we're wrapping it around a fishing reel. Oh, here's a

big one.

I think the story we were building about Dan Watchman, anchor, is

over.

We now have a shredded piece of rope.

Uncle Rich That's not as you can see cut

that's frayed we worked at it for two hours Inch by inch we were wrapped

a piece of rock The water was too murky for a dive. We couldn't even see the

chain Well, I know that was the one thing I was supposed to bring

back but looks like you're getting $25 Danforth instead, I'm sorry.

With the loss of the anchor, we were now free from the sea bottom, able to

continue forward on our journey south.

From here, we were on our way to Isla San Martin, a volcanic -shaped island

100 miles southwest.

To get there, we would need to anchor in two sheltered points.

The first had been Punta Santa Rosa. The second was Punta Polonete.

Dispatching Punta Colonet.

Supposedly the most stimulating point.

Red sky at night.

Sailors to light.

Red sky in the morn.

Sailors be warned.

That's right.

setting the peak of islands across Baja, searching for surf.

Daniel Wasserman and my good friend Dennis Stein,

we will charge the top of this lava formation.

Cone -type island.

Cone -type island.

Derived from the Greek word coniferous.

I would have to say my assumption is that they're seasonal fisherman's

Or at least they were at one time.

The table.

There were times on this trip that I literally felt like I had stepped onto

set of a science fiction film.

We're on this lagoon here in the middle of nowhere and there's all these dead

elephant seals just laying around.

And these guys are dying. They're near death.

Maybe they die after they have kids.

Maybe these are the mothers that didn't quite make it. That big one there looks

dead. Look at this one over here. Is that alive? No, she was alive.

Death in raw nature is chaos at its best and worst.

But nature has a way of reminding us that we are not only observers, we are

participants as well.

Oh shit, son.

Is that it into your toes? No, not that one.

This is

some fascinating landscape.

Absolutely amazing landscape.

I don't know how to even put it into words. Just rocks jutting out sharp

on the side of a cliff.

Absolutely stunning.

We felt like we were the only people left on Earth.

It was us against the elements.

And at the moment, it was all harmonious.

Then, we had the ultimate discovery.

off the shore of this little island was a wave unknown to ourselves or any

journal that we had read it was a moment of surf pioneering all to ourselves and

arguably what we had been searching for since the conception of the trip

I think the reason I'm so happy in the mornings is because I'm so fucking glad

that there's light and I'm awake and it's drying out.

I'll tell you this much, that...

It's real wet.

I can't wake up sobbing wet.

I have stopped zipping myself into my bag. I can sleep in the dinghy heavy

dryer.

I'm putting my wet shirt on tomorrow.

I... I've stopped sleeping.

I've stopped dipping myself in my bag.

I now sleep on the carpet and throw the bag over top of me. So when I wake up

sweating, I can just pull the bag off.

And the reason I think I get depressed in the evening is because I know it's

going to get dark soon.

And I'm going to lay there for the next 8 hours, 10 hours. How many hours of

darkness do we have now?

11 hours.

We have 11 hours of darkness.

It's about, well, including dusk, dark at 7, light at 6.

Holy shit. Good thing we didn't do this in the summertime.

It's ridiculous because I'll put a shirt on because I'm cold, but then I'll

sweat so bad in it that it'll be... It's just painful.

There's no need to really take that outside.

Let's take this outside, boys.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God. Did we get that on tape?

Oh, we got the bump.

We were now deep in the flats of the dry deserts of the Baja and completely

isolated from all of society.

We've acquired a new mate on this boat.

There's a new species of animal on this boat.

The housefly, and I hate the housefly, and I'm going to make it my mission to

kill every fucking... I'm going to make it my mission to kill every housefly in

this boat.

Hear or not, I can't stand it when they land on me or talk to me.

The isolation from the deep sea adventure started to shape us into a

our own.

We, as a tribe, would know each other better than anyone else would know us.

And with that knowledge

of each other came great freedom of exploration.

That exploration would take us to see people and places that few would ever

Pedro!

Pedro!

One such place was the discovery of the Solo Lighthouse Keeper on Isla San

Jeronimo.

Gracias, amigo.

At times within our exploration, we sought out isolation from each other.

More often than not, however, our greatest pleasure in exploration was in

together.

What a great event tonight. We have the Dodgers, L .A. Dodgers represented by

Dennis Stein, and the San Francisco Giants represented by Dan Watson.

We were now very much alone and very much together.

And in that, there was nowhere else to be.

between Point Abriojo and heading towards Scorpion Bay.

What's it became for you, Marion?

I believe I have found myself on this journey and lost myself

several times.

That's a heavy hit.

Returning to sea the next day, we were on the final leg of our objective of

San Juanico and our search for surf.

Austin found a vibe between who I know I am.

I kind of got lost there for a while.

I think I lost focus.

I lost focus. I focused too much on the relationship and not enough on the surf.

I would stay at this portion of the trip after being on this trip here.

We're about 60 days in, Basky.

60 days.

That does not feel like I could almost spend 60 nights on this motherfucking

boat. Uncle Rich said that it would become a lifestyle.

Lifestyle. And I guess in some ways it has become a lifestyle.

I was thinking about that last night.

There's the initial excitement.

Then they're struggling to find your routine and they're setting in and

your routine.

I like it best when we're moving or

when we just arrive at a town and it's really comfortable, a little easy access

to the town.

Surprisingly enough, I've lost a little bit of the interest in town.

Yeah, the black silk hasn't been as much of a blow as I thought it would be. I

mean, I'm usually so beaten when we get, when we wrap up a sale, I'm like, what

am I going to do with that?

I found more interest in filming.

A lot of stuff.

As much as I can.

I have begun to reach...

narrative here.

Just pulled into Scorpion Bay.

It's probably about 3 a .m.

Lighthouse and GPS brought us home.

It's been a little bit tough to get anchored and situated because of the

ground swell rocking the boat.

Another day of epic surf ahead of us tomorrow.

We need to catch some seas before charging the line up.

We now had been traveling consistently for three days to reach San Juanico and

Scorpion Bay.

Having suffered through another long night's sail, we had arrived in what we

hoped to be the mecca of our surfing exploration.

Go. All you had to do was put your shoe down and start paddling.

Waking up the next morning, we were excited to have uncovered what we had

searching for.

But we were not alone.

There were others.

Lots and lots of others.

Having so many people around was entertaining to watch, but frankly it

strange now having come from such isolation.

Unprepared to compete against the crowds, we walk north from the main

where Dan and Dennis found a section of waves all to themselves.

Then, as the day drew to a close, Dan deservingly caught the best wave of the

trip.

There he is.

It wasn't going to be on the front page of a surf magazine, nor in the highlight

reels with the pros, but it was truly a rare moment of pleasure in a trip that

had taken so much to get here.

Watch yourself.

There it is.

The way of the day.

I don't like surfers.

I've decided.

A lot of pomp.

A lot of pomp among the surfing crew.

Yeah, that one guy was a pretty good knee controller.

I fucking got more jargon than a weatherman.

I like that.

More jargon than a weatherman.

More jargon than a weatherman.

Yeah, he fucking rides his high pressure in and then he drips down behind the

little bit of precipitation in the morning, bro. Then he buckets the cover

Shack house, bro. Green room.

Whoa, yeah.

And then he gets out and he smokes a fatty with me. Yeah.

We're like totally pros.

He's fatty, dude, bro. I'm a fatty.

Having been in isolation now for nearly two months did have its pluses and

minuses. Having every wave, Every beach, every piece of land to ourselves was a

luxury we had taken for granted.

Now we had again rubbed shoulders with society, and the sensation left us with

mixed feelings.

One that we'd hoped that by resupplying the boat with water and getting ready to

move on would wash away.

We think we lost the dinghy again. It's not in the place it was.

And Dan went off running for it, so we'll see if he found it.

As we should have known, however, we couldn't escape unscathed, and we nearly

lost our most treasured asset.

as we were nearing departure.

Ultimately,

however, the desire to escape the eyes of our onlookers would drive us to rush

out, and with it, there would be collateral damage.

It was a less than romantic department.

Well, we lost Don in the bag overboard.

First man overboard.

We were on... We were

rushing around so we could have this grand exit.

Scorpion Bay from all the people we met.

Great sailboat sails up.

We're leading into the wind a little.

She's hanging to the side.

And then Stein's backpack went overboard.

And then we dropped everything. Stein went overboard.

You pissed off about losing your stuff, Stein?

A little bit.

I'm upset more about the camera than anything.

How many cameras have you ruined on this trip?

This is my second.

You want to count me as ruining Daniel?

That would be three.

Simon has destroyed three cameras.

I didn't know what to expect at all.

I didn't know.

I mean, I had an idea of what to bring. I didn't know if I was bringing the

right stuff.

I didn't know how wet it was going to be. I didn't know how big seas were

to be.

I didn't know how big, if I was going to get seasick.

I didn't know how far offshore we were going to be.

I didn't know how logistically. I didn't know there was a book that existed

telling us where to stop and how good it was and if we were going to be able to

get there.

I told Cheryl I didn't know how many times I was going to be able to call,

many times we were going to have access to phones.

You miss Cheryl, Stein?

Yeah. Yes.

What do you miss about Cheryl?

I miss waking up in the morning next to her.

Oh, that's about as mushy as I've ever heard of, Stein, remember?

We had now traveled what seemed like lifetimes away from the crowds and surf

San Juanico.

En route to a cove south of us called Punta Hughes, we were at our second to

last destination before we reached Cabo San Lucas.

That little piece of land out there is Punta Hughes.

That is our next destination.

Getting here had meant another overnight passage.

But this far south in the trip, with the warm weather and summer on our heels,

overnights were less painful and had invited some rare experiences from the

We saw phosphorescent dolphins last night. Glowing dolphins firing through

water like torpedoes. It was one of the hands -down coolest things I've ever

seen in my life. All of a sudden, I'm holding the tiller, all of a sudden it

goes, and I look to the side of me and there's this glowing bolt of lightning.

just like firing out in front of the boat. And then there's like four or five

them and they're just crisscrossing under the boat, around the boat.

And it was pretty cool shit.

Now that we were on land, we were again observing firsthand a village of

isolated people whose lives reflected more of the nature that surrounded them

than the world it was connected to.

Deep in the lagoons that surrounded the village, you could see firsthand the

necessity of both survival and reproduction.

In this place we were not only foreigners,

we were strangers, aliens to a completely different way of life.

As alien to these people as we may have been, they still could see the hunger in

our eyes, and were friendly enough to give us rations from the table.

In departing this place, I could see the romantic beauty of their simplicity.

Sacked up against the chaos of my own complexity, it left me feeling a little

empty inside and wishing I had more of what they had in my life.

I want nothing more.

Right now, I have to leave this boat.

My mind goes back to a time when I contemplated that this trip

was a wise decision, and my obsession drove me forward.

I'm certain that now at 32, I will be returning to

no job, no apartment.

No girlfriend.

Waking up to reality can at times hit you all at once.

I think that my biggest concern about this trip is my transition back.

I'll be coming back without a job, without a lot of money, without a place

stay for the most part.

And no woman.

That moment with reality can be overwhelming and leave you chasing your

answers. An adventure like this is created somewhere far away from where...

it actually ends up. It is, and it's so true. It's created in a moment where all

your inhibitions are dropped. You sort of step outside yourself and you get a

glimpse of this potential.

And you kind of come up with the ultimate adventure when you're not

about reality. You're not thinking about the cost. You're not thinking about the

time. You're not thinking about the hardship of leaving the people you love.

And then that fades and it's...

replaced with this rush of anxiety and reality. We had left on this trip in

search of an experience, an adventure that we could not find in the day -to

-day. I believe I have found myself on this journey and lost

myself several times.

Out here, we had found that experience and discovered that part of ourselves

that we could not have discovered on land.

Now, however, that experience was coming to an

end, and the reality of returning to the day -to -day of life scared me, and had

me questioning what to do next.

We've got nine days before I'm off this boat.

We're good.

That day seems like a long time.

That is an important part. Do you have an exact amount?

Knock on wood. I'm hoping we make it. The fucking finances we have.

No, hold on a sec.

We're about 150, 175 miles from our final destination.

I got 75 US cents.

I have $5.

The finances of the trip we pulled off, by cruising standards, are miraculous.

We bought a boat for $2 ,200.

We didn't know how to sail. We learned to sail. We fixed it up. We put probably

$5 ,000 total over a year and a half into the boat.

And we've spent, what, $1 ,000 on the actual trip?

$300, definitely more than that. The fact of the matter is we're down to $5,

we've got four days left. I got a kick. I read something about something.

We were now in the village of Magdalena, our final stop before the 175 nautical

miles south of Cabo San Lucas.

With it, there was a celebratory sense that we nearly escaped the voyage

unscathed.

However, no voyage would be complete without one final conflict, and ours was

born with the need to resupply with gas and water in this barren village.

Gracias. Adios.

So the mission is complete.

We have gotten our water.

We failed the mission miserably.

There's gasoline all around us. There's gas in the cars.

Gasoline's out for us.

It's just a matter of somebody wants a little money.

Finding gas, our final task, was proving to be difficult.

For the locals, transporting it here deep in the desert took work and

and trading it for cash wasn't as high on their list of priorities.

After a few hours of searching, we found a local fisherman willing to give up a

little of his own supply in exchange for a few dollars and possibly some good

karma at sea.

Now the objective of this exercise is to achieve the same accuracy as one could

have with Barry Walton steering half asleep with his feet, which is what we

normally. So the jib sheet wraps around a block there on the starboard side,

then around a block here on the port side, and then down to the tiller. The

the boat turns to port, the more the jib picks up that wind, and the

harder this thing pulls.

And now there's tension with this bungee cord pulling this way. So as the boat

turns to the port, you get more wind in that and more pull on this.

So in geometric terms, we're not taking the shortest route.

But we're taking the cleverest route.

But we're being able to take 20 -minute naps. But we learn. And if you take a

look at where we came from back there, we're going that way. We want to be

that way.

So we're only about, oh.

90 degrees off.

And Captain Dan will get us there today.

We were now on our last overnight home and it was clearly a passage that

signified the end to a story.

Where did this idea of the sailing trip come from?

The sailing trip spurred out of the original trip, the trip, the drive down

Costa Rica. We had been on this boat for two months.

and on this journey for nearly a year. So Dan's talking about departure

morning, February the 17th. From the first day we started till the end, the

dream never once met up to the expectations of reality.

This is exactly what we had in mind when we thought about sailing this Caribbean

for places to surf.

The time spent reconciling the difference between the two was

But nevertheless, reality remained unchanged.

I keep hearing you say, this is going to be an incredible experience.

This is going to be. We're eight days into it. Have you not been enjoying what

you've been doing so far?

What changed instead was our idea of reality and our understanding of what

the dream.

We've been sitting snug in the warm in the morning, dickering back and forth

about how fucked up we each are, and now, finally, I'm excited. We're doing

something.

From day one until the end of the trip, the dream had always remained within

each of us.

I don't have fucking work.

Look at the sunset.

The only thing I'm worried about is when am I going to throw up and how many

three times.

I'm a little bit chilly, but...

And throughout the trip, it was only up to us to recognize what we all

possessed.

From there

forward,

reality was the dream.

And the dream was always reality.

I dumped the back of this truck. Turn the camera the other way, dude.

Holy fuck, there's a whale.

Holy fucking shit.

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen.

So we have started the process of moving out of this boat in Hot Cabo. I'm

sweating like a pig right now.

But we're getting on to here.

Daniel here.

They're out to space.

On the final day aboard the boat, there was much that had been learned and much

unanswered. So.

We pulled into Cabo, got a split for $60 a night in here.

It was a bit of a shock to be in this place, but the weather's nice, sunny,

warm, good facilities.

I would say I've been a little bit emotional, but now I'm kind of just,

made up my mind with it.

Dan, who had put the most into the boat, had the most to let go of physically.

Physically, I feel... but just did better than I thought I would.

And I'm enjoying being on the boat, which is a good thing.

I'm not going to say more than I thought I would, but I'm enjoying a little boat

stuff.

I didn't know how wet it was going to be. I didn't know how big seas were

to be.

I didn't know how big, if I was going to get deep in.

Dennis, who had brought his calm temperament, left as balanced as he had

arrived. Satterman, do you want to say goodbye to the boat?

Bye, boat.

Satterman, it's a good boat.

And I, still full of conflict between who I was and who I wanted to be,

recognized that within our passage, the greatest teacher had been our little

boat. Goodbye, Ronald.

Good riddance.

Yeah, about to be nine. Put a lot of hours in on that thing.

Goodbye. A year and a half of work before the trip.

Yep.

Known him for a while.

Fucking great boat, man. The boat held up better than the crew, better than we

did.

Better than me, for sure.

Adios, adios.

Adios, amigos.

Adios.

Me and me, amigos.

Come here, amigos. Around me, around me.

No más documentario. No más documentario.

Adios, amigos.

Reality is the part of the imagination that I've decided not to change

anymore, but to accept as it is.

Well, it's hard to believe it comes down.

Baja 2017, we got Dan Wasserman on the board.

Oh! Oh!

Oh, power!

I know

thoughts about your surf trip this year.

been in the past, but all the same adrenaline, boys.

No, we're not. We're going past Charlie's. We're going down here.

El Morro.

There it is, right there. Oh, shit. Where are we going right now?

A38.

This is the bridge that we have slept under.