A couple of weeks ago I was getting itchy to get some waves. I had been home for a bit, working on the boat, getting the house ready for the baby, and not getting much surf around town. I spotted a little early season swell to Mainland Mexico and decided to jump on a flight for a little 4 day strike mission just before our baby shower.
I was thinking of who I could get to join me down there and I thought of Shane and Jackson Dorian. I I’ve always looked up to Shane and I’ve watched Jackson blow up over the last few years so thought it would be super fun to get to surf with them as well as get to know them better. I reached out to Shane and he was in West Oz, but he said Jackson was hanging in California and would probably be psyched to go. Sure enough, when I hit Jackson up, he was in!
Next thing I knew I was running through the airport to try and make the flight with Mini Blanchard. Jackson was already boarded so we had to make it as I surely wouldn’t have felt like a responsible adult missing the flight and Jackson being stuck in Mexico City all alone! Luckily, we came skidding in before they shut the door.
As soon as we made it to Mexico City and linked up with Jackson, the surf psyche was turned up to 10! We had the Margaret River contest pulled up in a sweaty airport restaurant and Jackson and I started talking all things surf. I could instantly tell Jackson was super passionate about surfing and determined and driven to getting as good as he can. He is constantly analyzing surfing. Footage of older guys, young grooms in Brazil who I’d never heard of, friends he’s traveled with in OZ, you name it, I think Jackson has watched it. On our car rides to surf he always had footage T’d up to analyze and get fired up for the next session.
Luna Gainza
I loved being around it! Although I still froth super hard, I am not in the constant absorption of day to day surf content. Jackson was blowing my mind with the level of kids that I had never even heard of!!! Jackson’s froth was contagious and we logged some serious water time. Unfortunately, the sand at Barra was not as good as we were hoping and the swell underperformed a bit. This did not stop us from putting in a solid 6 hours of surfing for 3 days in a row and a super early dawn patrol for 3 hours of surfing our last day before racing off to our flight. We still managed to get some super fun waves and it felt so good to surf my brains out for a few days. Miguel at Isurfmex is epic and made sure we were in the right spot at the right time.
Jackson surfed really well and was a pleasure to be around. We are going to be putting together an edit from the trip for Monster that will be coming out in a few weeks time, but here are a few pictures from the trip for now. I had a blast cruising with Jackson and am looking forward to seeing where he takes his surfing and career!!