The town and bay of San Juanico is located a couple of hours towards the coast from the only north-south road through Baja. Despite the remoteness, many people make the trip for a single reason – the series of point breaks that’s known as Scorpion Bay.
Just north of the town of San Juanico, the coast begins to bend south to form the start of Bahia de San Juanico. The point that forms the northern corner of the bay is called Punta Pequena, and this point is what the fuss is all about. Either south swells or large west or northwest swells hit Punta Pequena and reel off long walls of perfectly shaped waves.
There are a total of seven breaks at Scorpion Bay, and they’re conveniently numbered. First Point breaks far inside the bay just in front of town, so it takes a large swell to make it break. Second Point is just a bit further out along Punta Pequena, so it catches more swell and is the most reliable of the waves. Third Point is further outside, then Fourth, all the way up to Seventh.
When we arrived, we were lucky enough to catch the tail end of a decent northwest swell. The result was chest high waves breaking for hundreds of yards at Second Point. The wave would start breaking at almost exactly the same spot each time – it was almost like the surf was generated by a machine instead of a natural point.
There are a fair number of ex-pats who’ve taken up residence in San Juanico in order to take advantage of the world class surf. Several of them commented that a recent hurricane scrubbed a lot of sand off the bottom, and that the wave was a whole lot better before that storm hit. Based on our experience, though, it’s hard to imagine it much better!
