Kevin Trejo: Solo Sports & the Cactus Cup · PWA Live

The American Windsurfing Tour heads south, across the border, into Baja California, Mexico for the third and longest event of the tour: a full week from July 30 - August 6. Kevin Trejo, owner and founder of Solo Sports, habla acerca de este famoso wave sailing destination.

Kevin, you are hosting the AWT San Carlos Cactus Cup at Solo Sports for a week. How many people can you accommodate? Are you sold out?

My staff and camp can handle over 40 people. I have windsurfing gear for over 20 people but since most of the competitors will be bringing their own gear we can handle about 40+ people. We have over 25 people confirmed and lots of last minute requests but I'm sure we will sell out before contest time.

A while ago you were only flying in guests. Is it safe to travel by land again?



The old sign.
Its replacement is being readied.

I've been traveling the Baja all my life and now with a business in Mexico I spend even more time in Tijuana, Ensenada and Rosarito and I have not once seen anything like what the news is reporting. I actually feel safer traveling through Baja then many parts of Los Angeles. Our guests are using our fly in service for the convenience and to spend more time enjoying all that is Punta San Carlos not because they are afraid to drive through Baja. Do the math, an all day drive or a 2 hour flight!

If it's an average year, what should the AWT expect for wind and waves. What about water temps? Air temps?

So far this year has been well over an average year! The wind has blown everyday except one, since March and we've had plenty of great swells. July is one of my favorite months as it blows almost everyday and we get great south swells with little to no crowds! Of course we are talking about Mother Nature here and anything can happen but here is the latest on the potential surf from Surfline. We could see a series of fun size SSW swells starting around July 29th and then potentially continuing into the first couple days of August. I just got back today (Wednesday July 20th) and the air temps have been great in the high 70's and low 80's while the water is a cool 60 degrees F. I'm sure the competitors will be way stoked on 60 degree water after the first events in the frigid waters of Santa Cruz and Pistol River!

Any surprise guest for the Cactus Cup?

I just got this message from Quatro shaper and Punta San Carlos Tropical Energy Challenge winner Keith Teboul: "Only potential other person would be Levi Siver with us but this is a maybe...swell is looking pretty promising so I might convince him to come..."

Punta San Carlos is pretty isolated, do you have a good Internet connection...will the Tour go dark during the event?

You are absolutely right that PSC is pretty isolated. We do have Internet via satellite and it's pretty reliable, reliably slow that is! Actually it's not that bad with only a few users but when we have 20+ people in camp we sure put a big strain on the system. We are only allowed 425 MB per day of usage and we can go through that pretty quick, then throw in the fact that everybody wants to send large file photos and video and we run out of bandwidth really quick. The AWT might just have to go dark unless those hard working photographers, videographers and writers stay up past Baja Midnight (9:00 pm) and send out their work after 11:00 pm as we have unlimited broadband from 11:00 pm - 4:00 am.

Solo Sports is a dream destination for many Norte Americanos. Educate us on the wave and wind season at Punta San Carlos.

For those in the know, PSC is a year round location! If you are like me and do more then just windsurf, you'll never get skunked! With world class mountain biking, surfing, stand up paddle boarding & kiteboarding there's no reason to sit on the beach hoping for wind. The wind season starts off with a bang in March/April and May with 30-40+ mph winds and large NW swells and the start of the south swell season. The summer months of June - July and into August see high winds and great south swells while Sept./Oct. and into Nov. is my favorite time to be in Punta San Carlos for the warmest air & water temps of the year, insanely good south swells and true wave sailing winds in the 18-25+ mph range. We're talking over 80% sailable days from March through Oct. and the winter months still see 50-70% sailable days.

Jem Hall

Jem Hall did wave camps last year. What were Jem and his British invasion like?

Jem is Awesome and tons of fun! We've hosted Jem for the last several years and he brings a world wide clientele base so I wouldn't call it a British invasion but always a fun and lively bunch. Jem is definitely one for not letting his group sit on the beach waiting for wind. He gets them out surfing, SUPing and mountain biking as well as all kind of dry land windsurf training. Never a dull moment when Jem is in camp!

Your calling card is Adventure Holidays. Here's a chance to share some of the 20+ years of stories you've heard and told.

Plenty of adventure over the last 25+ years in Baja for sure but these are reserved for the campfire so if you want stories you'll just have to come experience the magic Punta San Carlos and hang with us at the campfire or wait for the book to come out! We have more then enough entertaining stories to fill several hundred pages!

Funniest thing that ever happened to you: While you were on the water? At night? On the way to the bathroom (outhouse)? In the desert?

Man, that's another one for the campfire but one funny moment on my first trip to Punta San Carlos in 1985 was the seals fell in love with one of my friends and kept following him and playing with him in the water. They were just curious and having fun with him but my friend was totally spooked and they chased him out of the water. They didn't pay any attention to any of us but every time my friend Wayne would go surfing about 6 or so seals would all circle him and tug on his leash and tease him. We all thought it was hilarious but poor old Wayne didn't think it was so funny. The good news was Wayne was a complete wave hog so with him out of the water we all caught tons of waves!

I hate to ask, but what do you do when there is no wind?

Punta San Carlos is so much more then windsurfing! In fact the windsurfing sucks in San Carlos, it's all about wave sailing! If you are coming to Punta San Carlos just for the wind you will not be disappointed but you will be missing out on a ton of other world class sports and adventure not to mention the history, culture and people of this magical land!



Most Famous Guests ever? Which guests did you least expect to see at SoloSports?

Tough question and we like to give our guests a bit of privacy but we've had top professionals from surfing, windsurfing, SUPing, mountain biking, top industry professions from the tech industry, TV stars, photographers and more. As far as windsurfers go we've had just about every top pro except Robby Naish!

Kevin Trejo

Something we don't know about you that will make us more comfortable at night?

I'm always watching over Punta San Carlos so this magical place will be protected for us to enjoy!

Music you like to hear around the camp fire?

Just what ever live music we play on our own!

Where do you go on vacation?

Wherever the wind, waves, snow or trails take me!

Link up with Solo Sports & American Windsurfing Tour

PWA Live Webcasts Continue ·  Fuerteventura started July 22 and runs through August 1: an 11 day event. Freestyle is set to conclude early afternoon on Wednesday, July 27. Slalom will begin the next morning, on Thursday. More reporting at the PWA website.

I've enjoyed being able to embed the Live Player on this blog. It must be annoying, to visit this page and hear voices. The idea of someone chasing down the unwanted disruption of silence only to find that the voices are from a live broadcast of a windsurfing event makes me smile.