As the saying goes, “Things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance.” That is the root of Murphy’s Law, which was NOT named for any reason after the iconic, blonde-haired, surfing cartoon character immortalized by classic Surfer Magazine artist Rick Griffin. In actuality, it was named after one Major Edward Murphy, a development engineer who was assisting with U.S. Air Force research experiments with rocket sleds back in 1949. His research backfired, leading others on hand to come up with the slightly sarcastic tag line for the ill-fated results. In my case, a bizarrely memorable trip to the tip of Baja Mexico certainly had a surfing-inspired theme to a punishing example of Murphy’s Law.

I made the trip to Cabo San Lucas with my 15-year-old daughter Liana, for some surfing and fun-in-the-sun. It was a trip I had made many times, always with delightful results. I rented a V.W. Bug, but declined on the insurance, since I had never had any problems previously. We motored out on the washboard dirt road to Shipwrecks, where some small, playful lines looked appealing for my first surf. Unknown to me at the time, a hurricane off of Acapulco was sending increased swell in our direction and in an hour’s time the swell steadily picked up to a consistent six foot. Sounds great! 

The swell, however, was also washing in a large number of man-o-war jellyfish, with hoards of unseen tentacle pieces aimlessly floating in the lineup. Within minutes, this blissful scene turned horrific, as I suffered excruciating stings all over the backs of my legs. Making it worse, was that as the poison penetrated, I became doubled over by severe stomach muscle cramping shortly after I bailed from the water. So as I’m moaning and groaning by the car, the waves continue to get better. Great, the hell with it, we’re outta here. 

My daughter Liana didn’t have her driver’s license yet, but I had taught her enough previously to let her take the wheel, as I was in no condition to drive back to the hotel myself. It was an empty dirt road out in the middle of nowhere, so I thought it would be ok. She was doing fine until we approached these steep cliffs where she hit some soft silt causing her to lose control and fishtail towards the edge of the sheer cliffs. I reached over and grabbed the wheel just before we literally went sailing off into oblivion. The car veered back hard across the road where we crashed straight into boulders and cacti. 

We sat there, momentarily in stunned silence. Then, with a sickening crack, a large saguaro cactus collapsed right onto the windshield. A total disaster, but thank god, we were not hurt. I took over driving, backing up the poor V.W. from its gooey impact zone, and still feeling like crap from the jellyfish, we continued slowly on, in our smashed-up wreck. 

When we arrived back at Costa Azul, the waves were well overhead and stacking. I dropped my daughter at the hotel, and by that time the poison was easing off and my stomach felt marginally better. I decided to paddle out at The Rock in the evening and scored a big, outside set wave. However, as I was dropping in, there were so many sitting ducks caught inside, I couldn’t pull up into the wave without hitting someone. F*#k!!  I had to straighten off and got blasted by the lip from behind. As I was getting pummeled around underwater, somehow my board belted me square in the cheek, and I came up spitting blood, but thankfully, no teeth. My cheek swelled up like a bloated chipmunk, and woozily, I made my way to shore. 

As I stumbled up to the top of the hillside, darkness was starting to settle in. I reached in my trunks pocket, but my key chain holder had broken and the car keys were gone, probably at the bottom, out in the lineup. I looked up in a daze, not believing what a truly wonderful day I had experienced so far. Yeah, right.

At the hotel bar that night, the tequila flowed freely and I could actually laugh about the insanity that transpired, because, hey, we survived it all in one piece. An old guy barside bought me a round of shooters. I think he said his name was Ed Murphy.