It’s late March, and surf season has just kicked off on Baja California Peninsula’s East Cape.

Reports of an incoming swell have wave-starved locals buzzing with anticipation. Matt Lindsay, the Australian founder of LUXSurf Travel, a San José del Cabo–based surf guiding company, picks me up from the Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas just as the morning’s first blush casts a soft glow across the cacti-studded landscape.

I have surfed along the Baja Peninsula’s Pacific Coast before, between Cabo San Lucas and Todos Santos, but as we drive along a short stretch of smooth Highway 1, Lindsay assures me this will be entirely different. We’re headed to a surf spot called Nine Palms, a gloriously long right-hand point on the other end of a dirt road so cratered, I abandon any hope of finishing my coffee.