Mavericks
Down near Half Moon Bay (yes, very close to where we took the girl scouts to the beach a few weeks ago, but under totally different conditions) there is sometimes held a ‘Big Wave’ surfing competition called Mavericks. This year the waves appeared to be right, so the elite big wave surfers voted to hold the competition, and it was on, February 13, 2010. HUGE waves, 50 ft, which is five stories tall. You might think that if waves are going to be that big, people might stay away from the shore, but a couple of hundred people were swept off of their feet on Saturday morning, 15 of them were injured, and thankfully, no one was swept out to sea. Part of you says, “um, duh, stay away”, but to be honest, there were 20K people in a very small area, and the structures for the judges were right there as well, and this has never happened before, so of course people thought they were safe. Just a warning, if you ever come to Northern California, especially in winter, do not turn your back on the ocean. The rogue waves kill a few people every year, 2 or three so far this year already. Anyway, if you want to see some amazing pictures of this amazing contest, check them out at SFGate.
8 Comments
Heather
wow, death by rogue waves, all sounds very dramatic. That is one heck of an amazing picture!
Kerry
What a picture wow that is amazing!
Adrenalynn
WOW. Awesome photo – and super scary.
Jimmy
That’s better than the Winter Olympics!!!!!!!
Jimmy
Except I didn’t see any beach babes?LOL!!!!!
dadwhowrites
Wow! I’ve never seen waves remotely like that in real life. It’s looks awe inspiring and terrifying and I can understand why people would feel compelled to somehow have some sense of presence with it, if you see what I mean.
Cherry
Especially since the competition was on a Saturday, there were tons of people there. We thought of going too. Someday I’d like to get down there to see it, just to experience the amazing power (but hopefully not get hit by one of those waves!)
OmbudsBen
Yeah, I went birding down at Moss Landing. There was quite a bit of traffic along the ocean. Those Chronicle pictures are amazing! And when you read about people getting hit–it makes me glad we only deal with little lapping bay waves here.