Sunday, February 14, 2010

Mavericks Surf Contest was Awesome!!!

I am currently in the coastal and valley area south of San Francisco for 7 days, doing vintage guitar related stuff, and just kicking around visiting friends. Yesterday, very early morning I went to my friends place near Half Moon Bay, then out to Pillar Point to get a decent spot to watch the Mavericks Surf Contest. The morning surf was awesome, waves beyond my expectations. Over the course of the 5 hours I was there, I saw a few wave faces that I estimated were close to 40 foot! The actual surf most of the day was between 20 to 25 foot +, but the faces are always bigger.

By now I am sure that anyone with a TV has seen the news footage of those people nearly waist deep at the shoreline yesterday, after a couple of mother natures finest came to slap them silly. I was not one of them. I have to say, that if you are ever anywhere near Half Moon Bay here in Northern California, you must go to Pillar Point during the months of November to March and watch the big ones roll in, but do it from a safe distance (not from what little beach there is, or the seawall.....) It's best to keep a safe distance unless you plan on going body surfing/struggling with your cloths on.

1 comment:

Rand Launer said...

Sneaky big waves. Dangerous stuff. Huge swell this week. They called it right.
Amazing how Mavericks became famous and all.
We used to watch it and never knew it would be surfed, much less, be a contest of thousands.
I've seen that rogue wave action smash down a surf contest stage before. San Clemente.
Of all people, surfers should have been watching the tide table and the waves because it DOES happen.

Many have died like that.