“I think they’re going to close the beach,” said the firefighter. “It’s getting pretty big. You can probably get a better view up there—and be out of everybody’s way.”
He was sitting on a trail leading down to the beach in Half Moon Bay where the Mavericks surf contest was being held.
We took the high road. Ten minutes later, a series of rogue waves wiped out dozens of people, bleachers, and scaffolding.
Luckily there were no serious injuries from the 5- to 6-foot waves that surprised the crowd—just broken bones, a few rescues from the water, and some really terrified people. That was only a small taste of what was going on half a mile out in the water, where surfers were charging 40- and 50-foot waves.
The Mavericks contest is one of the most lucrative contests for surfers, but it’s also one that’s up to the whims of Mother Nature. Twenty-four surfers wait during the contest season for notice that the contest is on, and then 24 hours later they’re expected to be there. The contest is only called when conditions are prime—the last was in 2008. On Feb. 13, those conditions were predicted to be record-breaking, but winds were expected to make the surf unpredictable. The event was called nonetheless.
My husband Ron, who had been working up north for the last couple of weeks, called me Feb. 12 to let me know the contest was on, so I packed my boys and hit the road. By early the next morning, we were among thousands of spectators invading the tiny beach town to watch some seriously skilled surfers get beaten and pummeled by gargantuan waves—and sometimes even
carving a few.
There are several options for watching the contest. In San Franciso’s AT&T Park, there were giant screens that gave a close up view of the action, and many establishments in Half Moon Bay were playing footage. In our minds, and those of all the others making the trek, there was only one way to see it, even if we didn’t see it in high def. The real importance was to be a part of it.
The view from Pillar Point was less detailed than from the beach—in the absence of binoculars, surfers were tiny black dots sliding down enormous green walls—but it was less hazardous. Though the winds were whipping extreme waves over the jetty, the day was beautiful and warm on the shore, if a little muddy.
For a place that gives birth to such monstrous waves, the point itself was serene: wild grasses, trees, people riding their bicycles. Even with such enormous crowds, the mood wasn’t raucous. There were just a lot of people standing in awe of the power of the ocean and the talent of those surfers brave enough to ride it.
Eventually, being so far from the action coupled with the short attention span of my boys, got the better of us. We headed back down the hill, unaware of what had just happened on the beach. At the bottom of the trail, emergency personnel tried to keep the situation calm while herding people aside to make room for emergency vehicles to pass.
In a small town, news travels fast. By the time we got off the trail and into town, and as emergency vehicles continued to head out to the beach to treat the injured, the talk wasn’t about the contest and surfers, but the scene that happened on the beach.
“I don’t know what they were thinking letting people so close to the water,” one local said to us as he walked by, “They knew what the waves were going to be like.”
Organizers didn’t return calls or e-mails about the incident and news on the contest website didn’t mention it.
The thought of what could’ve been made people shake their heads, but the fact that there were no serious injuries made people feel comfortable joking about it.
Another local, his jeans wet to the knees, had been on the beach.
“Yeah, I was like knocking down women and children to get out of there,” he said jokingly.
But everyone who had been down at the beach reported that there was chaos for a few moments: people clutching children, others desperately trying to climb the steep cliff walls with their bare hands, and still others trampling each other to get out of the wave’s grasp.
In the end, it was South African Chris Bertish who took the purse. He left battered and bruised and with a $50,000 first-place prize. And most of us left with our limbs intact and some great memories of a wild day. m
Arts Editor Shelly Cone will drop everything for a day at the beach. Let her know when the surf’s up at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 18-25, 2010.