I was never a Mavericks guy, just an Ocean Beach guy. But I did surf Half Moon Bay’s world-famous reef break exactly twice. In 1994, Mavericks was not yet insanely crowded with jet skis, photographers’ boats, and people flying in from all over the world every time it broke. So I thought I’d get myself a big board and catch at least one wave out there, so I could say I did it and tell my childhood buddies “hey guys, guess what I did.” Since we grew up surfing summertime waist-to-chest-high shorebreak waves in Delaware, this would represent something of a step up.
On a historical note, my Norwegian grandfather dared to ride off the also-world-famous Holmenkollen ski jump as a young man — breaking a couple of ribs, but it granted him legendary status in the family. I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but in retrospect, this seems like some kind of unconscious template, a genetic token–or perhaps just a curse–passed down through the bloodline. In other words, I was destined to do something slightly risky, but in a flawed or messed-up way.
So I bought a used Jeff Clark 10’6″ gun from John Schultz at the old SF Surf Shop on Noriega Street. It was a sort-of-experimental board with huge single fin and a ton of vee in the tail. I was extremely skeptical of riding a single-fin in big waves, but I was a surf bum with little money, and $350 was within my budget. Especially for something that only had to work one time. I took it out at the beach on a couple of bigger days for a test drive, and the single-fin seemed to hold.
As it turned out, the fall/winter of 1994 was pretty incredible. I still consider December 1994 to be the single best month for surfing Ocean Beach that I’ve ever seen. Sometime in October or November of that year, I took the Clark gun out to Mavs. I caught a wave, rather small by Maverick’s standards — maybe triple overhead. I was surprised at how stair-steppy the face was, but even more surprised by how hard it was to catch the waves, even with a huge board. Not only did you have to put yourself in the bowl, but you had to paddle like a madman. Still, I did catch that one wave, so I guess I felt a bit of relief. (That feeling of accomplishment was muted somewhat when I watched a fresh-faced young kid repeatedly take off way deeper and make every wave with ease. Much later I figured out that kid’s name was Jay Moriarty.)
The month of December delivered nonstop double-to-triple-overhead-plus waves with offshore conditions. I’d been surfing Ocean Beach nearly every day, and feeling really confident, so I thought I’d give Mavs another go. So on Monday afternoon of the final week of that memorable run of surf, I paddled out again. Everyone in the lineup was talking about “some kid” who freefell 40 feet into the pit during the raging, windy morning session. The picture of that freefall — featuring, again, Jay Moriarty –later made the cover of the New York Times Magazine.
That afternoon, the ocean was calm and lully. With a knot of regulars sitting on the main peak, waiting for sets, I thought to myself “OK, I don’t have the clout or the experience to compete for a set wave, but maybe I can snake one of the smaller ones that slips by the pack.” So I edged my way a little farther inside. Rookie mistake! And in fact, one of the guys who had been sitting outside told me later “yeah we were a little worried about you in there.” With good reason: about fifteen minutes before sunset, with no waves under my belt, in my desperation to catch just one, I tried as hard as I could to grab a medium-sized one that rolled under the pack, but it didn’t even break. When I turned my board back around, I was looking at a monster set. And now I was pretty much in the impact zone. I remember thinking something like, well shit, here we go, I guess.
So I paddled south hard, towards the channel. But the set swept through the west bowl and broke in a giant wall in front of me. I stood on my board and dove down to the bottom of my 12′ leash, where the water is–as I now know–very black and cold. It felt like being buried alive. I braced for the proverbial ton of bricks to explode on me; but that never came, only a rumbling sound passing over me, followed by a strange silence. Badly needing a breath, I knew it was time to start climbing my leash back up to the surface, but when I tried, it didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. I could just barely see light in one direction, so I swam that way for what felt like forever, lungs bursting with each passing millisecond. Finally I popped up to the surface, gasping for air, and…my board was nowhere to be found. That explained the leash climb failure. Thankfully (and oddly, in hindsight), there wasn’t a second — and possibly even bigger — wave there to really test my lungs. Maybe by that point I was far enough towards the channel, or far enough inside, I don’t know. Or maybe that was just a rogue set wave, because there hadn’t been any like it the whole time I was in the water. In any event, I had to swim in, and the sun was setting.
More good fortune: the swim in to the beach took about ten or fifteen minutes, but was largely uneventful. It was easier than doing the same at Ocean Beach, a deep-water beachbreak rife with hellish currents. When I finally got to shore, it was almost night, and incongruously, my board was right there, lying fin side up on a bit of exposed rock reef, with not a scratch on it. Which brings me to the funny part of the story: as I was checking the board for dings, a couple of kids ran up to me in the gathering dark. I suppose I was expecting some shred of concern, or even muted respect, maybe something along the lines of “dude, that was heavy, are you ok?” Instead, the first kid simply asked “was there anyone famous out there?” I was pretty exhausted. I put my board under my arm and walked back to my car.
I never did surf Mavericks again, but two days later–I guess that would make it Big Wednesday–I got the biggest waves of my life on that same 10’6″ at Ocean Beach, with only one other guy out. I even got a couple of grainy photos from a random guy who just happened to be in the parking lot at Sloat that afternoon.
Two days after that, Mark Foo died at Mavericks. And the surf turned to crap for like a whole year, I’m not even kidding. I have some stories about that day too.