I woke up in a tent in a forest above Berkeley with my friend Calvin. We made coffee, packed up, rode our bikes back down into the city, had a nice eggy leisurely breakfast. I put my bike on my car’s roof rack, and was driving into San Francisco around 11:30am when I got a call on the Bay Bridge. It’s Wired. “Mavericks is firing today, can you make it down to Half Moon Bay to shoot by 2?”. I had known about the shoot but based on the predictions of swell, it seemed like the shoot would be happening later in the week. Quick calculation in my head, would have about 30 minutes turnaround time to ditch bike gear and grab camera gear. So… “yup, I’ll be there.”
So I found myself moving from bike and tent to a rocking boat in the ocean helmed by Captain Dale by 2pm, clutching my strapless camera and documenting roughly 30 surfers who came out to ride the first big swell of the season. The waves at Mavericks are huge and almighty. 2-3 story house high. When quiet (in between swells), the ocean would lie still and flat for some time. Then the waves would start to come in. The surface of the water would begin to slowly roll upwards, like a dimple on a giant blue carpet, and with each successive wave, the sea would eventually transform into a sheer wall of roaring, concave water. When waves curled and crashed down into themselves on the water’s surface it sounded like an aquatic bomb. This I experienced from a boat 100 feet away; I can only imagine what it sounds like next to the riders as they race down the face of a wave at 40 mph. So much respect for big wave surfers.
All in all, a very rad day. Camping in the morning, surfing in the afternoon. Mahalo, bro.
mahalo
