Today, Mavericks was the biggest it has been in quite some time.  Most of the best big wave surfers on the planet were out, alongside dozens of ordinary citizens like myself.

Between the crowd and the trickiness of the waves, most people had very low wave counts.  I ended up only catching one decent wave.  I was sitting closer to the channel when one of the bigger waves of the day came.

I turned, paddled and slid into a wave that was standing tall at first, but quickly backed off into the channel.

Had I caught that same wave from closer to the bowl (and successfully ridden it — not a given) it would have been one of the better waves of my life.  As it was, it was a fun sleigh ride, but not very intense.  Still, it felt good to get one, even if it wasn’t the steepest or deepest.

Those were ridden by guys like Shawn Dollar, Anthony Tashnick, Garrett McNamara, Jaime Mitchell and a few unknown soldiers.

Here is the land shot of my wave:  A number of people got caught inside up at the bowl, but I had a pretty easy drop from the corner.  The guy that caught the wave alongside me came unglued on the drop and I ended up cruising into the middle of the boat circus solo.

The video should be cued to the right spot, but if not, my wave starts at about 5:09:30.

Enjoy.

-Matt