Maverick's

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books on Surfing Ever
Review: This book captures the unique world of big wave surfing better than any I've ever read. It's really cool the way it goes back and forth between the relatively recent discovery of Maverick's and the general history of big wave surfing over the last 50 or so years. The research that must have gone into portraying the various characters that make up the strange world of big wave riding is really impressive. It's got some really great photos too, although not just the typical big wave wipe-out shots. It's good looking enough to sit on your coffee table, but unlike most coffee table books, its full of great writing.

Rating:
Summary: Look At That Wave!
Review: This book gives you a feeling of "look at that wave!". If you really want to get an idea of big-wave surfing, find an IMAX theatre showing "Extreme". Then read this book. The photographs are good and the historical information is presented well and has some depth to it. You also get to see pictures of one of the biggest wipeouts ever!

Rating:
Summary: Visually appealing and well written
Review: This is a fascinating look at the history and sport of big-wave surfing, focusing primarily on Maverick's but also discussing some of the other big-wave spots in the world, such as Todos Santos and Cortes Banks. If you have fond memories of the classic travel and surf-bum movie from the 60s, "The Longest Summer," about great surf spots around the world, you'll probably enjoy this book.

My review concentrates mainly on the dangers, since I was interested in researching that, but overall it's a beautifully illustrated and well-written account of the sport. The author starts with the early history back in the mid-1850s (when a legend has it that a Hawaiian was supposed to have ridden a tsunami back to shore).

I was interested because I used to live for many years near Maverick's, one of the premier big-wave surfing spots in the world, and I was curious what it had to say. I've never been a board-surfer myself, but grew up in southern Cal and did a lot of body surfing when I was younger. One time, I foolishly tried to body-surf a storm-driven 18-footer at Gillis Beach in southern California and got ground into the bottom and held down long enough so I thought I might not get back up to the surface in time. But I survived, and am now older and wiser.

I've had a few other misadventures, such as having been pulled out by a couple of riptides (including one that pulled me underneath the water briefly), so I've always had respect for the ocean, and I figured big-wave riding must surely be even more dangerous. Photos of lone surfers dwarfed by enormous waves have always amazed me and sent shivers up my spine, as I remembered my own scary encounter with a wave. Oddly enough, the author goes to some pains to dispell that notion by recounting various statistics and many anecdotal stories about the sport.

For example, although it's possible for a big-wave to hold a surfer underwater long enough to drown, this is very rare. More likely is for a surfer at the more crowded small-wave sites to get knocked unconscious by someone else's board who wiped out and to drown that way. Or there's the possibility of an unsupervised and inexperienced surfer drifting into a strong riptide. And as the author says, "No big wave surfer ever tested the odds as boldly as the untrained, pot-bellied, beer-staggered, citizen body-surfer."

Mark Renneker, a UCSF physician and avid big-wave surfer, gathered data and compiled statistics on injuries and concluded that cheerleaders were injured more often than big-wave surfers.

Peter van Dyke, another big-wave fan, had some other comments, pointing out that in one recent year, a half dozen Grand Prix racers were killed but not one surfer, and many more bull-fighters were killed. He said that big-wave surfers were so unconcerned about their fitness that they trained on "cake, Kool-Aid, ice cream, and cigarettes." He also pointed out that the last surfer to die at Waimea was Dickie Cross back in 1943. By 1994, no-one had yet died at Maverick's (although that would soon change with Mark Foo's death).

The book also contains a full chapter going into the events preceding and following Mark Foo's death. One of the things that becomes apparent there is that surfers aren't so much killed by the waves as by occasionally getting their ankle straps caught in underwater reefs so that they can't surface. Although no-one to this day knows what killed Mark Foo, it's possible this was part of it, and one of the other surfers had the same thing happen that very day, although he was able to get free just as he was running out of air and get to the surface.

Still, because of the perceived dangers, out of 5 million surfers world-wide, only about 100 are regular big-wave riders.

But as I said, the book also contains a more general discussion and history of the sport from the early days to the present, using Maverick's as its point of departure. There are many spectacular photos, including a fantastic two-page spread of Mike Parsons riding what's thought to be the largest wave ever ridden at Cortes Banks, an open ocean reef 100 miles to the west of San Diego.

By the way, I agree with the previous reviewer about possible huge waves up in Alaska. In fact, in Puget Sound they sometimes get 60-foot waves, and they can get 20 or 30 foot waves at the mouth of the Columbia river in Oregon, where the Coast Guard trains captains in the heavy surf handling of boats. Also, off the tip of South Africa there is an area where, because of the way the ocean currents travel up from Antartica combined with a sea floor that funnels the wave energy, it's thought that 100-foot waves can occur. (In fact, it's one of the few places in the world where large ships occasionally disappear, and it's suspected huge "rogue waves" may be responsible). There was also the finding of the underwater quake that caused a tsunami to go 2000 feet up the mountainside at an uninhabited bay up the west coast of Alaska. No-one saw it but the devastation was so dramatic it wasn't hard to figure out the cause when it was discovered later.

The largest wave ever recorded (at least by a reliable observer) was by the USS Ramapo back in the early 1930s. The ship was about 120 feet long and completely fit on the side of an enormous sea wave that passed under it in the mid-Pacific, and was estimated to be 134 feet high. Now that's a wave any surfer could envy.

Rating:
Summary: Loved It, Dudes
Review: This is a very fine book for anyone who is intrigued with the sport of surfing. Our friend, Frank, an avid surfer from Berkeley, read the book in one read after spotting it on Betsy's desk. I think he put it best when he commented " This is the best thing to being there! Well, sort of. But good. Whoa. "

Rating:
Summary: Mavericks
Review: This is a very fine book for anyone who is intrigued with the sport of surfing. Our friend, Frank, an avid surfer from Berkeley, read the book in one read after spotting it on Betsy's desk. I think he put it best when he commented " This is the best thing to being there! Well, sort of. But good. Whoa. "