***************************** 1,047 ******************************* Epic waves this year Maverick’s Invitation Competition GoPro 2014, 40 – 50FT high, awesome show if you love surfing or just surfers :-) $ 15 for general admission. $ 200 for VIP, you can sit wherever you are for GA ticket. Plenty of food trucks, beers, and free CLIF bar promotions here. This year wasn’t as crowded as the precious year. They offer a few giant LED big screens for you to view the rides during the competition. A local band was playing 45 minutes straight post show. Then the ceremony at around 5PM, and you got be up close and personal with all the top surfers around 5:30PM. It’s a family event, so there was a lot of kids. They do serve beer, but no wine(SUCK) this year, and plenty of food trucks. The portable bathroom was terrible. A lot of cops here, and the parking was crazy! We parked half mile away to walk up. Grant«Twiggy» Baker managed to ride the surf to two perfect scores of 10, overcoming howling winds and treacherous conditions to win his second Mavericks title. Baker’s overall score of 29.33 put him well ahead of Shane Dorian second place, and nearly 13 points ahead of third-place Ryan Augenstein. Tyler Fox, Greg Long and Anthony Tashnick rounded out the finalists in that order. If you are a beach bum like me, surfing is a lifestyle, I got to see the North Shore in Oahu Hawaii, and now this the last few years, this is as good as it gets, and this year it wasn’t that cold, it was a perfect day out for us.
Benshi
Place rating: 5 Paris, France
Surfers are a little crazy by definition, but you need to be a serious loon to try surfing Maverick’s north of Half Moon Bay on the California Pacific Coast. The main action lies 0.8km off the shore, and normally involves a tow to get there. The waves roll in regularly at heights of 8 to 15 meters. Jeff Clark«found» the area in 1975 and promoted it into one of the premier big-wave surfing spots in the world. We prefer to watch, and the best time to do this is from October to December, when the Maverick’s Surf Contest is in full swing. Head north from Half Moon Bay on Highway 1 and take the left at Pillar Point, then park and climb out on foot to the point. Bring your long johns, because you will need them — it gets freezing here in late Fall. Big wave surfing can be a serious business. On 23 December, 1994, a year that saw especially huge swells, the world champion big-wave surfer Mark Foo was killed here. But it hasn’t stopped the surf world from coming to try these breaks.
