Mavericks is a big wave surf spot that breaks out side of half moon bay which is just south of San Francisco. Even though it is in a very populated area Mavericks wasn’t discovered until 1975 when Jeff clark decided to paddle out by himself. He and his friend had watched it break for years when they were in high school but never surfed it because of the size of the waves and the fact that it breaks half a mile off shore in shark infested waters. Finally one day he saw the the waves there were big but not huge and that conditions were perfect and decided to go out. When he he realized what a good big wave spot it was he tried to convince others to come and surf it with him but nobody would believe him that there was a quality big wave surf spot in California. Finally in 1990 after having mavericks for 15 years on his own Jeff clark was able to convince two santa cruz surfers to try and surf it with him. After that more people would believe him and the next time a big swell came there were multiple other surfers and photographers on the beach. Surfer magazine wrote a long article about mavericks, telling the entire surfing world that it was legitimate. In december of 1994 northern California had huge swell that produced the biggest waves ever seen at mavericks. On the 23 the waves were big and the conditions were good. It was very crowded and the beaches were lined with photographers and people watching. Mark Foo, a famous hawaii’n big wave surfer had flown to California the night before. Foo took off on a medium sized wave, fell and never came back up. his death greatly affected all the mavericks surfers.
The sea 