Fantastic Article about Mavericks

Really nice graphics and story.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGQCNS3NM1.DTL

I just read it at my lunch hour...while I was stuffing my face with a "4X4" burger from In & Out. Good stuff right there. Talk about the PERFECT STORM 

It reminded me of the day when Eric /GTO and I managed to survive getting past some really big swells during an early morning surf launch at Linda Mar during the hot salmon bite. I remember Erik K. gave me a nickname that day = "Dead Man Paddling"  I remember the bow of my yak pointing towards the sky when I hit the first set and when I cleared it, my butt was airborne a foot above my seat as the bow crashed back behind the swell  ......I think "LUCKY" would have been a better nickname 

Thanks I have to change my pants now. That was intense!

I am amazed we fish there.

During the last HMB tourney I was the last yak out of the harbor and this was bad because I had never fished there before.  Based on the advice of the veterans I was planning to paddle out to the green can and then fish on the way back into the harbor.  By the time I got out to the reef, I could see the green can and all the yaks around there so I took a straight path not knowing I was paddling into the jaws of Maverick's. 

At first I thought the waves were just swells that I could ride out but when I went up the face of the first one and was looking straight up at the sky I thought, this is not good.  By then I was just hanging on as I fell down the back of it and then I saw more rows of waves coming in my direction.  The adrenalin kicked in at that point and I was a paddling machine until I got the heck out of there.  Good to have a Tarpon 160i.

Gary

and good thing the swell was 1/10th as big as in the video,  .