Big Wave Hunters; Adaptive Surfing Safari

6 p.m. December 4th, 2020

As the sun drops into the mighty Pacific, an Adaptive Surfing Big Wave Champion has been crowned on West Cliff and an over-sized check has been delivered. Ultimately, today was about a community unifying around the opportunity to surf world-class waves in celebration of life by all bodies.

After a year of gut punches, pandemics, and stretched out docu-serieses, finally, we got something to smile about in 2020.

Humanity tackled the mammoth as a tribe and won.

The brilliant Chilean Claudio Morales dazzled cliff watchers and surfers alike with multiple monster rides, putting on a show for the countless fans that snuck in on Surfline. While only one man was crowned champion, everyone who was involved with today’s competition is better for the experience.

People decked out in tattoos, skate shoes, camouflage, tattered wet suits, and crooked smiles came together to propel each other into a creative space most land-lovers can’t survive. Veterans, hippies, ministers, surf rats, teachers and preachers all put their best foot forward in an elegant dance. Keep your Russian Christmas ballet, this was my kind of Winter Wonderland show.

This ragtag group of seekers, their loved ones, and an audience of just as many people as Our Great Leader will allow for a non-protest proved the pundits wrong, and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t magnificent to behold. We are more alike than different, what a concept.

Some of the top content creators from around the state descended on The Lane to help document living history. Drone pilots, photographers, videographers and bloggers donated their time and skills with little more than an invitation. Seeing families of all ages, civilians, and veterans all working together to hoot and holler was inspiring to say the least. The Stoke was in full effect today.

Everyone pulled together in the hours leading up to the competition, gathering extra equipment and sharing materials to ensure everyone got a chance to try their luck in the big show.

Amid regular reminders to maintain social distance for safety’s sake, adaptive surfers from around the globe threw themselves into world-class conditions with crystal clear skies and the kind of medium interval swell that kept it safe for Jetski support operations. One adaptive surfer ended up going through the washer, almost ending up on the jagged rocks below the cliff, but some savvy ski driving and water rescue professionalism carried the day.

The rocks ate a few boards today as they always do when The Lane gets cooking. The young lady pictured below went out on a wave-ski in the biggest surf of her life, side by side with her father, and lived to tell the tale. Her harrowing experience in The Wash won’t be leaving her memory anytime soon, but a healthy fear of Poseidon’s Playground is the kind of thing that keeps you alive in big swell.

Everyone who paddled out today came home, chalk one up for the good guys.

Some readers may shrug this idea off, but the potential lethality of the conditions can not be understated.

Support teams spread across the breaks had to dodge surfers, heavy waves, competitors, their own teammates, and loose boards never mind the bone-numbing cold that winter’s storm swell brings from Dagon’s Depths. Swimmers in the water endured hour after hour of explosion followed by walls of water at high speeds, many suffered cramps so severe there was fear on land they may become incapacitated.

The rescuer can become in desperate need of rescue in the blink of the eye; one instant your 14 feet in the air connected to the ocean, the next free falling into a coral shoal before everything goes black.

Any way you slice it, today was monumental for the adaptive surfing movement with the biggest conditions the contest has seen in 40 years.

6 a.m. Report

It’s dawn in Central California as four adaptive athletes preparing themselves for one of the biggest days in the sport’s history. 

The Adaptive Surf League’s only contest of 2020 gets underway today, squeaking by under California’s professional athlete exception, in their search to crown a champion. The contest is spread over three days at multiple surf breaks around Santa Cruz and is sponsored by a litany of amazing people who we will learn more about later in the weekend. That means the next three days are for all the marbles for these enduring souls who played chess with death and came away victorious. 

Championships are on the line. Best believe it’s about to go off.

But the weekend is huge for the adaptive surfing community in more ways than one. Borderline madmen, like Jose Martinez, are looking to write the first chapter of a new era of adaptive surfing. Martinez wants to lead his peers headfirst into a sub culture of the sport of surfing most humans wouldn’t dream of. 

Today, ladies and gentlemen is the Adaptive Big Wave Surf Contest. You read that right. As of 7 AM PST, conditions are 9ft plus and climbing. It could be as big as 17 feet out there today, not for the faint of heart. 

As the four registered contestants and their support teams prepare to paddle into the maelstrom at Steamers Lane, they plunge headfirst into a battle with one of the gnarliest waves this side of Mavericks. On the line, bragging rights, a title, and the chance to shatter ‘normies’ expectations. 

In fact, many surfers who have aspirations of dropping down The Big Nasty of Half Moon Bay cut their teeth on the shallow reef that gives Steamers its special blend of power, size, and speed. Makes sense, before you ride the lightning you have to hug the thunder.

Waves stand up at The Lane, meaning they look like a semblance of themselves out to sea until racing up the steep incline just beyond the point. Then they jut up to dramatic crests by the Walton Lighthouse before crashing down onto the reef and cliff face to the left. Once the wave breaks, there is only one direction for the water to go; over the reef and out the back end. 

Since most of today’s contestants are missing multiple limbs, the stakes are even higher. Death by drowning or traumatic injury is always on the table in any surf contest, with the risk escalating proportionality with wave height. In a best-case scenario, a 10-foot wave can make mince meat of an experienced surfer with all four extremities. Take a few away, and only the most dedicated will dare to taste the white water. 

It’s dangerous for the support teams as well. The bigger the waves, the deeper the Pusher has to go to get the riders moving. That means even the most skilled facilitator is due to end up over the falls and face-first on the reef.

For the catchers, they have to sit in the explosion zone, sluffing off concussive blast after concussive blast while eating walls of water, air & sand. 

No diving for the bottom of the wave here, that could end your day in traction. Rather, these teams of courageous crazies have plans to tackle these monsters like early man hunted mammoths. Divide and concur; let the wild man jump on the big beast. 

It sure is going to be exciting!

Make sure to follow along on my Instagram account for full coverage of the event. (@le_orca)