Mavericks’ Newfound Popularity Not So Swell

Everybody’s coming here to ride Mavericks. They haven’t done their homework. . . . They just jump in the water and paddle out. You don’t go to Nepal, look up at Everest and say, ‘Let’s climb this mountain.’ You study the situation. You get a guide.

--Jeff Clark, Mavericks surfer

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Jeff Clark has fond memories of the days when he had Mavericks to himself. Nobody else wanted any part of the towering breakers that boomed like thunder beyond the remote cliffs of Half Moon Bay.

The intrepid young surfer made his first paddle-out at 17 in 1975, and for the next 15 years he surfed Mavericks alone, mastering mountainous green peaks that bowl up and pitch out like no other waves on the planet, learning--often the hard way--where to be in the lineup and when to stay out of the water.

The speed rushes were incredible, the wipeouts spectacular, the solitude surreal. It was the ultimate secret spot.

But how times have changed.

Mavericks is now perhaps the most notorious big-wave break on earth, even more so than the famous Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu.

And Clark, now 40, is among a growing group of Mavericks regulars who believe the break is getting too crowded, that things are getting out of hand--that one of these days, perhaps soon, somebody who feels he has something to prove, or with an eye on $50,000, will make the fatal mistake of not giving Mavericks its due respect.

“This year is different than any other year,” Clark said. “Big-wave riding has always been done by experienced and calculating individuals. There have always been a few loose cannons, but waves like these require a very cautious approach, and the guys who rode them usually were very sure-footed about the whole thing.

“This year . . . K2 has offered $50,000 for the biggest wave ridden and what we’re finding is that a lot of people who normally wouldn’t jump into 20-foot surf are out there.”

The contest Clark refers to is the K2 Big Wave Challenge, a competition the sports equipment manufacturer says is meant to reward one of a relatively few big-wave riders who would be in the lineup regardless, not to tempt the inexperienced into paddling into waves that are four stories high.

While that may be the case, the K2 Challenge--which also will pay $5,000 to the photographer documenting the biggest wave ridden to its completion--seems to be growing more controversial with each mammoth swell, of which there have been plenty in recent weeks.

In Hawaii, lifeguards voiced their criticism as soon as the contest was announced late last fall. They’ve become even more vocal in the last two weeks, as a series of gargantuan swells has generated more than the usual excitement.

At Waimea Bay, the exclusive Quicksilver contest, an invitation-only memorial to legendary lifeguard-surfer Eddie Aikau, held only when the waves measure at least 20 feet from the backs, recently was called off because the waves were too big--some in excess of 30 feet--and closing out across the bay.

Waimea Bay Beach Park was ordered closed and all surfers were told to stay out of the water. But as conditions improved a little in the afternoon, surfer Greg Russ and a few friends decided they wanted to give Waimea a try.

They were stopped by lifeguards and threatened with arrest by local police.

This infuriated Russ, who told the Honolulu Advertiser that he had surfed Waimea for years and it was “the best I’ve ever seen it.” He went on to say, “They kept me from what could have been the best surfing of my life, and a chance to win $50,000.”

Reached by phone earlier this week, Brian Keaulana, a former Oahu lifeguard and an expert in extreme surf rescues, defended the lifeguards’ decision to close the beach, saying it was done as much to protect them as it was to protect the surfers.

“If a person is out there drowning, whoever is working that area is going to make an all-out effort to save him, even if that puts his life at risk,” Keaulana said. “If the lifeguard drowns, what about his family?”

He pointed out that all of those entered in the Quicksilver contest (the event is open only to those who are considered the most experienced big-wave riders in the world) wanted no part of Waimea on the stormy day Russ wanted to paddle out.

Of the K2 Big Wave Challenge, Keaulana said: “It has opened a Pandora’s Box. Every Tom, Dick and kook is going out there for the wrong reasons. When the waves get that big, it’s not only about surfing, it’s about survival. The surfing is secondary.”

Jim Howe, chief of lifeguard operations for Oahu and a 22-year veteran with the department, added that two experienced big-wave surfers have died at or near Waimea in the past three winters and that the K2 contest, open to anyone, certainly is not making the situation any safer.

“I know there are a lot of people who think they can go out in big surf,” he said. “It doesn’t look that daunting from the beach. But it’s a whole different game once you’re out there.”

Such appears to be the growing sentiment at Mavericks, where there are no lifeguards watching over the remote break 600 yards off Pillar Point, and where there seems to be more strangers paddling out with every swell.

“People don’t realize how heavy it is by seeing it on the news or in the movies,” said Darryl “Flea” Virostko, a Mavericks regular. “They don’t realize what it’s like until they paddle out and say, ‘Oh . . I don’t want to be in this situation.’ ”

Contest director Bill Sharp, while acknowledging the increasing criticism, said the K2 Challenge cannot be blamed entirely for the increased attention being paid Mavericks by both surfers and spectators.

He says a large part of the responsibility must go to the hype given El Nino and the huge waves it is apparently generating, and to television crews that have been bringing mammoth Mavericks into living rooms throughout and even beyond California.

One news station, on location at Mavericks a week ago, reportedly blurted flat-out, “This is the place to catch a $50,000 wave.”

“Now the place is overrun by fortune seekers,” Clark said.

To which Sharp responded, “The media frenzy has exceeded what we were looking for [in regards to the contest], but if all these waves we’re getting were here again next year, and there was no contest, the same people would be out in the water and the guys with their tripods would still be there taking pictures of them.”

Perhaps.

In any event, Mavericks no longer resembles the place Clark had to himself for so many years. With each roaring swell comes a rollicking crowd of onlookers and an ever-increasing number of surfers, with or without the expertise Mavericks demands.

“I was out Super Bowl Sunday and there was nobody here at dawn,” said Clark, who anchors his inflatable boat near the lineup. “I surfed an hour or two and then had lunch, and came back and there were 18 guys out. It was bumpy and dangerous, but guys were charging it anyway.

“I decided to sit back and take pictures and watch, but by the end of the next four hours I had caddied five people to safety because their boards had broken and they were being pulled [by the current] into the impact zone.”

Clark, who is attempting to organize a volunteer personal-watercraft rescue team at Mavericks patterned after a long-proven team on Oahu’s North Shore, was in Hawaii for the Quicksilver contest when the same swell that closed out Waimea began pounding the California coast last Friday. He missed plenty back home at Mavericks.

“Last Friday was the day,” said Frank Quirarte, a photographer who shoots up-close from an inflatable boat, which doubles as a rescue craft when needed. “We had 40-foot sets and it was a zoo out there. There were five or six boats, each with two to four photographers, and two Wave-Runners. And the hill was lined with about 35 photographers and another 50-60 spectators.”

Virostko and another surfer were the first to paddle out, and Virostko took two waves before noticing that the other surfer was more of a buoy than a surfer.

“He wasn’t even surfing,” Virostko said. “He was scared, saying, ‘Oh, this is heavy, isn’t it?’ and I said, ‘I don’t even want to talk to you. We’re in totally different mind-sets. I’m here to catch waves.’ ”

Virostko, however, fell on his fifth wave and found himself in the worst possible situation: treading water in the impact zone with a 25-footer cresting behind him. He didn’t have time to retrieve his board, which was attached to his ankle on a 20-foot leash, so he started swimming toward the wave in hopes of diving under it before it broke.

He dived into the face of the wave, which was so thick that it swept Virostko up and slammed him down, forcing him under for what seemed an eternity.

“By the time I reached the surface, I was out of breath,” he said. “I tried to take a quick breath because I knew another wave might break on me, but all I got were foam balls down my throat, and I saw that my board had broken in half.”

He never made it back to the safety of the channel. Instead, he was pulled by the current the other direction into the rocks, with eight-foot walls of whitewater raging over him. At one point he was forced down and his leash got snagged on an underwater rock, keeping him from reaching the surface.

“All I kept thinking was, ‘This is how Mark Foo died,’ ” he said, referring to the renowned surfer who drowned at Mavericks in 1994, presumably in this fashion. “Finally, I got leverage enough to sit up and get to my leash and take it off.

“I made it to the lagoon on a four-foot chunk of my board, which was all fractured. I had cuts on my hands and was barfing all the way in from swallowing so much foam and water. It took me 10 minutes to the lagoon, and by the time I got in I was winded and in shock.”

Virostko went home, leaving the theatrics--and there were plenty--to the rest of the Mavericks crowd on the biggest day of the year.

The most spectacular rides, according to Quirarte, went to such regulars as Mike Brummet, Ken Collins and Don Curry. Peter Mel, who caught what is still believed to be the K2 front-runner two weeks earlier at Mavericks, was among those who had his board broken in half.

The most dramatic wipeout belonged to a surfer who had flown in from Brazil, reportedly hoping to make a splash on the pages of a Brazilian surfing magazine.

He made a splash, all right.

“He got sucked over the falls, blew his ear drums out and blew both knees out,” Quirarte said. “His whole body went numb and he was screaming for the boat.”

It was obvious he hadn’t done his homework.