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PRINCETON-BY-THE-SEA – Monique Kitamura understood what Monday meant to the beach-loving denizens along the Central Coast.
Kitamura, an El Grenada big-wave surfer, brought her 16-month-old daughter to Mavericks beach to soak up the atmosphere that is electric every time a giant-sized swell arrives.
It got big Monday. Five-story building big on a beautiful early winter day that drew many of the world’s best big-wave surfers to the infamous break a mile outside of Princeton boat harbor.
Kitamura, who is featured in the surfing documentary, “It Ain’t Pretty,” said it had been a decade since the buoys read 35 feet. A wave that big produces drops double that size, making for treacherous conditions for even the best.
“It’s a heroic, victory-at-sea day,” said Jim Nevill, a Bodega Bay photographer who drives down every time the big waves are predicted.
It didn’t matter that the Mavericks Challenge surf contest won’t be held until at least next month after World Surf League officials decided Sunday the conditions weren’t going to be ideal this week.
The men and women who ride these mountains of water are drawn to Mavericks for the existential experience more than the attention of an organized competition.
Kitamura, a San Francisco private chef, felt the energy surge as the swell began building over the weekend.
“It is a very quiet town,” she said. “But when Mavericks breaks not only does it bring our City friends who surf but our Hawaiian friends or our South African friends.
“It is so nice and refreshing to feel the buzz of this quiet time come alive. We look forward to this time of year every single year.”
Longtime Oahu surfer Chris Owens had a novel approach to the cold Bay Area sea to prepare for the battle against monster waves. For the past week Owens, a well-known big-wave rider and paddleboarder, took ice baths so his body could acclimate.
He looked no worse for the wear after spending three hours in the lineup after arriving Sunday night from his tropical paradise on the North Shore. Owens, 59, said he had a mediocre day but so did many others.
“A lot of people hardly caught anything,” he said, adding that South Africa’s Twiggy Baker and San Francisco’s Bianca Valenti stood out.
Valenti, one of the world’s best women big-wave surfers, had never surfed Mavericks when it was supersized. She paddled into the sea early Monday thinking about safety first.
“The waves had a weird whomp in them,” Valenti said. “They were unpredictable and raw … and moving really, really fast. It was like you had to fly surf.”
Valenti described the lineup as “60 really hungry guys,” but most made it through the day unscathed.
The worst, surfers said, was when Hawaiian pro Andrea Moller fell during a tow-in. Valenti said her good friend planned to get a foot X-ray Monday night. She hoped it was nothing more than a bad bruise after the foot got caught in the toe-strap during a wipeout.
Matt Ciganek of San Francisco said fellow surfers “charged it as hard as they ever charged it.” Ciganek, 50, has been a Mavericks regular since 2001. He downplayed his waves but captured the essence of the day: “The lip was throwing out 20 feet or more. You could really feel the power of the wave.”
Monday was a spectacle that hadn’t been experienced in about a decade. Mavericks has had big days in the past 10 years but Monday awoke with the passing of a storm and long intervals with big sets charging toward the channel. The lifting of morning fog led to a postcard winter beach day that makes much of the country jealous.
“It just makes us very proud of where we live because of this phenomenal wave,” Kitamura said. “To see it break like this and show it to our children is a proud moment.”
The swell was so massive that the top big-wave surfers were slinging each other into cresting mountains of water via tow rope and personal watercraft throughout the morning. They were able to safely paddle into the waves under their own power riding longer surfboards later in the day.
Nevill, peering through the viewfinder of a long lens, described the waves as “almond-shaped, very vertical and standing up quite tall.”
In other words, the surfers were taking on adrenaline-jolting elevator drops.
Local boat captains canceled their planned charter trips to show spectators the action up close because of unsafe conditions in order to avoid any mishaps.
When asked if he had paddled out, one surfer sitting in his car smiled and said, “I don’t have a death wish.”
Paul Franzen of Santa Barbara understood the feeling. The commercial boater tackled the big break for the second time of his life Monday.
But he didn’t take off, thinking the better of it.
“I planned on catching waves but today it was not very wise,” said Franzen, 38. “The best guys in the world are out there.”
Franzen didn’t wear a floatation device that many of the big-wave surfers use in case of a bad wipeout.
Although it was not a contest day, a safety crew that supports the surfers during the Mavericks event was on hand Monday. The top surfers also had gathered Sunday at the Old Princeton Landing for a safety session to discuss a break that has taken the lives of two elite riders — Mark Foo and Sion Milosky — over the years.
Those deaths, the cold Bay Area water and rocky bottom here have helped turn Mavericks into an almost mythological locale. It’s why hundreds crammed into fishing village Princeton-by-the-Sea to try to catch a glimpse of the surfers.
But Mavericks cannot clearly be seen from the beach and it’s difficult to judge the wave’s power while standing on the bluffs hundreds of feet above the break.
“It looks like a 6-footer but you know it’s a 40-footer,” Nevill said of the vantage point.
The San Mateo County Sheriff’s office also took advantage of the excitement by handing out tickets to about 50 drivers who ignored “No Parking” signs along the narrow road to the Mavericks Beach dirt lot. Scores of others parked next to Half Moon Bay Airport and walked 2 miles to reach the beach.
Franzen surfed Mavericks for the first time in 2016 on the day the last contest was held. This time, he awoke every hour anticipating his 5 a.m. alarm.
“I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a little kid,” Franzen said. But “there is something different about it today. It is really gnarly.”
Kitamura and her husband don’t surf Mavericks anymore because it draws such a big crowd whenever it is breaking. But the native South African perhaps best summarized the feeling the surfers get on rare days such as Monday.
“I don’t go to church,” Kitamura said. “It’s my one sanctuary place where I can find ultimate peace.”
