Photographing Big Waves at Mavericks | Hacker News Reader

Photographing Big Waves at Mavericks

cake.co

144 pointsbrudgers13 comments

Cake is one of the photo-oriented social media sites that popped up on my radar during the G+. Chris MacAskill, Cake's CEO, made himself available for an AMA during the sunset period (the AMA itself seems to have escaped IA archival, though it's memorialised at Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9tdmoz/hello_my_n...).

I have to say that the site and its features really suit the spirit and message of this Mavericks reminiscence.

Side note, thanks for showing me there is such thing as 'old.reddit.com'. I find the current site a disgrace of performance.

It's one of the few things that makes Reddit barely tolerable these days.

You can also try i.reddit.com for an even older version.

This isn’t something you think about when you think about the USGS or the NOAA. But their monitoring stations, with real-time or short-delay feeds, and sea floor mapping makes the prediction models better.

It’s not an obvious use case for data such as this, which is why it’s important to remember, and it is similarly important that the data be available in open, preferably human-readable formats.

This is definitely something I think about when I think of NOAA and USGS. I’ve been surfing in California since the early ‘90s, and have spent many hours listening to the buoys being recited over the weather radio. We knew exactly what times each hour our relevant buoys’ readings would come on, and we’d constantly be tuned in to see if there were any changes in swell.

And today, the lifeblood of many surf forecasting websites is based on this data.

This use case is basically all I think of when I think of NOAA.

When Mavericks is nothing, it's literally nothing. I've sailed right through it on the OYRA Half Moon Bay Race which is in late June. Dead flat water. Jellyfish schools. Light air sailing. The zephyr of a breeze shut down as we crept in and it was a parking lot of boats behind us. Like Point Conception, you can sail around it even when it's going off. In June, you're thinking about the Montara wind hole. Mavericks doesn't exist in June.

This is not specific to Mavericks amongst “big wave” surf spots. Waves break as a function of swell period vs. ocean depth. More powerful (longer period) swell will break in deeper water, so in many places known for big waves, shorter period swell will just go right over and not break until closer to shore.

Of course. Mavericks needs the swell but the location provides the geographic feature, a ramp which builds and slows the swell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks,_California#Sea_floo...

Without the exceptional swell conditions there is literally no wave, just a swell. Monster rogue waves will break offshore regardless of depth.

That's why a lot of breaks are literally un-surfable in bigger swells. What was once a nice sandbar or reef, now only has whitewater and their are waves breaking well past the usual spot--usually in a way that is either two dangerous or not fun.

I remember paddling out at C-Street in Ventura in 14-17ft swell...didn't surf a thing and thought I was going to die. Go on a 4ft day and you will be lucky to find a place in the line-up.

Most people are going to think they're going to die in triple overhead surf at any break

I am reminded of the amazing story of surviving a 100ft wave.

"We free-fell for about 50 feet before we landed on the back slope of the wave," Alladio said. "And those machines weigh about 900 pounds, so I went deep, down into the water almost up to my elbows. And that was the moment when I felt a little shot of panic."

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/DESPERATE-RACE-FOR-SU...

As someone who hasn't grown up around the ocean the size and orientation of some of those waves look almost alien.

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