Seeing this picture, I thought "Oh boy, that is going to hurt ...". So the surf is up, and the Maverick Surf Contest is now on. So what is Mavericks? Here's an excerpt:

"The waves at Mavericks are the product of swells that are suddenly thrust upward by a rapidly rising sea floor. There, waiting on the side, surfers paddle or are towed into the growing face of the wave, aiming their long surfboards known as "guns" downward and attempting to ride it out as the water races up the face of the wave.

Jeff Clark discovered the Mavericks break in 1975 and surfed there alone for more than a decade until he began to share his secret with others. It remains primarily the playground of only experienced big wave riders.

Newcomers can be held down on the sea-floor by sequential waves, tossed "over the falls" off the back of the wave, or rattled around in a rocky underwater area known by locals as the boneyard. "

Here's a pretty cool photo gallery of last year's competition.

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Published: (2005-03-02 23:16:22.0)