Video: Maverick's Goes Giant As Historic El Nino Swell Slams California
Thursday, December 28, 2023, was one for the surf history books in California as a massive west swell hammered the coast. And while there no shortage of all-time moments as some of the Golden State’s premier spots, it was Maverick’s in Northern California that stole the show. Bordering on unriddable, it was absolutely giant. Heavy, uninviting and ugly, it was far from perfect or pretty, but it was historic.
"Swell today had some grunt. Black diamond conditions,” described Maverick’s legend Peter Mel, who bagged himself one of the meaner waves of the day out there.
One of the standouts of the Mavs session was San Diego’s Jojo Roper, who was towed into what may be the most memorable wave of the day by legendary waterman Jamie Mitchell.
"What a day. I’ll never forget that view!" reported Roper on Instagram.
With him were Luca Padua and Alessandro Slebir, who were also among the standouts and scored their share of jaw-dropping rides.
While there were undoubtedly some bumps and bruises sustained during the day at Maverick's, thankfully everyone made it back to the Half Moon Bay Harbor in one piece.
"This was one of the great historical days in big wave surfing," explained big-wave documentarian Tim Bonython, who teamed up with Mavs pioneer Jeff Clark to film the action.
The footage is still coming in and photos are still being processed, and there’s a lot more swell on the way, but it’s safe to say that after the spray settles eventually this run of El Niño-fueled surf will go down in history as some of the biggest and meanest to hit California in years.
Maverick's Is Going To Be Giant This Week, Here's A Little Backstory
With more than 25 years of writing about surfing, the ocean and action sports, Jake Howard continues to share stories, profiles and issues that shape the surfing world. One of the premier subject-matter experts in the field today, he's savvy in the ways of print, digital and social media, his breadth of work is expansive. Getting his start writing Surfline surf reports and recording the phone reports for 976-SURF in the late '90s, Jake served as the managing editor for Surfer Magazine in the early 2000s before moving on to launch RedBullSurfing.com and cover surfing for ESPN and the X Games. Over the years, Jake has also enjoyed time behind the edit desk at The Surfer's Journal, as well as the World Surf League, where he worked as the Senior Editor for a number of years. Beyond producing editorial content, Jake has served as a digital marketer and copywriter for iconic surf brands such as Quiksilver, Roxy and Rip Curl. Writing thousands of pages of copy for Surfline, he has deep SEO experience as well. The surf columnist for the San Clemente Times, Jake continues to dedicate himself to the culture and history of the sport through his involvement with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.