Powerful storms bring swells and surfers to California

Surfers descended on the famous Mavericks Beach in Half Moon Bay, California, to ride out a post-Christmas storm before New Year's Day.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 We're at Mavericks, Half Moon Bay, California,

00:09 and the waves are pretty big.

00:11 It's like 15 to 20 foot bases.

00:16 My first time surfing out here, I took the red eye flight over

00:25 from Oahu.

00:27 We were surfing Waimea the last few days

00:29 and chased the remnants of the swell here.

00:31 Came out here and got a few.

00:32 It was a lot of fun.

00:34 I saw probably about six or seven at a time out there.

00:39 Here at Mavericks, it gets really hollow,

00:45 and you can get one of the biggest barrels of your life.

00:48 I'm actually from New York.

00:49 I learned to surf from Long Island,

00:52 from a town called Rockaway Beach.

00:54 And yeah, I just came for the swell.

00:57 [INAUDIBLE]

01:00 This week, I caught a 50-footer I towed in from the jet ski,

01:05 where you hold the rope and your friend pulls you in.

01:08 With that, I rode a 5 foot 10 board.

01:11 And it was a rush.

01:15 You get into the wave a little bit early,

01:16 but all of a sudden, the wave starts growing,

01:19 and you just start going really fast, really quickly.

01:21 And it's pretty sweet.

01:26 It's just really sketchy out there.

01:27 There's a lot of boulders down there.

01:29 A lot of people get two-wave hold downs.

01:31 Some people are drowned.

01:32 It's a pretty dangerous wave.

01:36 There's some intense rides and some intense wipeouts, too.

01:39 I just got dragged in pretty far, like 300 feet.

01:43 But I'm OK.

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