The young men and the sea

Killer waves are about to hit a secret bay near San Francisco. The surfing elite can't wait. By Richard Kelly Heft

As Grant Washburn drives along the coast, 30 miles south of San Francisco, he begins holding his breath. If he can hold on for two-and- a-half minutes or more he'll be happy - that's the amount of time he thinks he may need if he gets into trouble while surfing one of the most dangerous waves in the world.

He's heading for a patch of sea, and a huge lump of rock known as Maverick's by the world's small, tightly knit group of world-class surfers. There are no signs; you simply drive to the nearest place marked on the map - Half Moon Bay - and ask the locals for directions. At the moment the sea is calm but any day now the rugged isolation is likely to be broken by the 20ft-40ft swells that break off Maverick's every winter.

When the swell hits, 20 surfers - all of whom have surfed Maverick's before and specialise in big waves - will have 48 hours to get to Half Moon Bay to compete in the first Maverick's competition, which goes by the name of the Quicksilver Men Who Surf Mountains event.

What makes Maverick's so scary is not just the size of the waves, which can easily exceed a crest-to-trough measurement of 40ft-60ft (about the height of a four-storey building), but the terrifying combination of wave conditions that is found only there.

Waves break more than a quarter of a mile from shore and are therefore thicker and far more powerful than those at most other big-wave spots. Westerly currents pull surfers to an assortment of nasty jagged rocks and house-sized boulders. Underwater there is an unpredictable reef - shallow in some parts, deep in others and dotted with archways, caves and crevasses. Then there's the water itself - an uninviting greenish- grey, and cold. Don't bother trying to surf it without a full-length wetsuit, a hood and rubber gloves.

And sharks? "They're definitely around," says Washburn, "but that's not even a worry out there. There are way too many other things to worry about. There are at least a half dozen nightmare possibilities before you even get around to sharks." Jamie Brisick, editor of the American magazine Surfing, agrees - "It's the antithesis of Surf City," he says. "It's grey, cold; the waves are intimidating. It's a bitch."

Despite being so close to San Francisco and the surf mecca Santa Cruz, which is 20 miles to the south, Maverick's was virtually unknown before 1991. Up to that time the only person to surf the Maverick's break was Jeff Clark, a local who for 15 years surfed there alone, unable to persuade anyone to join him.

"No one wanted to believe that this wave was for real," he says.

But after he had persuaded some Santa Cruz surfers in February 1990 - including Dave Schmidt, brother of the big-wave legend Richard Schmidt - word spread quickly. By the time the next big swell broke, there were 15 surfers in the water. A year later, the story broke in Surfer magazine and Clark's name was made.

"It was like finding a lost species of animal in downtown San Francisco," says Matt Warshaw, a former editor of Surfer. "I am baffled by the fact that the place could have gone undiscovered for so long."

What sealed Maverick's reputation, however, was the death in 1994 of Mark Foo, a big-wave rider who was surfing after taking an all-night flight from Hawaii. Foo drowned on a relatively innocent-looking 18-ft wave. People who saw the fall itself thought nothing of it - it was just one of more than a dozen falls that day. Two hours later, a fishing boat loaded with photographers spotted Foo's body with his broken board still attached by the leg rope.

To prevent a recurrence of such an incident, only surfers who have already surfed Maverick's are being invited to the contest. Australian Ross Clarke- Jones, 32, is one of two non-Americans invited to take part (there are no British competitors). Clarke-Jones flew in to try Maverick's during a big swell last year. He was keenly aware of the danger because the all-night trip from Hawaii was exactly the trip Foo had done two years before.

"To be honest, I was very nervous because of that," says Clarke-Jones. "I was freezing. I had on a wetsuit, a hood and booties. It's difficult to swim in that body armour. I didn't have gloves, so after a while I couldn't even feel my fingers."

There has never been a wave more closely associated with a single surfer than Jeff Clark is with Maverick's, but he is a controversial figure in Half Moon Bay these days. Some blame him for commercialising a surf spot that was previously known only to a few locals.

Although, as Grant Washburn says: "Word was bound to get out. It's a little like thinking you could keep Everest a secret."

Privately, some say he acts as though he owns the wave. But there is little doubt that if he hadn't been out there it would still be undiscovered. "If he had died I don't think anyone would have surfed it - at least not this century," says 72-year-old Alex Matienzo, who surfed the area in the Sixties. Matienzo recalls seeing Clark as a teenager on the break surfing an area so far out on the point that locals judged it unsurfable.

"The wave changed my life from the moment I saw it," says Clark.

Aged 41, he still heads for the water almost every time it breaks. He's accustomed to the cold; while other surfers wear layers of warm clothes and winter jackets, he stands on the windy bluff wearing only a T-shirt. He has the stocky build of an athlete half his age and the brawny forearms of a bricklayer. His tanned face is offset by piercing blue eyes and paper- white teeth. His body is a mass of chunky, hard edges.

Surfing the point by himself as a teenager was nothing more than a calculated risk, he says. "I came here for years and just watched the wave before I ever went out and tried to surf it. I studied the ocean more than I've studied anything else."

He would regularly miss school to surf big swells throughout northern California during the winter. "My father's favourite saying was: `Quit looking at those waves'"

While he is still a surfer, there is little doubt that Clark has also become a power broker. Quicksilver, which is putting up $40,000 (pounds 24,000) in prize money, including $10,000 for first prize, signed up Clark as a sponsored surfer and contest director and has left every important decision in his hands. Clark alone decided who would be invited to the event - the vast majority being Maverick's regulars.

Virtually no one will be able to see the competition live except photographers, organisers and judges - or those willing to pay local fishermen to take them out to watch from the water. Indeed, viewing the surf is almost as difficult as riding it. A steep bluff faces the break, but it has been worn away to dirt and a few tufts of grass. The top of the cliff is fenced off, blocking the path to an overhang where the waves can be seen. To get to a viewing-spot you have to lean over the fence, with the sheer cliff face and rocky stretch of beach 200ft below. Authorities say that no one will be allowed at the top of the cliff during the contest.

The best viewpoint will probably be over the Internet, where the contest site (mavsurfer.com) will be transmitting video within minutes of each heat.

Grant Washburn dreams about Maverick's. A film grip based in San Francisco, he's been obsessed with big waves since childhood. He has refused to leave the area during the entire winter season for fear of missing something.

"I can't even talk about it with my girlfriend," he says. "She doesn't want to know. I wouldn't go to her parents' place for Thanksgiving because we had a big swell come in."

He practises holding his breath - counting familiar landmarks on the drive to the beach to gauge his progress - preparing for his personal worst-case scenario, a three-wave hold-down. He's not that concerned, though. He's already been held under for two waves and found it wasn't so bad.

"I came up feeling I could have stayed down longer. I felt really exhilarated. It was almost as good as riding the wave," he says.