Mavericks
Half Moon Bay (Pillar Point) · near Half Moon Bay · SF Bay Area
Surfing
At a glance
- Skill level
- expert
- Best season
- Nov–March · Most active January and February on big northwest swells
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Surfing detail
- Break types
- reef
- Swell
- Northwest groundswell · 15–70ft on the face · Requires significant open-ocean swell period
- Tide
- All tides produce the wave · Conditions secondary to swell size
- Wind
- Expert surfers manage regardless · High-pressure offshore windows ideal
- Crowd
- Paddle-out crowd: world's best big-wave surfers only. Viewing crowd: everyone. Boats and spectators on shore at Pillar Point are a legitimate bucket-list experience.
- Board
- 7ft6in-10ft gun · Inflation vest mandatory · Expert-only
- Wetsuit
- 5/4mm or 6/5mm with hood, booties, gloves · Inflation vest · Non-negotiable safety gear
- Intl tip
- The Mavericks surf contest (when it runs, which requires proper swell timing) is one of the world's great sports events — essentially a flash mob of the world's best surfers converging on Half Moon Bay within 48 hours of the call. Keep tabs on it if you're visiting California in winter. Half Moon Bay itself is a charming coastal town with excellent seafood and pumpkin farms (the fall harvest draws huge crowds).
The guide
The wave that put California on the global big-wave map alongside Nazaré and Jaws. Mavericks is a right-hand reef break sitting…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Mavericks — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.4954, -122.5025