Giant waves were on the way, and Ben Andrews was going through the checklist in his head. His surfboard and wet suit were ready, plus an extra leash if a particularly powerful wipeout snapped the only tether between himself and the buoyant safety of his board. He also half-promised himself to hit the sack early, stretch in the morning, and breakfast on eggs, yogurt, and walnuts. Mentally, he figured it’d be just another day surfing his favorite big-wave point break in Half Moon Bay, a wave called Maverick’s, where he’d maintained a steady and increasingly standout presence since riding it for the first time a dozen winters ago. “I’m pretty much always ready to go,” Andrews said. “The trick can be getting time off work.” Fortunately, a coworker at the nearby marina, where Andrews was a deputy harbormaster, offered to swap shifts. Everything was set.
Meanwhile, 2,000 miles away, hurricane-force winds howled across the Gulf of Alaska, generating a towering swell that would undulate toward Maverick’s at 25 mph. Three days later, on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, Andrews — a born-and-raised Santa Barbara surfer who started out on an old beater fished from a dumpster — rode a 53-foot wave at Northern California’s deadliest spot, earning him $50,000 and much-deserved honor in the upper echelons of big-wave surfing.
On that “nice and sunny” morning, as Andrews remembered it, he pulled into the parking lot around 10, timing his session as wave shape improved with the outgoing tide. He suited up and power walked with friends Kohl Christensen, Ben Wilkinson, and Grant Washburn just northward of the break. With biblical thunderclaps, the heaving waves far outside detonated monstrously against the subtidal reef. The four men waited for a lull before jumping from a rocky shelf into the violently swirling whitewash. “You have to time it just right, or a wave will wash you back into the rocks, and that’ll ruin your day,” Andrews said. “It’s pretty hectic.”