Top Surfers Put on A Show
Contest at Ocean Beach features aquatic acrobatics, tricky tides, baffling winds, and a shark sighting
Most days San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, the six miles stretch of shoreline along the Great Highway, is a desolate wind-ripped, fog-enshrouded wasteland of trash, lonely fisherman, sunburnt homeless men, and very dedicated joggers. Tuesday was not one of those days.
This Tuesday morning was the start of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Surf Contest, the largest surfing event in the world. At the north end of the beach, between Lincoln and Fulton, which usually hosts clumps of campfire debris and a scattering of local denizens, now stands a two-story makeshift tent city of trailers and taco trucks that will host 40 of the world’s top surfers for the next 11 days of competition.
A few thousand people came out to see 10-time world champion Kelly Slater, Dane Reynolds, and other top competitors battle the notoriously punishing waves and ruthless currents of the what many surfers consider to be the West Coast’s most challenging waves.
The ASP contest, which is broadcast live around the world, consists of a number of heats in which groups of three surfers challenge each other over a 30 minutes period for the best rides. By mid-morning the weather was cooperated beautifully -- bringing sunshine and a light offshore wind, but the waves seemed be suffering from some serious morning sickness. In heat 4, as the pros tried to salvage rides from 10-foot tall heaving walls of whitewash, the local surfers looked on and laughed, knowing the pain all too well.
Making matters worse, at 10 a.m. surfer Dusty Payne of Hawaii claimed to have seen a shark in the water. He called it the “biggest fin I’ve ever seen in my life coming straight at me.” Payne, who was losing the heat at the time, gave up and paddled in, claiming, “the waves they’re terrible so. . .I wasn’t going to stay out there and get bitten by a shark.”
Welcome to Ocean Beach, Mr. Payne. Watch your feet. Payne’s sighting follows an attack by a 9-foot shark on a surfer last Saturday at Marina State Beach in Monterey.
Nonetheless, the contest went on. Reigning world champion, Kelly Slater, showed up an hour later and proved that the waves were fine, you just needed to know how to ride them. Slater destroyed the Heat and absolutely thrilled the crowd with tube rides, angular cut-backs, and other aquatic acrobatics, earning him the lead.
Because the north end of Ocean Beach is located so close to the inlet of the Golden Gate, the tidal shifts can be brutal. One minute you’re in front of the Beach Chalet, the next minute you’re past Lincoln on your way to Daly City. In strong outgoing and incoming tides, it is not uncommon to drift an entire mile in a single surf session -- something locals call the “Sloat Express” in the south-sucking outgoing tide, and the “Lincoln Express” in the northward-pulling incoming tide. The tides also greatly affect the quality and size of the waves.
Usually, the outgoing low tide is the best along the north end of Ocean Beach, but it was the incoming low tide today when things really started pumping. Just before noon, during heat 8, the waves smoothed out, jacked up, and started throwing 10-foot barrels. The pros took full advantage of it, getting some incredible tube rides. The waves they didn’t make gave up some awful beatings.
At noon yet another local phenomenon was stressing out the pros: the weekly emergency test alarm. As the siren blasted along the beach, surf broadcasters and cameramen looked around confused. The surfers then in the water looked scared for their lives.
“I heard the noise and thought, 'Oh God, what’s going to happen here! Do we have to go in?'” said Australian Matt Wilkinson. “I then just kind of heard, This is just a test. It was a bit scary. I’ve heard there’s been some attacks around here so, it’s definitely in the back of your mind.”
The San Francisco ASP Surf Contest will be held throughout November 11, depending on weather and waves.
voltairesmistress
Most days San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, the six miles stretch of shoreline along the Great Highway, is a desolate wind-ripped, fog-enshrouded wasteland of trash, lonely fisherman, sunburnt homeless men, and very dedicated joggers.
Ocean Beach is beautiful and dramatic. Many of us visit it to walk, think, talk with friends, picnic. It does not need lots of sunbathers to justify its wild existence. The reporter appears not to recognize this fact.