Waiting for big surf at Mavs

Well, you can see winter’s here by the freezin’ air temps lately -- the other night it dropped down to the 30s. I even had some ice on my windshield in the morning, and it looked like glistening frost on the rooftops in the early morning hours.

That ocean has been chilly-willy too, with water temps around 54 degrees -- and with those strong offshore winds, a frigid windchill factor to boot.

Last Thursday, up the coast at the big wave spot called Mavericks, there were some more giant waves and swells in the 20- to 30-foot-plus range.

The big boys were out, but most notable was a gal from Santa Cruz who hung out in H.B. a few years back, Jamilah Star. She caught one of the bombs of the sess and definitely one of the biggest waves I’ve ever seen a female surf on: It was easily 25-feet-plus.

The rest of the pro surfers were getting ready for the Mavs contest, which is scheduled for the third year in a row sometime between Jan. 1 and March 31 on a 24-hour notice when the surf’s bigger than 20 feet with ideal conditions.

Jeff Clark, the Mavericks pioneer of surfing the big wave spot, is running the contest again. Last year’s surf topped 50 feet, and taking the win was Santa Cruz’s 21-year-old Anthony Tasnick.

So far invitees this year include: San Clemente’s Greg Long and Nathan Fletcher; San Diego’s Evan Slater; Hawaii’s Brock Little; the Santa Cruz contingency of “Tasnick” Tyler Smith, Shane Desmond, past winner Darryl “Flea” Virosko, Ken Collins, Peter Mel and Shawn Rhodes; and local veterans Matt Ambrose, Grant Washburn and Zach Wormhoudt.

There will be 25 spots open for the Big Wave Mav’s Invitational, huge surf, jagged rocks off the point, big money for a win, life-or-death situations, and sometimes even great white sharks!

Over in Hawaii on the North Shore is the $75,000 four-star Monster Energy Pro at the legendary Banzai Pipeline from Friday to Wednesday.

One hundred sixty-two pro surfers from 11 countries will try to get a jump on the W.Q.S. standings. Former winners: last year it was Hawaii’s power master, Pancho Sullivan; Pipe local Jamie O’Brien took it in 2003; 2002 and ’01 it was Bruce Irons; 2000 was Puerto Rico’s Carlos Cabrerro; the ’99 and ’91 winner was former world champ Derek Ho; three-time world champ “A.I.” Andy Irons won in ‘96; and Sunny Garcia took it in ’93.

It’s a list of stacked-up names, that’s for sure.

The Ocean and Earth Pro, a World Qualifying Series two-star contest that was canceled last week at the Huntington Pier, was rescheduled for November. Mark that down on the calendar -- it should feature some hot locals and some of the world’s best as well.

Congrats to Danny Misken for taking out the win in the master’s division at the W.S.A. in Pismo last weekend. That was worth 2,000 clams in the point race.

Huntington’s Kevin Ashford, former publisher of the hot Five Star surf mag, has hooked up with Da Hui Clothing from Hawaii. Ashford is the new sales rep for So Cal, and they have moved into their new factory in Costa Mesa.

Sunny Garcia, Big Island Miles Padaca and Pipe enforcer Kala Alexander are legendary team riders for Da Hui, which is way big in Da Islands and now is coming to the mainland in full force.

That’s it for now, see ya!

* RICK FIGNETTI is a nine-time West Coast champion, has announced the U.S. Open of Surfing the last 12 years and has been the KROQ-FM surfologist for the last 18 years, doing morning surf reports. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.

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