Is This the Biggest Paddle Wave Ever at Maverick’s?
A closer look at Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker’s early morning mountain
Photo: Fred Pompermayer
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After a day like Tuesday at Maverick’s – when there were so many momentous waves ridden, so many magic moments throughout a full-day of XXL surfing – it’s easy to fall into a sort of fugue state. Call it,
big-wave blackout, if you’d like.
But a handful of rides will stand the test of time beyond Tuesday’s marathon super session; one of them being Grant “Twiggy” Baker’s early morning paddle bomb, which he scratched into while tow teams were also out.
Maverick s: Day of Days
Full coverage from arguably the best dawn-to-dusk paddle day ever at Mav s
Photo: Kenan Chan
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Yeah, we love superlatives when it comes to big waves, probably to a fault. (Of course we get excited about this kind of stuff. Waves are rad. Especially big, glassy, all-day waves.) But upon consulting an expert, certain claims can be warranted. In this case, it’s Mav’s grandfather Grant Washburn, who’s been keeping a daily journal of Maverick’s sessions for almost 30 years.
Kai Lenny from above. Photo: Billy Watts
“Of course there’ve been glassier sessions when we could catch more waves but I can’t think of another day with waves that size for the entire day and those kind of conditions,” Washburn said. “There were times when it was good, but not all day at that outer back bowl. We used to call that the ‘outer realm.’ Peter Mel and I talked about that for a decade, and nobody went near it. I’m calling it: