Highlights: La Bomba, Part 1: South of the Border
Showcasing series of solid south swells from Peru to Mexico
Tyler Warren, Puerto. Photo: Billy Watts
Marcus Sanders
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Last week, when we saw swaths of purple marching across the South Pacific, we got pretty excited, as we tend to do when we see that kind of stuff, and decided to call it the La Bomba swell. Turns out, maybe we should’ve gone a little more plural on the whole thing. Las Bombas, maybe. Especially for Central America and Mexico, which have basically been pumping nonstop for almost a week now. Some places have been better than others, of course, but there’s been no shortage of energy in the water South of the Border, as evidenced by the gallery below.
Behind the Lens During A Banner NorCal Winter With Sachi Cunningham
Local photog on this wild season, shooting around home at Mav s and Ocean Beach
Photo: Krista Brenner Photography
Local photog on this wild season, shooting around home at Mav s and Ocean Beach
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Editor’s note: In honor of International Women’s Day, we’ll be rolling out a week’s worth of stories one each day from March 8-14 that celebrate and showcase contributions women have made to the sport, lifestyle and culture of surfing. (And yeah: we’ll continue to do so in the weeks and months ahead.)
Bay Briefing: Bay Area sees first confirmed cases of variant that reduces effectiveness of some vaccines
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Lab technician Jason Tran processes COVID-19 test samples at UCSF Microbiology Laboratory in San Francisco.Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
Good morning, Bay Area. It’s Thursday, Feb. 11, and a friendly rivalry is pushing forward the world of competitive surfing. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
‘A very limited picture’
Two cases of a coronavirus variant first found in South Africa that reduces the effectiveness of some vaccines have been identified in the Bay Area, in Alameda and Santa Clara counties, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.
Dissecting the Dream: An Inside Look at the Best Six Weeks in Maverick’s History
When the North Pacific went into overdrive Mav’s led the charge
Photo: Billy Watts
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The problem with a couple months straight of North Pacific swell overdrive is just that so many crazy sessions, epic stories, unforgettable waves, bad wipeouts, enraged partners, confused bosses…the whole thing becomes kind of a crazed blur. One, oversized lump of collective surf memory. Which is why pulling one strand out of the narrative in this case, almost two months of very good to epic Maverick’s can help frame the whole event and give it context in the broader scope of the surfing universe.
The thing that struck Maya Gabeira was the sound. “I had never heard anything similar: it was the first affirmation that that was the biggest wave I had ever ridden,” she says. “It was just ‘phwoooaaaarrrrrrr.’” She mimics a bomb exploding in her hands. There was also a continuous “Brrrrrrrrrrrrr,” she says, like a deep engine humming – the sound of tonnes of water falling, falling, falling from a great height. “It almost vibrates inside your.