Sev­er­al peo­ple have asked if I was able to pho­to­graph the Maverick’s surf con­test this week­end. I was on my way to ski Kirk­wood when I heard the Maverick’s com­pe­ti­tion was on. We had an excel­lent time ski­ing and I have no pic­tures from the con­test.

But there are plen­ty great pic­tures to view. The weath­er was excel­lent and the waves were huge. It’s not easy get­ting these shots since the breaks are about ½ mile off­shore. Either you climb the slip­pery cliffs with a very long lens or you beg, bor­row or pay your way on a boat to get the close-ups. As of Sun­day night, here are some links to the pic­tures that I have been able to find.

Flickr has a “Maverick’s Surf Con­test 2010” group with over 300 pic­tures.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mavericks2010/pool/

I like to watch the group as a slideshow. It fills your brows­er win­dow with the largest pic­ture it can and border’s it in black. Max­i­mize your brows­er and try it.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mavericks2010/pool/show/

Sev­er­al encore videos of the live action and com­men­tary is on Mavericksurf.com.
http://www.maverickssurf.com/contest/see/webcast.php

Check out this raw video footage tak­en from the Chan­nel 5 news copter.
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=61790@kpix.dayport.com
Note: look for the “Chop­per 5 News of Mav­er­ick­’s Surf Con­test” video

The Sun­day Chron­i­cle has 2 sto­ries on Maverick’s, one on the front page and anoth­er in the sports sec­tion.
Huge waves at Mav­er­icks injure spec­ta­tors
and
MAVERICKS — Biggest of the big waves

And the Chron­i­cle also has 2 pho­to gal­leries of the event with over 200 pic­tures com­bined.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/02/14/SPBQ1C1FN9.DTL&o=
and
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/02/14/MNTA1C1AAA.DTL&o=

Reg­u­lo Zap­a­ta Jr. has pic­tures up on Face­book.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2056640&id=1215168613&l=3ff43523e4

Slideshow in the San­ta Cruz Sen­tinel:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_14396254

That’s a start and there are more out there. Some of the pic­tures are absolute­ly fan­tas­tic. The pho­tog­ra­phers caught beau­ti­ful angles with surfers framed by the curl of the wave, shots of wipe­outs are cap­tured sec­ond by sec­ond in burst mode and the spec­ta­tors and the spir­it of the event. It looks like Mav­er­icks deliv­ered big time this year and there are some award win­ning pic­tures that doc­u­ment it.