In case you haven’t heard, California went absolutely bonkers on December 28th, 2023 with a swell that some were calling the “biggest day in years” at certain spots.
Specifically, Mavericks, the Golden State’s premier big-wave surf spot located just south of San Francisco, stole the show during the swell with epic rides, heavy wipeouts, an historic first for alternative surf craft, and spectators swept away by a sneaker wave.
But, of course, Mavs wasn’t the only place inundated with waves during the swell. Elsewhere was huge, too; and in some cases, almost too big.
Take this mutant, massively crowded, endlessly entertaining to watch, wintertime novelty wave – which will remain nameless – from Santa Barbara.
Backwash blasting surfers into oblivion, an unrelenting current that would turn Michael Phelps’ arms into noodles, and a few diamonds in the rough…that’s what we get in the edit above featuring the super secret, yet notoriously crowded, surf spot.
This wave wasn’t the only Santa Barbara surf spot to light up during the swell, however. A couple clicks to the south, Rincon, the Queen of the Coast, was doing her thing as well.
Check out the full photo gallery from that day here; and here’s a report from local hero, Conner Coffin:
“In all honesty, this is one of the biggest swells I’ve seen around here and it pretty much overloaded a lot of spots by mid day. I think every parking spot around was taken and everyone was on it.
“It was one of the biggest and cleanest days I’ve surfed. It was packed in the morning but as the swell pulsed it cleared out.”
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