Wet and Wild with Rockin Fig

The first big northwest swell of the season hit theWest Coast with

some sizable surf at a lot of breaks last week.

Our first indication was over in Hawaii,where the surf was macking.

That sent big-wave surfershere scurrying and plotting out prospective

trips tothe big-wave venues. I heard Mavericks, up past SantaCruz, was

huge. Santa Barbara, which claims the fame ofRincon, was working with

some long point break rights.

Huntington had some eight-foot-plus sets, although I was ready for

some perfection waves on Turkey-day, but the south wind was on it.

Friday was cleaner and way fun with some freight train rightys and a

few walls too, but it seemed like the swell wasalready dropping.

Meanwhile, a group of the Huntington Beach storm troopers, decided

that this was the perfect swellfor that island off Mex. to be happening.

That littleisland known for big surf is Todos Santos.

And by all indications, it would be picking up those wideopen ocean

swells bigger than most breaks. A coupleyears back, pro hottie Taylor

Knox was photographedon the biggest wave ridden that year at Todos and

won some big cash, $50,000. That broughtthe spot light on the famous big

wave break.

Two car loads of surfers and boards weredown on the docks and ready to

go at 6 a.m. Twoboats heading toward Todos Santos on Thanksgiving hoping

to score some big ones.

When they arrived to the break, called Killers they could tell it was

pretty huge out there. There were some giant waves breaking right on the

boil. Surf City surfer/shapersBarry Deffenbaugh and Sean Jensen, Mater

Dei surfcoach Randy Garret, along with Brett Swartz and Indo.boy Timmy

Turner, were checking it out.

Fifteen- to 25-foot Todos, and maybe a little bigger thanexpected.

Already out in the mack attack lineup wasbig-wave-rider extraordinaire

Mike Parsons, being towed intothe sets by pro ripper Keith Malloy. Randy

Laine wasalso out on a jet ski, catching some biggies on thattoo.

A few other standouts were the Long brothers,Rusty and Greg of San

Clemente, who make the tripoften, and Mike Todd, another ripper.

Well, the timewas now, everybody all suited up, they surveyed

thelineup and decided to do it, paddling out.

At about three-quarters the way out, thehorizon started looking like

the big daddy sets werelooming. No place to go, no place to hide in front

ofthe 30-foot close-out cleanup set -- nothing but to try to makeit over

the top.

I saw the pictures and this wasdefinitely a 30-foot set, with an even

a biggerface. Not just one wave, but six in a row.

The boystried to make it over, but almost everybody gotstuffed.

Somehow Garret made it over the top, D-Baughgot worked pretty bad, but

his leash didn’t break,meanwhile Turner lost his board and was caught in

theimpact zone and was getting hammered and swepttoward the rocks.

It was looking like a life or deathsituation, as Turner was trying to

stay calm, but he wasstruggling.

Out the back, Parsons -- who had caught someof the biggest waves of

the day, like six timesoverhead in one shot I saw -- saw what was going

on.

Malloy was on the ski, but wasn’t quite as much of theveteran as

Parsons is.

Parsons waved Malloy off theski, and without hesitation went right in

thebreaking zone to save a life, not even thinking abouthis. He jammed in

and got Turner out just in the nickof time.

Everybody was trying to regroup back at theboat, but were a bit

shellshocked from what hadhappened.

Garret caught a couple nice ones before hebroke an 8-foot-10 in half,

and Swartzcaught a couple big corners too.

Then it was time to go, the crew had enough. They headed back toward

the coast and wanted me to mention that Big Red, sometall guy, an

unknown, was charging out there on someof the biggest sets. The thrill of

excitement poweredall and now it was time to get back home

forThanksgiving. So stuffing in the morning and turkeyfor dinner. Hope

everybody had a good one. Rockin Figover and out.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a six-time West Coast champion, has announced the

U.S. Open of Surfing the last eight years and has been the KROQ-FM

surfologist for the last 15 years where he’s done morning surf reports.

He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.

Fig is one brain cell from retardation