NYT Magazine | The Fight for Gender Equality in One of the Most Dangerous Sports on Earth

Women, surfing, big wave, California, photography View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, February 7, 2019 [NYTimes.com »]( [The Women of Big-Wave Surfing]( By DANIEL DUANE [Paige Alms surfing at Maverick's in December.]( Paige Alms surfing at Maverick's in December. Dina Litovsky/Redux, for The New York Times For this week’s cover story in the magazine, [I wrote about four women who have been fighting for gender equity in one of the most gorgeous and frightening sports on Earth, big-wave surfing.]( I have been personally besotted with big-wave surfing since I was a little kid listening to my Uncle Jim Duane describe wiping out on a huge wave at Waimea Bay in Hawaii. I first saw big waves with own eyes in Decemeber 1994, while driving from my parents’ home in the Bay Area down the coast to Santa Cruz. I was spending every free minute surfing at the time, and I recall being astonished by the appearance of the ocean surface that day — smooth, deep blue and corrugated with gargantuan bands of what looked like wide-wale corduroy all the way to the horizon — deepwater swell rolling in from the North Pacific. Like surfers everywhere, I had just learned that a proper big-wave break called Maverick’s lay somewhere along my driving route — it has since become one of the most famous big-wave spots in the world and is the main battleground for the political struggle described in my article for the magazine. At the time, Maverick’s was known to only a handful of surfers. Hoping to see it, I pulled off the highway at Princeton, a scruffy little fishing town. I parked in a dirt lot full of pickups with dirty towels in their truck beds, then scrambled to the top of a bluff. A small crowd looked out to sea toward what appeared to be a flock of tiny shorebirds floating among eight-foot waves. I heard someone say that [some kid named Jay Moriarty had just taken a spectacular wipeout](. When one of those shorebirds caught a wave, I realized it was a grown man on a 10-foot surfboard riding a wave with a 40-to-50-foot face. The big swell lasted all week. Down in Santa Cruz, over the next few days, I rode the biggest waves of my life — up to 18 feet on the face. I fantasized about someday riding Maverick’s and imagined that I would order one of the specialized surfboards known as big-wave guns (a.k.a. elephant guns, or rhino chasers). That Friday, I drove back north for Christmas break. I did not stop at Maverick’s, so I did not get to see four of the world’s most famous big-wave riders surfing there. Later, I heard on the news that one of them, [Mark Foo, fell on a modest wave and disappeared. When Foo was found floating facedown and dead]( another famous surfer recalled falling on a wave after Foo’s and, deep underwater, bumping into what he figured was Foo’s body. I had no business at any break that could kill the great Mark Foo, so I put Maverick’s out of mind. I moved to San Francisco in 1997 and started surfing Ocean Beach, where one of the main players in the cover story, Bianca Valenti, surfs today. I fell into a warm crowd of surfers at Ocean Beach and befriended a veteran Maverick’s surfer named Mark Renneker, who was with Foo when he died. Renneker was kind enough to encourage me to join him at Maverick’s, but I was too scared. I resisted until 2006, when two other surfers, Keith Malloy and Jeff Johnson, invited me along. I recall the waves being about 30 to 35 feet on the face. Keith and Jeff made it look easy, so I paddled for a wave and caught it. I stood up only to get bucked off my surfboard by some unexpected heave in the crest. As I fell, I penetrated the water surface and slipped out the back of the wave. I came up for air in time to see the wave detonating over rock reef with horrifying power. I climbed onto my surfboard, paddled to the safety of deeper water and stayed there. Bianca Valenti surfing at Maverick’s. ‘‘This is where I’m meant to be,’’ she says. Dina Litovsky/Redux, for The New York Times I didn’t go back to Maverick’s until last October, [while reporting my story]( for the opening ceremony of the [World Surf League Maverick’s Challenge](. Six of the surfers mentioned [in this story]( were there: Bianca Valenti, Keala Kennelly, Andrea Moller, Emily Erickson, Jamila Star and Sarah Gerhard. Jeff Clark, the early pioneer of Maverick’s big-wave surfing, socialized with smiling locals. Middle-school boys and girls looked admiringly at adult male and female competitors — equally strong, vibrant, healthy and full of the radiant joy that comes from taking risks in the successful pursuit of passion. After the ceremony, I joined those athletes and a few other locals in paddling out to the break. The waves weren’t nearly big enough to qualify as proper Maverick’s, only eight to 10 feet on the face. Still, I was delighted to catch a wave, get to my feet and then fly along in the wind and mist with the effortless speed that any surfer can tell you is an incomparable pleasure. ADVERTISEMENT [When the Camera Was a Weapon of Imperialism. (And When It Still Is.)]( [From the Rev. R.H. Stone’s memoir ‘‘In Afric’s Forest and Jungle: Or Six Years Among the Yorubans,’’ 1899.]( From the Rev. R.H. Stone’s memoir ‘‘In Afric’s Forest and Jungle: Or Six Years Among the Yorubans,’’ 1899. From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library By TEJU COLE In his final On Photography column, Teju Cole argues that images of human suffering often implicitly serves the powers that be. [Letter of Recommendation: Color Blind Pal]( Illustration by Robert Beatty By ZOE DUBNO The free app doesn’t just help the color-impaired pick out clothes or decode maps — it lets everyone else see through their eyes. More from the Magazine: [Mango pie.]( Paola & Murray for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Rebecca Bartoshesky. [A Very American Mango Pie, Inspired by Indian Aunties]( By SAMIN NOSRAT Think Cool Whip and a Keebler crust. (Then make them from scratch.) Dylan Coulter for The New York Times [Rivers Cuomo Prepackages His Internet Presence]( Interview by JAIME LOWE The musician on his platonic Tinder use and his addiction to an audience’s cheer. Photo illustration by Derek Brahney/New Studio [The Political ‘Center’ Isn’t Gone — Just Disputed]( By BEVERLY GAGE Has political polarization really turned the center into a no man’s land, or is it simply in flux? 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