February 26th. 2016

The swell was on its way, and I was super excited to see what was going to materialize. This new mega-swell wasn't supposed to show up until late morning, and being as the tide was reaching high around noon, I put myself on hold. My compadre Rick Gannon called me about noon, and we chatted about this huge swell on its way, and Rick convinced me, that "The Queen" would be the call, and that he was gonna stop over in about a half hour and pick me up, so get ready to go! We got down there and surprisingly score a prime time parking place, and as I was walking down the trail, I saw a set coming through the Cove that was a solid ten foot, so immediately called Ricky and suggested that he might want to ride his biggest board, which was a 6'3" I set up on the new bike path, and couldn't believe my eyes. It was solid ten foot, maybe twelve to fifteen, blowing offshore, glassy.hollow and just PUMPING! I was camped out at Rincon during that December 5th, 1969 Mega-Swell, and the swell that I was witnessing in front of me was so much cleaner, hollow and better, that I almost couldn't believe it. Another un-canny thing for "The Queen," I only counted about forty surfers in the water!!! Ive see two hundred people scratching and fight for four foot waves out there, and was totally perplexed but the lack of crowd. Some of the surfers I recognized were; Ricky, Alan Sarlo, Danny, Barron, and visiting Hawaiian mega star Carrissa Moore. All in all, it was maybe The Best Queen I have seen, maybe in my fifty years of photographing this beautiful world class point break. With all that said, I will now let the photos serve justice for this Epic Day. Always remember my motto: "Stay Stoked, and stay Forever Young." Da Lieb