With a big winter storm approaching South Africa, big-wave surfers went to the notorious offshore reef called Dungeons, near Cape Town. Here, Durban surfer Grant “Twig” Baker rides a giant wave kicked up by the storm.
South African surfer Yuri Muller wipes out at Dungeons.
Australian surfer Joel Parkinson drops in at Pipeline on Oahu’s north shore during the Billabong Pipe Masters competition. Parkinson goes on to win his first ASP World Championship title in 2012, beating out reigning 11-time champion Kelly Slater and fellow Aussie Josh Kerr.
Kelly Cestari/ASP, via AP
Then-reigning ASP champ Kelly Slater competes on his home turf at Cocoa Beach, Florida, during the 2012 ASP World Title race.
Travis Logie of South Africa, about to get barrelled at Pipeline during 2012's Billabong Pipe Masters competition on Oahu's North Shore.
American Mark Healey makes it out from under Teahupoo's crushing lip, while Garrett McNamara, who holds the record for the biggest wave ever surfed, is less lucky. Though not as tall as some other big waves, Teahupo'o, in Tahiti, is one of the "heaviest" waves in the world, as the abrupt transition from deep ocean water to shallow coral reef causes massive slabs of water to get thrown suddenly forward, forming the picturesque hollow barrels that've made the spot famous. The shallow reef is also what makes it dangerous--the translation of "Teahupo'o" is "broken skulls."
Ken “Skindog” Collins goes down the face of Mavericks, a famously big and tempermental wave in Half Moon Bay, CA, during the 2013 invitational. Strong storms in the Pacific send swells into the Bay, causing heavy, cold waves to curl over shallow jutting rock ledges, making it both one of the top big-wave spots in the world and one of the scariest.
Tyler Fox gets out in front of Mavericks during the same competition last January. Like a lot of local big-wave surfers, Fox stunt doubled for the movie Chasing Mavericks. His job was to wait in the impact zone and get hammered by the wave.
Tyler Fox rides down the face of Mavericks as the massive wave crashes behind him.
Anthony Tashnick, a Santa Cruz surfer and one of the youngest ever to paddle--as opposed to get towed by a jetski--into the wave at Mavericks, goes straight down the face of the wave during the 2013 invitational.
A surfer rides down the face of a giant wave at Punta Galea, near the northern Spanish Basque town of Getxo, for the Arnette Punta Galea Big Wave World Tour in January 2013. The competition saw waves in the 40-foot range with windy and bumpy conditions that gave 17-year-old local Natxo Gonzalez a hometeam advantage.
