I went to Lincoln City yesterday for the Nelscott Reef Big Wave Classic. I figured it might be the only chance I have to go. The weather was beautiful, about 55 degrees, and while it was a little overcast it didn't rain.

The surf photos are taken from the bluff looking out into the Pacific. The reef break, where the action was, is a half mile from shore. I did my best to get fairly decent shots through the haze. It wasn't very crowded at all. I chatted with a couple guys, one who'd been there for a few hours and said the lulls were long and the waves few and far between, but it picked up right after he said that. By the time we left there had been a bunch of great waves. We watched from about 12:50 to 1:30, don't know which heat that was or who was out there. I could have stayed all day, but my family was with me and they are perhaps not quite as delighted by surfing as I am, to put it kindly. It's hard to gauge wave height from that far away, but I'm told they ranged between 18-30' during the day.

(My favorite wave was the one they split, with one surfer going left and the other right. That's always fun to watch.) Most of the waves at Nelscott are rights (breaking to your left as you look out at them from shore), but there were some beautiful lefts yesterday as well.

The scene photos are taken from the beach at Nelscott. The water safety crews and photographers left and came in from that spot, and there were a lot more spectators and general beachgoers. I do have one photo in the set of the reef break from the beach. It's impossible to see the action from sea level, but you can get a feel for the size of the waves, maybe.

Hope you like them. Here's the set on flickr or on picasa.

...and people were complaining that the waves at Mavs this weekend weren't big. Check out this photo of Greg Long by Tony Canadas, it's my favorite from the event. This was Greg Long's first time back since nearly drowning at the Cortes Bank in December (read ESPN's article) and he looked as if he hadn't missed so much as a single beat. (If you don't know what a three-wave hold-down is, ask away.)

There are some videos from the event at the Mavericks Invitational website. The GoPro Mark Healey one is pretty fantastic, and the slo-mo 30-second pieces are great. I haven't watched all the rest of them yet. I did watch the whole event, even with the broadcast marred by a lot of cutting out and the event website offline for most of the day. Technical issues. I can't see why this stuff is never ever covered on TV here, but at least it was covered. Congratulations to Peter Mel, who's been surfing Mavericks for 21 years.

I'm still holding out for our local (well, more local) branch of the Big Wave World Tour at Nelscott Reef in Lincoln City. The window on it's open through March, so it might run. If it does, who's up for a trip to the coast with me?