San Francisco Bay Area

On the best days, the wave starts around the point directly under the bridge and wraps nearly 90 degrees into the cove on the inside. Fort Point is an experience: safe and dangerous, exposed and protected, easy and hard. All of these things at the same time. Fort Point is safe because when the big, bad ocean outside the bay is closed-out, blown-out or otherwise unsurfable, Fort Point can be four to six-feet, hot and glassy. During the winter, Fort Point is usually offshore and rarely blows out, even in the strongest NW winds. Fort Point is dangerous for a few reasons. When the ocean is pouring in and the tide is pouring out, there's a lot of water going every which way under the bridge. Outgoing tides rip through here like a river. On the strongest tides in the winter, the current flows out as fast as seven knots, too strong to paddle against. Another danger is that the break is lined with rocks, and there is a big rock in the middle of the break, marking the inside lineup. A wipeout on a big day here could be harmful. Finally, it can be tricky getting in and out through the rocks that line the break. Fort Point can be a pretty good wave. With the right angle on the swell and the right tide and the right wind, it's a decent left point: sometimes hollow, sometimes fun, sometimes blown and ragged and gnarly and challenging. This wave is the definition of fickle: tide sensitive, wind sensitive. Not the shallowest wave in California or the longest-walled or the fastest, but definitely in the top five for most unusual.

Ocean Beach is the most emotional stretch of beach in all of California, and perhaps the world, because it's located dead center in the middle of California, and it's open to every burble and bellow from the north and the south. The winds are dynamic, but the real factor is the tide. All that water moving in and out of the Golden Gate sweeps up and down Ocean Beach with enough force to dislocate swell and shift sandbars from hour to hour. Ocean Beach has many, many moods, from the manic ecstasy of clear, blue offshore fall days to the gloom and doom of stormy winter, windy spring and gray summer. There is no stretch of ocean in California that changes as much from hour to hour, day to day and season to season as Ocean Beach.When Ocean Beach is on, you will see three miles of shifting, meaty, dark-green offshore peaks, from head-high to triple-overhead, cannonading the surf zone from south, west and north. A perfect day at Ocean Beach can be a mind-boggling sight, a mile after mile of perfect surf, with scattered humans doing their best to paddle through the impact zone, make it out the back and catch one of the buggers.On a lot of days at Ocean Beach, just getting out can be a major accomplishment. Depending on swell and tide and sandbar, on many days there is a 200-yard "zone of death" in between the beach and the lineup. It can be as hard to get off the beach and out to sea for a surfer as it was for a marine to get from sea to shore on the beaches of Normandy. It takes knowledge, skill, strength and courage, but the deciding factor on a lot of days is still dumb luck.Make it outside, and there are rewards, but your troubles aren't necessarily over. A good day at Ocean Beach is as good as any beachbreak in the world, but the good peaks here have a maddening quality of always being 50 yards away from where you're sitting. Even good surfers who surf the place all the time will get skunked, catching maybe one or two waves an hour, while paddling back and forth, trying to hunt down the big, shifting beasts.Ocean Beach is bordered by Kelly's Cove on the north end and Sloat Street on the south end. In between are three miles of beachbreaks, which become emptier and lonelier from north to south. There is parking from Kelly's Cove down to VFW's in front of Golden Gate Park. At Lincoln Avenue, the parking lot ends, the dunes begin and the streets become alphabetical, beginning at Irving and running all the way to Wawona. You have to park along La Playa or Great Highway the Lesser to walk across Great Highway the Greater to get to the beach. LINEUP TIPS: Etiquette | Surf Safety Basics

Linda Mar has its epic days, but for the most part, the surf ranges from poor to so-so, and the water is crowded with beginners and intermediate surfers. Linda Mar has a reputation for being gray and gloomy, but even in the thick of the region's summer fog season, there's often an inexplicable donut of sunshine beating down on the place. Linda Mar is at the end of a big valley that funnels south and southwest winds into offshores, and the surf can be cranking there during the winter, when the rest of the coast is blown out. The same conditions can exist in the summer, when that valley will turn the onshore fog winds into offshores. Linda Mar can be sunny and nice when Ocean Beach is like Moscow in winter.From north to south, the first spot at Linda Mar is called Round House. Next is Wander Inn, named for a bar that thrived in the '60s. South of Wander Inn, there is a parking lot and showers. This area is called State Park or the Pump House. South of that is The Creek, where a small, possibly toxic creek comes out to sea. At the south end of Linda Mar, The Boat Docks are lefts that break along the point in front of Dick Keating's timeless house. LOCAL RESOURCES: Pedro Point Surf Club | San Mateo County Surfrider

One of the seven natural wonders of the world, Maverick's is that rarest of things: not just a perfect wave and not just a giant wave but a perfect, giant wave. The peak lies a little less than a half-mile off of Pillar Point and is marked by a clump of Stonehenge-like boulders lining the inside (two of these boulders have even been christened: Mushroom Rock on the south end and Sail Rock on the north). Massive swells looming out of the deep approach a shelf - made up of black, ungodly reef and boulders 20 feet beneath the surface - at breakneck speeds. From there, Maverick's becomes a 20-foot version of Stockton Avenue: a perfect, jacking AAA-frame breaking both ways, the right going long and the left a short-lived explosion of hell and spitfire. The hot spots on the Maverick's playing field are as follows: 1. Outer Bowl: On the biggest of days (20 feet at 20 seconds and beyond on the Half Moon Bay buoy), there's a takeoff spot about 100 yards out beyond Maverick's proper. Few waves have been caught here, but all of them have been memorable; 2. The Corner: This is the peak on the extreme north end of the break that, if surfers time it right and choose the right one, allows them to get into the wave and down the face. Since it's the deepest takeoff point for the rights, it's often regarded as the triple-diamond takeoff zone; 3. Lates Bowl: This is an overflow section on the south end that occasionally serves up the rogue monster. When a big set shifts wide of the Corner, it usually breaks on Lates Bowl; 4. The Cauldron: Just inside the Corner, there's a wicked set of boils to be avoided at all costs. This is the focal point for the majority of Maverick's wrath and is the spot where most two-wave hold-downs happen. Strange phenomena -- whirlpools, undertows that suck people into the abyss, etc. -- have been known to take place at the Cauldron. LOCAL RESOURCES: Maverick's Rescue Team