Just a plane flight away Greg! In this case being a spectator has its risks too.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mavericks...nclick_check=1
Why monster waves at Mavricks? It seems to come down to deepwater, long period swells being refracted together by the bottom bathymetry and summing amplitudes when they converge. There seems to be a narrow strip of rubble on the bottom west the of point which helps in shoaling the waves in a narrow sector.
Here's what the USGS has to say about it:
http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/pre...607_items.html
An overlay of wave nodes and amplitude amplification points through wave convergence and summing.
There's a nice slide show of the event including some really good inwater shots of the monster waves rolling through at:
http://extras.mercurynews.com/slides...0214mavericks/
The crowd under wave attack at Mavericks. Wasn't President Bush, the dad, not junior, about swamped by a wave out of no where in Daytona years back? Recall it washed some cars around the beach and scared the hell out of some folks. The Secret Service thought the Soviets might have been tossing monster swells at him or something.