Bodysurfing San Francisco When the Epic Winter Swells Arrived (Part 1)

I’m perched at the top of a 15-foot moving mountain of ice-cold water, and a voice in my head is screaming at me to pull out and let this wave pass. At this point I’m committed to the ride, and as the water sucks up the face of the wave and the lip starts to pitch out and over, it now measures at least 20 feet from the top to the bottom. I am bodysurfing at Ocean Beach along the Great Highway, no surfboard necessary. It’s December 4, 2020, and the wave energy, which began days before in a winter storm in the North Pacific more than halfway to Japan, has drawn power from the winds as it crossed thousands of miles of ocean. The energy has nearly reached its end point, sandbars 50 to 75 yards out from shore at Ocean Beach, and it builds into huge waves that crash onto the San Francisco coastline. Huge rideable waves. <a href="https://thefrisc.com/bodysurfing-san-francisco-when-the-epic-winter-swells-arrived-8be1d8047786">Visit Now</a>