ON THE FRONT LINE
In winter, when long-period northwest swells batter Northern California and stir Mavericks from its slumber, odds are you’ll find Bianca Valenti sitting deep in the lineup on a bright-pink 9'2", waiting for an opportunity to chase down a horrifying wall of water while spectators lining the cliff watch on with mouths agape.
On this partially cloudy day in June, however, there was hardly a ripple in the lineup and the only people on the cliff were day hikers and dog walkers. Yet Valenti still insisted that I see the spot in person, even if it wasn’t breaking.
We stared out at the ocean from the base of Pillar Point, and Valenti gestured to a row of partially submerged, house-sized boulders just offshore, terrifyingly referred to as “The Boneyard.”
“That south rock over there is ‘Mushroom Rock,’” Valenti told me. “And on the far right, that’s ‘Sail Rock’. The wave breaks about 500 yards further than that.” As if reading my mind, she added, “You can get pushed in onto the rocks. I think at some point it happens to everyone.”
Valenti first surfed this wave back in 2009. Savannah Shaughnessy, a Mavericks local who used to surf with Valenti at Puerto Escondido during the summer, told her to get a big-wave board and she’d coach Valenti through her first session at Half Moon Bay. But getting someone to shape her a proper board proved to be difficult.
“This one shaper told me he usually doesn’t shape boards for girls,” said Valenti. “I literally had to promise him that I would be safe in order for him to let me buy the board. I was like, ‘Umm…yeah, I plan on being safe. I don’t want to die.’ It was a full-on, back-and-forth conversation convincing him to let me pay him for a service.”
“I SPENT SO MANY HOURS ON THE PHONE TRYING TO CONVINCE OTHER WOMEN THAT THEY’RE WORTH GETTING PAID EQUALLY. THERE’S ALWAYS THIS FEAR-BASED, SCARCITY MENTALITY—THIS IDEA THAT THE PIE IS ONLY SO BIG AND YOU CAN ONLY—BIANCA VALENTI
