• Santa Cruz has also had its own evacuation orders lifted by 3:20 p.m., but boy is there some flooding aftermath for them to deal with. The Santa Cruz Wharf remains closed, as are roads along Rio Del Mar Esplanade. [KSBW]

• Some five miles to the east of Santa Cruz, Capitola also finds itself inundated with floods. A wharf that was damaged in last January's floods is at risk of having all of its repairs reversed, and businesses are struggling to keep water from rolling though their doors. [NBC Bay Area]

• Are you tempted to go surfing in these conditions? Don’t! One Pacifica surfer learned that the hard way, needing the U.S. Coast Guard to get him back to Linda Mar Beach safely. [KGO]

• Heather Knight’s latest in the New York Times touts a “Montgomery Street revival” in San Francisco’s notoriously sluggish downtown recovery, noting Michael Shvo’s Transamerica Pyramid makeover and the Vacant to Vibrant pop-ups. [NY Times]

• Longtime San Francisco tourism chief, SF Travel President and CEO Joe D'Alessandro, is retiring after 18 years on the job. [KGO]

Image: @CityofSantaCruz via Twitter

A surfer was rushed to an area hospital in critical condition Sunday, after he was pulled from the waters of San Francisco's Ocean Beach.

According to tweets from the San Francisco Fire Department, a 45-year-old man was rescued by "bystanders" at 3:56 p.m. Sunday from the surf nearest Judah Street at Ocean Beach.

The man, a surfer, was given CPR by his rescuers, the SFFD says. When emergency responders arrived, they transported him to a local trauma center for treatment. As of 4:56 p.m., the SFFD says, he remained in critical condition. No update on his condition was available as of Monday morning.

Related: In Second Death At Ocean Beach This Week, SF Woman Dies After Rescue From Surf

The saga of Sun Microsystems founder and local billionaire Vinod Khosla and his beachfront property south of Half Moon Bay came up in the news again in the past week after Khosla laid out his demand to the State of California if they're going to continue to pester him about allowing public access to his previously accessible beach and access road: He wants $30 million.

The beach, known as Martins Beach, and the road to access it, had been publicly accessible for a century until Khosla decided to put up a gate and assign guards to shoo the public off in 2010 — Khosla purchased the prime, 53-acre property around 2008 as the New York Times reports. He asserts that public demand was extremely low, but this set off a battle with California’s State Lands Commission and the Surfrider Foundation that is still ongoing, and which has made many headlines in the last few years for the simple reason that Khosla is a billionaire, and clearly extremely stubborn, and has no respect for California's long tradition of public easements and what's called prescriptive right of access, under the California Coastal Commission.

Last year, a judge ruled in favor of surfers and told Khosla he couldn't block access to the beach, which had been publicly in use since at least 1918. Khosla responded with a proposal for a land swap, asking the state to give him another property with a private beach on it if they wanted this one so badly. As the Chron reported in December, Jennifer Lucchesi of the state Lands Commission said, "My sense is that he feels he has a right to have that beach [to himself. Unfortunately, he doesn’t, and I don’t know what it is going to take for him to understand that." At the time, the state offered him some compensation for the proposed easement on the beach road, but that was not disclosed.

The latest salvo has landed Khosla on Gawker today — where their headline calls him a "real son of a bitch" — and the NY Daily News among other places, because yes, the whole thing makes him look like a huge asshole who needs to own his own beach.

As for that $30 million figure, Lucchesi tells the Times, "We do not agree with that value, and we believe the value is significantly less than that. We have not seen any backup documentation to support the $30 million value."

Related: Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla loses lawsuit in beach access case [Business Times, 2014]
Sean Parker Faerie Wedding Trashes Big Sur Campground

A surfer who appeared to have been knocked unconscious Wednesday afternoon in rough surf of Rodeo Beach in Marin remains missing today as search crews continue their efforts to find him. Fellow surfers observed 40-year-old Dan Dafoe face down in the water just after 5 p.m. yesterday, and two of them swam out to attempt to pull him ashore. Waves however were 8 to 10 feet high and crashing at 15-second intervals according to a statement from the National Park Service, and the attempted rescuers were hit by a large wave and lost contact with Dafoe.

Per the statement, sent to SFist:

The National Park Service working with Marin Fire and Southern Marin Fire first-responders including swimmers and small watercraft, along with the US Coast Guard search boat and helicopter scoured the water and shoreline last night until limited visibility and the hazardous conditions required them to suspend operations until daybreak today. The search resumed around 6:00AM [Thursday] with teams on the ground, in the water, and in the air.

NBC Bay Area reported Wednesday evening that Dafoe, a resident of San Rafael, "was last seen in the water near a cave at the north end of the beach."

Rodeo Beach is part of the northern section of the Marin Headlands in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, adjacent to Fort Cronkhite and the Headlands Institute.

Below, an image of Wednesday rough surf tweeted by the National Park Service.

Update: Dafoe's body washed ashore and was recovered near Rodeo Beach on Friday, after a full, unsuccessful day of searching on Thursday was called off.

Related: Mavericks Waves Hit 50 Feet, Surf Competition Could Be Called Any Day

It sounds like something out of, say, The Dark Crystal: An alignment of the weather, the sun, the moon, and the Earth that causes the ocean to rise up to new heights. But that's exactly what's happening in the Bay Area this week, causing flooding and dangerous conditions for boaters and beachgoers from today through Thanksgiving.

According to the Chron, the extreme high tides (or "king tides," as they are also known) kick off at 8:45 a.m. today, and are expected to reach a height of 6.89 feet. At 9:27 a.m. Wednesday they'll hit their peak at 6.98 feet, and will start to taper off Thursday at 6.92 feet at 10:09 a.m.

This week's tidal phenomenon is happening because "the sun, moon and Earth are aligned...there is a full moon and Earth is directly between the two celestial bodies, creating a doubly strong gravitational field," the Chron reports. This alignment coincides with the cold, rainy weather also expected for this week, and the two might combine to cause "flooding of coastal Marin and low lying areas around the San Francisco and Monterey bays" and "a potentially dangerous tidal situation," the Coast Guard says in a written statement.

We have places around the periphery of the bay that are very close to mean high tide so, even if it only goes a few inches above, these places get some flooding," Jan Null, a meteorologist for Golden Gate Weather Services, tells the Chron, citing spots like "underneath Highway 101 in the Manzanita parking lot in Mill Valley, along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, at various spots along the Peninsula and in the communities of Bolinas, Sausalito and Tiburon."

But what might be bad news for the Embarcadero is good news for birds, as Chron outdoors writer Tom Stienstra says that the unique conditions will also provide miles of feeding ground for migrating waterfowl and shorebirds as the tides drop back in the afternoons.

All of this makes for a potentially hazardous situation at the beach, as folks off work for the holidays come out to see the high waves and dining birds, but the Coast Guard says they're on it.

According to Andrew Cohen, the command duty officer for the U.S. Coast Guard in San Francisco, his agency “encourage[s] all persons on or around the coast to remain especially cautious during this storm system,”

“We stand ready to respond if boaters and beachgoers find themselves in distress,” Cohen says, but "be aware that weather conditions can change quickly."

Related: Winter Is Coming (This Week)

File this one under 'more reasons to play hooky tomorrow': organizers of the big wave surf competition Mavericks Invitational have decided that conditions are ripe for the event to take place tomorrow morning. Starting at 8am, Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay will play host to the surf contest as waves of 40 feet or higher are expected to make landfall early tomorrow, generated by by a mid-Pacific storm system (sadly, it won't bring any rain).

Twenty-four strapping young world-class surfers will be competing in the big wave competition, 14 of whom hail from California and two from San Francisco proper (go Grant Washburn and Ryan Seelbach!)

If you're planning on heading down to watch the action, don't expect to be able to access the beach and bluffs, which will be blocked off for safety and environmental reasons. However, there will be a "viewing festival" taking place on the grounds of the Oceano Hotel & Spa in Princeton Harbor, just down the road from the action. Expect jumbo HD screens, music, food and entertainment, plus access to the Awards Ceremony. If you can't or don't want to be there in person, the event will also be televised live for the first time ever, starting at 1:30pm (check your local listings on that).

Here's wishing the surfers a safe and totally tubular ride tomorrow morning.

[Merc]
[Mavericks Invitational]

Two more Bay Area residents have lost their lives while in Hawaii. Best friends Adam Griffiths, 46, and Brian Baker, 47, were hiking with Griffiths' fiancée Jennifer Kwong on the rocky north shore of Kauai when a wave swept Baker out to sea. Griffiths dove in to rescue him, only to drown himself.

Baker lived in Vallejo and was a triathlete and music therapist for children.

Griffiths, a native of Australia, lived with Kwong in San Francisco. He was a manager at a mobile app company.

The two friends were described as kindred spirits who often took trips together.

Thankfully, unlike they did with a similarly tragic incident in Hawaii in 2011, the commenters on SFGate have mostly behaved themselves. Or perhaps someone over there is finally moderating the comments to tamp down the people who think the internet needs their bile.

[Chron]

Previously: San Anselmo man killed while sightseeing in Hawaii [Chron]

The Mavericks surf competition, which gets announced with a minimum of 24 hours notice based on swells off the coast at Pillar Point (near Half Moon Bay), was just announced for this coming weekend. It will be the first Mavericks to occur since 2010, when a big wave crashed ashore and ended up injuring a few people. And that's because the swells just haven't been right in three years, thanks to La Niñla weather patterns.

This winter's El Nino bodes well, however, and organizers are expecting to make an announcement today as a storm off the coast looks to be creating ideal conditions. Previous Mavericks competitions have seen waves of up to 50 feet.

Once the announcement is made, two dozen of the world's best big-wave surfers will be hopping planes to get here, and surf fans will be streaming up and down Route 1 to catch a glimpse.

Also, you may have caught Chasing Mavericks, which got kind of terrible reviews and left theaters fast last fall. It's about surfer Jay Moriarty (played by Jonny Weston) who started surfing Mavericks at age 16 and died in 2001 at age 23, and his mentor Frosty Hesson, played by Gerard Butler.

Update: Yep, it's happening. It will start Sunday at 8 a.m.

[CBS]
[KGO]

Oh fun. The National Weather Service has issued a totally tubular high surf advisory, which starts Tuesday night "due to an incoming swell that is expected to create waves up to 20 feet high." Can you say, bitchin'?

But in all seriousness, the swell "will create powerful waves up to 20 feet high and strong rip currents in the surf zone." Which is to say, you should be extraordinarily careful if you plan on riding a few waves. Which, really, you shouldn't unless you're a season surfer on par with Spicoli.

Said advisory affects San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Marin, Monterey, Contra Coast, Napa, Sonoma, Santa Clara, and Alameda counties.

This year's Mavericks surf competition will get a tad bit easier for its competitors. Mavericks, the (in)famous
surfing location just north of Half Moon Bay, will now allow the use of tow-ins. That is to say, it's now legal in the competition for surfers to get comfortably towed into waves by jet skis, Waverunners, and other personal watercraft.

The Monterey Bay sanctuary forbade the use of watercrafts in 1992 since it disturbed sea otters, seabirds, sea lions, and other wildlife.

Also, doesn't this make the competition easier for the yellowbellies afraid of the mean, scary, loud water? Isn't getting yourself far out enough into the water and on the wave part of the competition? Let hope Mavericks' surfers don't demand their bottoms powdered before each ride at next year's competition.

Correction: This will not, in fact, apply to the competition. Oops. Which is worse since the towing will happen year-round, not just one day a year. And still, why hit Mavericks if you need to be paddled out in your floaties?