SFist has always taken note that it's pretty hard to go wrong taking pictures and film of surfers. It's also nice to watch nature at it's most terrifyingly powerful. Put the two together, and you've got some seriously compelling stuff -- hence we couldn't wait for the first pictures and video from Mavericks. Kudos to the 'Gate for having the best stuff we've found so far -- even flickr is pretty sparse right now. Hand it to blogger Joe Pennant, though -- he caught two Australians practicing under the Golden Gate Bridge this morning.

Santa Cruz's Ryan Augustine, pictured, got some well deserved recognition for coming up with one of only three 'perfect tens,' even though he also wiped out three times. And when the faces are 45 feet, that's a lot of mass and energy to get caught up in. But it was his hometown competition Anthony Tashnick who got the giant check, scoring two clean rides. Something about watching surfers makes us worry that they'll get hurt, but there were no reports of deaths or hospitilizations.

While SFist is sorry we missed it (even though we had nearly two days warning thanks to SFist Emily), how happy are we that we're the only 'ist with thirty foot waves on Wednesday and snow expected at Tahoe on Friday? See you on the slopes this weekend!

Chronicle photo by Michael Maloney.