That force was the "Super Bowl of Surfing."

On one of the most beautiful days ever seen along the often foggy and windswept San Mateo County coastline, thousands of spectators and 24 of the world's ballsiest surfers turned out for the 2006 Mavericks Big Wave Surf Contest at Pillar Point.

From the start of the first heat at 8:00 AM, huge mountains of water the size of small office buildings, the world-famous Mavericks "The Voodoo Wave," could be seen rising up out of the horizon, just beyond a large set of rocks at the apex of the Pillar Point reef. Occasionally an unnatural beast of a wave would rise up head and shoulders above the others and crash with such concussive force that it would elicit a low murmur of admiration throughout the crowd: "Ooh-hoo, that was just a slab, man, that was a fucking slab."