At about 3:15 p.m. on Dec. 23, as a powerful winter swell raged on the California coast and left the Santa Cruz Wharf snapped and floating in the ocean, Alessandro “Alo” Slebir pointed his surfboard down the face of a growing wall of water.

One of the biggest waves in the world broke at Mavericks near Half Moon Bay during a jaw-dropping swell this December. Big wave surfers caught bombs on December