surfing the wilderness of the waves

Riding the big waves is a real challenge. In places like Mavericks (Half Moon Bay, CA), Fort Point (San Francisco, CA) and Lighthouse Point (Santa Cruz, CA), you better know what you are doing before paddling out on your board.
Surfing the wilderness of the big waves attracts a similar type of adventurer as rock climbing and mountain biking. Unlike the terrestrial wilderness where I feel comfortable and explore as often as possible, surfing the wilderness of the big waves is something I choose to observe from the safety of the shore. Guess that makes me a land lubber.
Surfers judge waves by wave height, peel angle, and intensity. The height is the distance between the base of the wave and its crest. The peel angle (the angle between the trail of the broken whitewater and the crest of the unbroken wave) controls the speed of the wave crest, while wave intensity measures the force of the wave when it breaks or plunges. (A plunging wave is termed by surfers as a barrel wave.)
Off-shoots of riding the waves include riding the sidewalks, now called skateboarding, and riding the snow, better known as snowboarding.
Many surfers feel a spiritual, as well as physical, connection to the waves they ride, similar to the connection wilderness travelers feel to the land we explore.