Ghost Wave

October 10, 2011
Journalist Dixon, founding editor of Surfermag.com, has written an engaging, multifaceted story of an obscure locale off the California coast that draws the most daring big-wave surfers in the world. Rising sea levels submerged the Cortes Bank thousands of years ago, but the former islands are so close to the surface that they make for dangerous seas. Dixon chronicles the history of human interaction with the bank, starting with Native Americans before Columbus and encompassing the days of sail and steam before bringing in contemporary surfers with their jet-skis and adrenaline addiction. Dixon’s ambition takes this story well beyond the realm of most surfing books. Early chapters include a daring reconstruction of an imagined journey to the area by proto-Chumash Indians. Accounts of American explorers and treasure hunters and the bizarre attempt to found a nation atop Cortes in the 1960s are equally fascinating. The second half of the book loses focus as Dixon tries to cover the entire history of big-wave surfing. Yet Dixon always writes capably, and his insider knowledge brings the allure and danger of this turbulent locale to life.

September 1, 2011
Like Mark Kreidler's The Voodoo Wave (also reviewed in this issue) journalist and surfer Dixon's engaging book explores the history, culture, and even the mythology of a popular surfing destination. Cortes Bank is an underwater mountain range whose highest point, known as Bishop Rock, reaches almost to the ocean's surface. Under the right conditions, this natural phenomenon creates some of the biggest waves in the world, and Cortes Bank draws all manner of surfers hoping to ride in front of a 30-foot tower of water. The bank was named after the steamship Cortes, whose commander, in 1853, witnessed massive eruptions of white water in the middle of the deep blue sea, and Bishop Rock for the clipper ship Bishop, whose 1855 collision with the undersea mountain peak is the stuff of legend. It's hard to say which is more interesting here, the stories of the surfers, explorers, divers, and sailors drawn to Cortes Bank or the history of the bank itself. Either way, terrific reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)