Green Means Go For Todos Santos Big Wave Event This Sunday

While all eyes had been trained on Hawaii this week for a big-wave event of epic proportion, the focus now shifts to Isla Todos Santos for the first live iteration of the Thriller At Killers. Event director and organizer Gary Linden has given the event the green light to run on Sunday, February 18. 

Wave heights are expected to be in the 30-foot zone, while winds are forecast to be light and cooperative for the first half of the day. In the midst of a much-hyped El Nino season, this is the the first big-wave contest of the year in the Pacific. The Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational and Jaws Big Wave Challenge continue to be on hold. In the Atlantic, the Nazare Big Wave Challenge ran last month with Lucas Chianca taking his third win at the famed Portuguese big-wave break. 

The invite list for the Thriller At Killers includes Greg Long, Jojo Roper, Paige Alms and Bianca Valenti. In total, there will be 12 men and 6 women competing, including last year's video contest winners Delia Bense-Kang and Cody Purcell. There are also several hard-charging, local Mexican surfers in the heat draw.

Todos has a colorful big-wave history that goes back to the 1960s when surfers from San Diego and the Windansea Surf Club would find their way south of the border, hiring a fishing boat out of Ensenada and go surf for the day. No in his 70s, Linden has been surfing at the break at Todos Santos, known as Killers, most of his life and used to camp on the island for days at a time waiting for waves.

When it came to bringing back a big-wave event at Todos, Linden wanted to develop something that would not only give surfers an event to compete in, but also provide them with a platform to earn endorsement deals and other career opportunities. Implementing an innovative format, the Thrillers At Killers looks to capitalize on the peak of the swell when the waves are at their biggest and cleanest, and can run in about three hours time. According to models, that could be throughout the morning on Sunday.

Stay tuned this weekend for updates, photos and videos from the Thriller At Killers as they become available.