Over 10,000 years ago Cortes Bank would have actually been an island. People from the mainland would have been able to see and even visit the island.

Cortes Bank is now a perfect reef that has the scope to create the very biggest waves and it is said that if a 100ft+ wave will be ridden it will be here.

Cortes bank is a 17 mile stretch of underwater mountain range, only 3ft from the surface in some spots, which is located 100 miles off the coast of San Diego. The wave was first visited by surfers in 2001 when the Billabong Odyssey team ventured there during the making of the Odyssey film.

It’s here at Cortes that Mike Parsons caught the epic wave featured in the beginning sequence of the movie, which won him a $66,000 cheque as the biggest wave caught that year, which was $1000 for every foot!