WET ‘N’ WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG:

Well, let’s start things off with a happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

I missed ya the last few weeks, as I went down to southern Mexico on the mainland coastline to Puerto Escondido to announce a surf contest. Puerto is known for its huge, barreling surf, with beach-break conditions. It is called the Mexican Pipeline.

Puerto is open to all swell angles, hurricanes going by, starting as south swells to north swells as they pass. It’s beautiful, palm trees, green and tropical with warm water, 80 degrees and air temps in the 90s plus.

This year they held the three-star A.S.P. Van’s Puerto Escondido Pro two weeks ago in good-size surf. There was a purse of more than $50,000.

Quite an international field of surfers showed up from the U.S., Australia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Hawaii, Venezuela and Italy. The surf was bombing the first day — 6 to 10 feet with 15 foot sets — pretty gnarly with guys going for it, pulling in, even the close-outs. The surf held in the 6-to-10-foot range all the way to the finals of the five-day event.

Some of the early standouts included San Clemente’s Rusty Long getting some deep ones, Huntington Beach’s Keetin Devine pulling in, along with Jason Harris. Not to forget about Mexican surfers Oscar Moncada and Alex De La Torre. But one of the heaviest barrel-riders heat after heat, racking up wins, was none other than Surf City’s Ryan Turner, who was on a roll, even getting a perfect 10 on one left, getting way back and spit out!

Dean Brady the big Aussie, was getting some stand-up bowlers and ripped to the quarters, as did Newport Beach’s Andrew Doheny getting some sick ones. Ventura’s Cory Arrambide was speed-lining the big lefts, and San Diego’s Gabe Garcia pulled in a number of times, but both were eliminated in the semis. So down to the final four, Turner got a clean barrel at the start, somewhere in the nine-point zone, to take the early lead. Local Mexican ripper Angelo Lozano caught a super bomb most surfers would have let go, almost pearled but made the turn at the bottom, probably a 15-foot face set, and pulled in to take control of the final, the eventual winner.

Peruvian surfer Gabriel Villaran was chipping away, getting a few moderate scores and barrels to nip Turner in the waning seconds, as Turner just couldn’t find a second scoring wave. The fourth spot went to another Mexican surfer, David Rutherford, who was going off all contest but got a little skunked in the final, and was another surfer who was in the perfect-10 club.

And that wrapped up a killer week at the Mexican Pipeline, which saw some big bowls and at least 22 snapped-in-half boards. Whoa! See ya, Fig over and out.

RICK FIGNETTI is a 10-time West Coast champion and a longtime KROQ-FM surfologist. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.