Mark Sheldon Foo was a professional surfer who favored big wave surfing. Foo drowned while surfing at Mavericks, Half Moon Bay, California, in 1994. Early life Mark Foo was born in Singapore on February 5, 1958, to Colonel Charlie and Lorna Foo, Chinese photojournalists for the U.S. Information Agency. The family relocated to Hawaii when Foo was 10. He spent his early childhood surfing the South Shore of O'ahu, and continued surfing throughout his teenage years. His family moved several times during his adolescence but ultimately returned to Hawaii just before Foo finished high school. He studied for two years at the University of Hawaii. Career In 1977, Foo joined the IPS World Tour, a professional surfing tour. In the early 1980s, Foo quit the IPS World Tour and stopped competing. Foo's passion for surfing big waves led him to surf larger and larger swells. In 1983, he surfed Waimea Bay, a famous big-wave surfing spot on the North Shore of O'ahu, for the first time. But it was on January 18, 1986, when he ventured out into the bay with waves that onlookers said were in excess of 60 feet, that he rose to fame. When Foo fell off the overhanging ledge, the crashing wave broke his surfboard and tossed him into the water. Foo had to be rescued by a nearby helicopter, yet he emerged from the crash unharmed. He sent the story to various surfing magazines, and the failed attempt raised his surfing status to that of a "demigod." Death at Mavericks On December 23, 1994, Foo died in a surfing accident at Mavericks, a big-wave surf location in Half Moon Bay, Northern California. Surfer magazine wrote that Foo was sleep-deprived after arriving in California on an overnight flight for the swell. During takeoff on a wave estimated at 18–20 feet (Hawaiian scale), Foo experienced a seemingly innocuous wipeout and drowned. The fateful wipeout was photographed from at least two angles, and shows him falling forward near the bottom of the wave. The most popular presumption is that Foo's surf leash had become entangled on the rocks, with the rushing currents of a second wave passing overhead preventing him from disengaging his ankle strap and getting to the surface. This theory was further validated when professional surfer Mike Parsons, who wiped out on the following wave, said that he came into contact with something, possibly Foo, as