Waimea Bay, Hawaii ? As much of the country battens down for an icy winter, Hawaiians await their annual siege of monster waves on the islands’ northern shores and hope for a chance to witness one of surfing’s greatest big wave contests.

Founded in 1985, the contest evokes all that is awe inspiring about the sport of surfing. But it only has been held seven times in 21 years, and it depends entirely on the waves off Oahu’s North Shore.

The contest, which brings together the world’s elite of big wave surfing, only runs when open ocean swells are at least 20 feet – meaning the face of the waves that roar toward shore soar to more than 30 feet.

Though wave heights were only 4-6 feet as of this Wednesday, the holding period for the competition runs through the end of February. And some forecasters predict the warm-water El Nino trend in the Pacific this year improves the odds for big enough swells.

“You never really notice how tall it is. And if you do notice how tall it is and how far up, and you’re going, ‘Oh, oh, I’m not going to make this one,’ that’s when it’s too late,” said Peter Mel, a California surfer known for being among the first in the 1990s to surf the notoriously dangerous big wave break south of San Francisco called Mavericks.

Mel is one of 24 invited big wave surfers this year on a list that includes 2002 winner and eight-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater, and 2004 winner and three-time world champion Andy Irons.

Once organizers decide conditions are right for the contest, invitees get 24 hours to get to Hawaii. The official span of time during which the contest can be held runs from Dec. 1 to Feb. 28 at Waimea Bay.

Participants in the Big Wave Invitational walk out of the ocean at sunset after the opening ceremony in Waimea Bay, Hawaii, in this file photo from Nov. 30. Sometime between now and February, big-wave surfers hope to converge in Hawaii for the annual event. In top photo, Participants line up their surfboards to pray during the opening ceremony.

The competition officially is called The Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau, a former surfer and lifeguard and a crew member of the voyaging canoe Hokulea when it capsized in a 1978 storm shortly after leaving Honolulu for Tahiti. Aikau volunteered to paddle for help and was never seen again.

The contest, informally known as “the Eddie,” kicked off Nov. 30 with an opening ceremony that featured an intimate benefit concert by Pearl Jam, with only 250 allowed to attend on the North Shore.

The Eddie is only partly a competition. It also provides a rare opportunity for the world’s big wave surfers to gather, share waves and practice an extreme sport few people experience.

Mel said a surfer is free of any distinct thoughts as he plunges down the face of a massive wave atop a surf board, his body and mind focusing on the ride. But that quickly changes if he wipes out and is sent “over the falls” – when the wave sucks him up and spits the surfer out at its top.

“It takes about probably 2 seconds maybe or 3 seconds where you’re just completely weightless. It’s completely quiet and then it’s just car wreck! Plah! Train wreck! … And you feel like your body is just going to be ripped limb from limb. And you’ve got to just consciously tell yourself to relax, it’s all going to end soon and you can come up,” Mel said with a laugh.

A surfer takes a large wave in the first heat of The Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational in this file photo from Dec. 15, 2004. The contest is held at Waimea Bay only when the swells reach at least 20 feet.

Waimea Bay was brought to the world’s attention in the late 1950s when a group of young surfers were caught on film gliding down a 20-foot swell. Aikau was the bay’s first lifeguard, watching over it during the 1960s and 1970s and evoking awe as he took on the bay’s towering waves.

Aikau saved hundreds of lives but often let other lifeguards take the credit, said 76-year-old George Downing, who surfed with Aikau and founded the contest to fulfill a request by Aikau’s parents.

“He had no ego problem. He wasn’t looking for notoriety,” Downing said.

Since the first Eddie was held, much has changed in surfing. During the past decade, surfers have begun setting off into bigger and bigger waves using watercraft such as jet skis to propel them into waves the size of six-story buildings and higher.

In this contest, though, surfers use nothing more than the power of their own two arms to reach the waves.

The experience is radically different. As a paddle-in surfer comes over the top of a forming wave, Downing said, he momentarily goes airborne before he hits the face with his surfboard instead of being dropped off at that spot by a machine.

Downing is the final arbiter on whether the contest will happen.

He bases his decisions on everything from government forecasts to observations about the flowering of local mango trees.

Big surf likely will hit between mid-December and mid-January. Each swell needs to be evaluated, based on the wind and other conditions. Even with El Nino conditions, it is impossible to predict what will happen.

“The only thing now is to wait for the bay to call the day,” Downing said.