Both are noted scuba diving locations featuring clear water, vast kelp forests, and abundant sea life.

Bishop Rock also creates a renowned big-wave surfing spot recognized as capable of producing some of the tallest surfable waves in the world.

In 1853, during a voyage from Panama to San Francisco, the captain of the side-wheel steamship Cortes, TP Cropper, reported seeing the seas "in violent commotion" above a low-lying island.

It was named for the clipper ship Stillwell S. Bishop that reportedly struck the rock in 1855, then continued to San Francisco with a patched hull.

In the wake of the Bishop's voyage, James Alden placed a talented navigator and inveterate explorer from Wilmington, NC named Lt. Archibald MacRae, USN in command of the Ewing and dispatched him to discover the Bank's shallowest reach.

On November 3, 1855, The New York Times carried the story "Dangerous Rock off the Coast of California," which reported MacRae's finding and the fact that he and the crew of the ship had anchored a pair of casks bearing a flag to mark the spot.

Two weeks after the story appeared, MacRae committed suicide aboard the Ewing in San Francisco Bay, shooting himself in the head with a large caliber Colt revolver, while anchored alongside Alden's ship, the USS Active.

[12][13] When another company planned to form a nation called Taluga, the US government declared that the bank, as part of the continental shelf, was US territory.

[17] In the early 1990s Larry Moore, photo editor at Surfing magazine, and Mike Castillo, veteran surfer and pilot, made flights out across the bank on rumors of giant waves.

On the morning of 19 January 2001 they found smooth glassy conditions and enormous, half-mile long waves breaking across about 1 mile (1.5 kilometer) of reef.

Larry Moore photographed from a circling plane, Dana Brown shot from a boat for his surf film Step Into Liquid, and Fran Battaglia shot from two other boats for his wave science film Making The Call: Big Waves of the North Pacific, his documentary for Swell, XXL, NBC Dateline, Billabong Odyssey and Activision's Kelly Slater Pro Surfer video game.

[20][21][18] On January 5, 2008, Mike Parsons, Brad Gerlach, Grant "Twiggy" Baker and Greg Long returned to the location in the midst of one of the worst storms ever recorded off the coast of California.

[citation needed] All witnesses agree that Greg Long rode a bigger wave, between 80 and 90 feet, that was not captured by photo or video.