Original subtitles

The idea of surfing a 100-foot wave,

it came purely from trying to get the rush.

There was no wave too big.

It was just looking for bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

The 100-foot wave has become this phantom legend.

- Does the 100-foot wave exist? - Yeah, I think, yeah, it does.

Is it surfable? I don't know.

It's a very fine line, surfing big waves.

It's, like, very exhilarating, but quite scary, too.

You have to have that mental attitude to be willing to die

and die again, and again, and again.

And that's wave after wave, day after day.

You start to fear for your life.

Whenever you fall in a big wave,

you don't have any control of what's about to happen.

You're blasted this way, blasted that way,

down and up, all over the place,

and you're holding onto your last breath.

There's panic, and there's fear.

The goal is to face fears, to go straight at the fear,

to release it, to free it.

In doing this and facing this fear,

I'm gonna discover a part of myself

that I didn't know was there.

Check out these monster 100-foot waves off Portugal.

The biggest wave ever surfed,

as high as 100 feet.

To put that in perspective,

that is taller than an eight-story building.

Surfers are always looking for the next great thing.

It often breaks those brave or crazy board riders.

Severe wipeouts and waves of mind-boggling heights.

What happens here happens nowhere else in the world.

- Biggest wave ever surfed. - The biggest wave ever.

- Biggest wave. - The biggest wave ever...

The 100-foot wave.

- My name's Garrett McNamara. - I'm an ocean explorer.

I just feel real comfortable in the ocean,

probably more comfortable than I do on the land.

Garrett McNamara, known for discovering and pioneering

and surfing the biggest wave in the world.

Garrett is an American professional big wave surfer

and extreme...

Big wave rider Garrett McNamara has ridden

what could be the world's biggest wave.

This daredevil Hawaiian is still pushing the envelope,

chasing one final prize, to surf the perfect wave.

Hey, baby.

- The waves are coming, huh? - Yeah.

Trade winds offshore?

- Yeah, it's gonna be trade. - It's like 15 miles an hour.

Perfect.

- Yeah. - All right, bye.

I've always wanted to ride a wave over 100 feet...

And there's nowhere in the world that I found

that's anything like Nazaré in Portugal.

That's the only place that I see the potential

of a 100-foot wave.

Ha-ha!

One, two, three.

I am getting ready physically, mentally, spiritually

to go back to Nazaré.

This year I am very, very confident

that we're gonna ride the biggest wave ever ridden

out there.

I been surfing my whole life,

and it's pretty much been a dream the whole way.

When we were younger, I would spend my last penny

to go hunt for a wave.

I would literally not have any money left at the location,

and I would have to sell surfboards

to get a plane ticket out of there.

I would do everything and anything you could do

to get to that next big wave.

But at 35, I gave up on my passion.

And I opened a store because I thought

it was the responsible thing to do.

I thought it was what we were supposed to do.

I had three children with my first wife.

And I didn't think there was a future in surfing.

Since I'd surfed my whole life up to that point,

I felt like, okay, I already got to surf till 35,

so working for the rest of my life isn't too bad.

I should be very happy to just work now.

My brother's T-shirt, see him on the shirt.

Um...

After about two or three years,

I was pretty miserable going to work every day.

I was driving to the store,

and I was passing perfect waves,

and I was getting depressed.

I thought to myself, man, I really want

to give the surfing one more chance.

I wrote a business plan to keep surfing,

basically a road map.

Keep surfing was the goal.

Training, focusing, manifesting was

what I felt was the way to achieve that.

We're in the parking lot of the store

that I very fortunately got to close.

It was doing well.

You know, it was a successful business,

but it wasn't fun.

When friends came in talking about how good the waves were,

I would just be like, don't even tell me.

I don't remember it being red.

Garrett, I don't really remember hearing from him

for a while, but when tow surfing emerged

right around the turn of the century,

that's where Garrett reinvented himself.

In the beginning, there was paddle surfing,

and it started out in smaller waves where

if you could just make it outside was a challenge.

- There was no jet skis. - There was no flotation.

So we went as far as we could go with our arms.

At some point, all the Northshore breaks,

they're all just so crowded.

It was just so hard to get the good wave.

It's like being in a ski resort,

and there's just hundreds of people on every run,

and then there's mountains in the back.

Laird Hamilton, Darrick Doerner, and I,

we went, well, maybe if we take my Zodiac out there,

we can start tapping into these back mountains.

The very first day that we implemented the technique

in large conditions,

it was Thomas Edison and the light bulb.

Everything lit up, and we were like, oh, yeah,

we're onto something.

I was on the beach watching that first day,

and I was instantly like...

Just watching them ride wave after wave,

I felt like I was a cartoon character

with the jaw dropped on the ground,

and I'm just watching.

We knew that it was something special.

We knew that it was gonna change the way

we rode giant waves, but I don't think

we had any idea to what extent.

When we started towing these waves,

it was like an untapped resource,

but it was kind of a risky thing,

especially with the Zodiac.

The challenge with the Zodiac is there's a propeller.

That thing will chop you up.

So Zodiac can't really go in and rescue you.

So the only way to catch it once it gets

over like 50 feet tall is with a jet ski.

We took both the WaveRunner and the jet ski over to Maui,

and then we found out that it can handle as big

as Mother Nature can send.

Using a jet ski allowed access to these outer reefs,

and it turned out those waves breaking out there were

much, much bigger than anyone really realized.

There were suddenly 50-foot waves

and 60-foot waves, and they were everywhere.

Now there was no waves that were too big to ride.

You could surf anywhere.

Garrett really kind of burst back on the scene

in about 2001, 2002.

There was a series of swells at Jaws,

and one of them was for the Tow-In World Cup.

So then there was a contest at Jaws,

and I got invited somehow.

I thought winning the event was the way to keep surfing.

I remember the very first day that he came to Jaws.

It was probably one of the better days

that I've seen at Jaws.

The waves were really, really good,

and it was a giant day.

I had never been to Jaws, and it was terrifying.

I was so afraid.

First wave I panicked. I chickened out.

And I was, like, kind of embarrassed and shamed.

And then he put me on another wave right in the right spot,

and I just ran... whoa!

Got to the channel, kicked back...

Oh, whew, and then the next one,

yeah, ahh, and the next one, started to turn,

started to have fun.

Right at the horn, we got the third wave.

We ended up winning. It was a $70,000 purse.

Highest purse ever won with the biggest waves

ever competed in.

And then I wanted to get barreled.

I saw so many guys riding so many waves not in the barrel.

And so the next year, went and got barreled.

- Yeah!

- Yeah! - Oh, my God.

- Whoa. - Holy shit!

I was in the water

shooting a big 35 millimeter camera rig.

It was, like, you know, 50-foot day, and I turn in the water,

and I just zoomed in enough,

and I just saw this wave barreling,

and it just spit, and then this little guy came out,

and it was Garrett with his hands over his head.

That was the deepest anyone had ever gotten

inside a barrel out at Pe'ahi, and come out.

It was something that we hadn't been doing

quite like that.

We had been moving a lot more slowly.

We were just trying to survive it.

I have a saying, you know, ride to ride another day.

And I think Garrett's saying is, you know,

ride to ride today and maybe not tomorrow.

When Garrett caught that giant barrel,

I was sitting in a tree

with my younger brother and my best friend,

and we could not believe our eyes.

Part of me thinks he came from another dimension.

Get sucked up into the barrel and then like a cannon,

just...

Opened my eyes, looked up, my hands up, and just went,

"Thank you, God. Thank you, God."

That ride was, like, the biggest barrel

ever gotten to date.

It's still probably the best barrel ever ridden at Jaws.

That stands the test of time almost 20 years later

as one of the biggest, best barrels

that any human being has ever ridden.

That wave revitalized my surfing career.

I closed the store, and...

And then it just went bananas.

He won some awards with that wave.

It was massive.

Winner is Garrett McNamara!

That was the turning point for him to say,

"Hey, you know what, I'm gonna focus

on catching the biggest wave in the world."

- I don't know. - I'm at a loss for words.

It happens once in a while.

He got so focused on chasing the biggest, gnarliest wave.

Any time there was a swell anywhere,

you knew Garrett was gonna be there.

And he was frothing. I mean, he went mad.

He just went everywhere.

Garrett's really found his niche

by being somewhere acceptable

by the surf industry,

but largely being a maverick out doing his own thing.

He's never ever been comfortable

just being part of the surfing herd.

And because of it, he's really stood out

and had one of the most spectacular careers

that's come out of big wave surfing.

- Look at that!

There's traditional surfing, and there's extreme surfing.

I prefer to do extreme surfing,

put your life on the line every time you go out.

Everybody always just thought I was crazy.

They'd think I was out of my mind,

but they don't realize that I was focused.

I had a plan every big swell. I was going after something.

I was gonna get it.

I'm in search of the biggest waves to ride,

and it'll take me all over the world.

I'll ride a 100-foot wave.

Actually, I have no interest in a 100-foot wave.

I want a 120-footer.

That way there'll be no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Big wave surfing has been one of the strangest evolutions

just over the last 20 years.

There was a time when the only place that had big waves

was Waimea Bay in Hawaii.

And every few years, just out of the mist,

would emerge another place.

Mavericks suddenly emerged.

And Jaws really showed that there were 60-foot waves,

70-foot waves, 80-foot waves.

Cortes Bank put the whole idea of the 100-foot wave

out there.

And the most recent one to shatter everyone's notions

of big waves was Nazaré.

And for sure, Garrett was the first to go there.

When I met Garrett, he had all these brilliant ideas

and all these goals

and all these things he wanted to accomplish,

and one of them was riding the 100-foot wave.

I really wanted to help him get organized,

and so I traveled everywhere with him.

Every swell, I was always there.

We were inseparable.

At that time, nobody knew about Nazaré.

It was not a surfing town.

I've been involved in surfing for a long time.

I was at "Surfing Magazine" in the '80s.

I did a lot of traveling in the '90s

and a lot of surf exploration around the world.

I had never heard of Nazaré prior to Garrett.

In fact, I'd never even heard of big waves in Portugal.

First time I heard about Nazaré,

I got an email from Dino.

He was working for the city hall of Nazaré.

I was walking, and I stopped near place to see the view.

And I took a picture of a perfect, incredible wave.

I didn't realize how special that wave and that picture was

until I arrived home.

I immediately think that I need to do something.

I found Garrett's website, and I sent him an email

with this picture saying that we had a giant wave.

- Oh, 53 feet? - That's over 100 feet!

He asked me,

"Can you come see if my wave was big and good?"

And he sent me a picture, and it was amazing.

We emailed back and forth for about five years,

never really got anywhere.

Then Nicole saw the email chain.

That's... that looks big.

She said, what is this?

And I said, oh, some guy in Nazaré wants me

to come check out his wave.

I think he had just been watching these waves

his whole life ever since he was a little boy,

and he wanted to see somebody surf them.

When I was a kid, I was always passionate

about the giant waves.

And that was a passion that I cannot explain you.

Every time that we had a giant swell,

I walked to the lighthouse.

I spent there four hours or five hours just enjoying.

And I always want to share that.

So I found the email,

and then I was like,

"Well, do you want to go?" and he said yes,

and then in a month we were there.

It was just Garrett and I, and we had zero expectations.

We were in love, and it didn't matter what was here.

We were gonna have a good time.

So literally the first place we went when we arrived

was the lighthouse.

This is incredible, beautiful.

So we get out.

We could barely open the car door

'cause the wind was just pounding us.

So this is the first day.

Wow. Wow.

This is crazy.

You can feel the power from here.

You can feel the shaking.

That thing's probably 50, 60 feet tall.

Wow!

Holy shit!

You'd die right there, guaranteed die.

This is incredible. This is big and dangerous.

Crazy.

It's gonna be a fun trip.

At that time in my life,

I would almost surf anything that broke,

and nothing was too big, and nothing was too dangerous.

I was real hungry and real focused and determined

to find this 100-foot wave, and I thought with Nazaré,

it was possible.

Got lucky.

The one thing that defines Nazaré,

the unique aspect under the water is the canyon.

It's three miles deep,

three times the size of the Grand Canyon.

When the swell comes down on the canyon,

it moves faster and gets compressed.

And that's what draws the waves and magnifies them.

They cross up at the right time,

and it just creates this wedge.

40-to 60-foot wave is all of a sudden 80-plus.

These waves come out of a 10,000-foot deep trench

and just lurch up out of the ocean.

I mean, they're basically sea monsters.

The scariest thing overall is the unpredictability.

It's a 100-foot beach break, and it's over sand.

What that means is waves break everywhere.

There's almost no predictability to it,

whereas Jaws is a solid reef bottom,

and the wave'll break in the same spot

just about every time.

Nazaré is very different

than almost any other spot in the world.

Jaws, Waimea Bay, Mavericks, they all have a big channel,

which is a spot off to the side

where the water's super deep where waves will never break.

And you're able to sit there on your surfboard

or in a boat or a jet ski and just watch what's going on.

And if you do ride a wave,

you can get off to safety rather quickly.

Nazaré is different because there is no channel

for you to go to where it's safe.

Oftentimes you're going through the rinse cycle

where you have to keep going through wall

after wall of white water.

- It looks totally unrideable. - There's no safe zones.

I don't know how I was thinking

that we could ride it, but luckily we stayed.

So we have big storms forming in the northern part

of the Atlantic and waves progressing from northwards.

But this is a more typical winter condition for us.

19, 20. We're in the canyon.

We need a camera man right here.

- That's the wave. - That's where it'll break.

See the swell?

Garrett came.

He saw, really, the magic of Nazaré.

And he literally put his life on hold,

and he studied these waves.

He learned these waves. He put the time in,

because he believed in this place.

I guess I was just really hungry for adventure

at that time in my life.

We got to see the wave out there.

It's huge. I don't know.

I think probably 100-feet waves are out there right now.

Did anyone come here before Garrett?

- Yes, of course. - A lot of surfers were here.

And it was crazy, but nobody thought

that it was possible to ride those waves.

So the first time I witnessed Nazaré,

it was in 2005.

When we rocked up, it looked like 100 feet.

Perfect pipeline... I'd never seen anything so perfect.

And it looked like you could make the wave,

but then I don't know what you're gonna do.

You'd just get washed up onto the beach.

Ross Clarke-Jones was pretty much my mentor

when it came to huge waves.

He's a pro.

For some reason, he decided not to go out,

I think mainly because it looked possible to ride

but not possible to rescue.

I regret not going out to get that one wave

in Nazaré the first time, but the skis weren't right.

They were like puddle jumpers back then.

So no one was either keen or capable

of trying to rescue someone back then.

The first year we went to Portugal,

we decided to build a brand with the town of Nazaré.

It was called the North Canyon Project.

When we built the project in 2010,

Nazaré was really known and famous because of its summer,

because it's a really beautiful place

with a lot of traditions.

The beach is amazing in summer.

But during the winter days, it was a really quiet place.

And that's why we built the project

to show the waves to the world and to give reasons

for the people to visit Nazaré also in the winter.

Just like Jaws is on the map

as one of the biggest waves in the world,

Nazaré, the goal was to put it on the map also.

Is that to go through the waves?

Just like a knife to cut...

- The waves? - The waves.

There was no money, no sponsors, no nothing.

What we did have was the full support of the city hall.

It's a big pleasure.

The first year was real barebones.

The main guy was Paulo Caldeira.

He is pretty much the only reason we made it to Nazaré

because he organized it all.

Then we had Pedro Pisco. He was our right hand.

He was in charge of getting us where we needed to go,

and what we needed to do, and how we needed to do it.

Jorge Leal got brought in by the city hall

to just document whatever we were doing.

He was mainly a still photographer,

but he knew how to hold a video camera.

Celeste supported the North Canyon Project,

and she gave us so much good food.

Thank you.

Then there was Pitbull.

When Garrett arrived to Nazaré, was like,

everything was new and different for us.

And he started putting people in places.

And he decided that I should be a safety driver.

I never had went on a jet ski almost all my life,

so I was learning.

Garrett taught all these guys how to handle a ski,

and how to take care of a ski, how to maintain a ski,

how to put the sled on, how to put the straps on.

That was all from the first project.

We were such a tight team.

We did everything together, planned everything together.

The early days was really easy.

It was just us, so there was no distractions.

- Yeah! - All right.

There weren't very many people or businesses

that supported the project in the first early years

because they didn't believe what was out there.

Hey, Garrett.

- This is Lino. - Nice to meet you.

But Lino believed in what we were doing

and saw what was possible.

Lino did work for the city hall basically.

When the project came in,

the city hall didn't have money to fund anything,

so Lino actually supported everything.

Nazaré was a small village, fisherman village.

In the past, there was no harbor,

and the boats had to enter on the sand.

The big waves, they put fear on the fishermen.

Many times fishermen died doing that process.

My great-great-grandfather died on the sea.

And that's the history of most of the families of Nazaré.

- The scariest day was... - Garrett didn't know the place

very well yet.

He was by himself without a jet ski,

and he was like, oh, I'm gonna stand up paddle

from the village all the way around,

and I'll catch a small wave on the other side,

and I'll come in.

And he decided to do this in his board shorts in November.

The day that Garrett decided he wanted to surf,

the waves were not that big,

but the inside was so much current,

and I tried to stop him, but he did,

"No, no, no, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going.

People, trust me. I'll do it, I'll do it."

So he paddles around, he catches a wave,

and he wipes out.

Ah, oh, no...

I was panicking.

I was thinking that he wouldn't make it.

I was swimming in, and it kept sucking me back out.

Swim in, sucking back out.

I was getting very winded.

He had a really hard time getting to the beach.

He was exhausted.

If he didn't make it to the beach, like,

we didn't have a jet ski.

There was nobody to save him 'cause there was nobody here.

He would have just been swept to sea.

I think that day was decisive for him

to learn what Nazaré is all about.

This wave is powerful.

This is nothing to mess around with.

You gotta have a really good driver.

You gotta know exactly what you're doing.

It's so gnarly.

That showed Garrett the respect that you have

to have when you go out there.

Go that way.

My only concern, it's the safety of everybody.

I was really concerned about what I did,

sending the picture to Garrett,

inviting Garrett to come.

And I have all the weight in my shoulders

of the responsibility of if something bad happens

to someone.

- Don't go now, Garrett. - I'm just gonna look.

- Garrett! - I'm just gonna look.

- Garrett... - You might fall

- because the rocks are, um... - Wet.

- What, slippery? - Yeah, slippery.

- Nah.

Be careful 'cause the rocks might...

Go down, go down!

We were a little afraid of what could happen.

We didn't know Garrett that well,

and we thought that if this goes wrong,

somebody's gonna die.

We knew that all the big wave spots around the world

already had guys dying.

The power of the wild California waves

has been a magnet for surfers from all over the world.

Tonight one of the very best, Mark Foo, has died.

32-year-old Kirk Passmore of Hale'iwa was last seen

wiping out on a huge wave.

Amid the wild waves, a tragedy,

a surfer found floating face down and unconscious

in Stillwater Cove.

We knew that guys died here and there,

and we thought Nazaré was more dangerous.

If somebody dies, somebody's gonna come to us

and say, "What the hell? What did you guys do?"

On the first day that Garrett went out,

it really was giant, and we were on

the top of the lighthouse just shaking.

We were, like, really scared

because we were responsible for that.

We were on the cliff, and we were seeing the waves,

and we were trying to guess the size.

And then we saw the jet skis arriving,

and because the jet skis were there,

you have something to compare, you know, finally.

And we were all looking at each other like, what is this?

The waves were looking huge.

When we saw Garrett on the water,

we finally understood the size of those waves.

Okay, go!

When Garrett caught the wave, it was magical.

We were like, the guy survived.

For us, was like a dream come true

because we really didn't know if that could be possible

or not, if somebody could surf that or not.

We understood that we have found the gold.

Then we went to the harbor, and he was so relaxed, like,

"Ah, this is doable. This is nice."

Garrett fell in love with Nazaré.

Oh, the corner must be fun right now.

Look, see those little waves?

So we stayed that first year learning as much as possible.

Look at how beautiful it is.

During that time, my brother came to Nazaré

to surf with Garrett.

2010, yes.

Yeah, in 2010, that was my first time to Nazaré.

I actually was in Guadalajara, Spain,

and I was playing a season of volleyball there.

Garrett said, "Yeah, come by for the weekend."

So I went for three days over to Nazaré.

We had surfed together, and he said,

"You know, you surf well enough.

"I can teach you how to drive the jet ski.

"I can tow you in

"some of the biggest waves of your life,

and, you know, you can just learn."

- Oh, yeah! - He say, we say.

And I was just blown away.

I didn't know what was going on.

I ain't tying it too much.

You with the He-Man grip, the gorilla grip.

- Your hand... - You got the grip.

Give me your hand.

- Fuck, man. - You got more meat.

Yours are like salchichas.

My first impression of the waves was,

why are we here? Like, what am I looking at?

You know, can I be out in those waves and have fun

and not just be getting washed around?

And it was mostly just faith in Garrett at that point.

I'm the only guy you listen to out here,

and I'm the only guy who pretty much talks

unless you have a question.

Nobody tells anybody what to do except me.

- I'm seri... I'm not joking. - I know, I'm sorry.

I know.

Only time you don't listen to me

is if you're absolutely 100% sure

that what I'm telling you to do is gonna kill you.

Other than that, you listen to me in the water.

All right.

He hadn't steered me wrong,

and he still hasn't, really.

He was just egging me to go out and,

"This is what we're gonna do, so I'll put you on the wave.

We do this, super easy. We go catch some waves."

I'm like, "All right, let's do it."

Just take your time and relax!

Yeah!

Hey, stay here! You're gonna go like that!

Whoo-hoo, go!

Cut back, cut back!

- Whoo-hoo! - That's your brother!

Yee-haw!

- How was that? - That was perfect.

So yeah, he brought me out into the waves,

and I just got a couple waves.

He drives so perfect. He put me right on the spot.

15 feet, 20 feet at the biggest, the face.

And yeah, that was my first tow-in experience,

getting a little bit bigger waves.

So we just got done towing,

and CJ went out for his first time.

- How was it out there, CJ? - I am officially hooked.

I gotta work on my upper body strength a little bit though.

I couldn't hold on any longer.

Just the stamina, you just gotta do it a few times.

I was getting that choppy, smacking feeling on the drop,

going pretty fast.

The hardest place in the world to train.

If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere.

Technically, I'm the first girl to ever tow surf Nazaré.

My dad's a surfer, so I grew up surfing small waves,

but I love stand up paddling,

and I love stand up paddle surfing.

The day Garrett took me out, it was not a pretty day.

It was freezing cold. It was stormy.

And he says to me,

"Don't worry, we'll just tow around a little."

And then this wave just came out of nowhere.

He's pulling me up.

I'm not even fully up... Standing up, and he's saying,

"Go, go!" and he's like, "Let go!"

So I held on too long,

and it, like, flung me down the wave.

But I was like a stone.

I just skipped on the face of this wave.

And then you can see I go over the falls,

and you can see my little arm, like, sticking out of the wave

when it's crashing down.

I was kind of disoriented 'cause I was so cold.

And then at that point, I was kind of towards shore,

and he's like, "Stand up!"

But, like, it's just sucking you back out to sea.

It doesn't spit you out.

And then finally I got far enough up

that this little wave, like, came and, like, pushed me up.

And you can see me like a starfish,

just, like, floating.

I couldn't breathe for, like, three days.

I really have PTSD.

Like, just going out on small waves freaks me out.

I love to breathe, and I just don't want

to be held underwater.

I love breathing so much.

People really take it for granted.

Where is Chris? Where was Chris going?

He's gonna go dive with Billy.

For a husband and wife who work together,

we've learned how to really effectively communicate

with each other.

So this is really cool.

Garrett is an idea man,

and I'm more of the practical woman,

so sometimes the idea, and the practicality,

and the logic interfere.

But we have an amazing life,

and we've been really, really blessed.

There's one spot around the corner

that's one of the most beautiful places in the world.

There's a pod of dolphins that we hang out with a lot.

Swimming with the dolphins here in Hawaii is

just euphoric.

You're just connecting with nature

in the ocean, in the saltwater.

Just super special...

Especially with the family.

Oh, no!

Garrett's very intense,

but, at the same time,

he's a very loving, caring, sensitive person.

And he loves his family.

I really don't know any other big wave surfer

who travels with his family the way we do.

But it's challenging for him for sure.

Garrett's not at peace with himself.

I feel a deep sense of responsibility.

I should just focus more on my family and being present.

But I just still feel like I need to do more

for some reason.

I know my purpose.

It's riding big waves.

That's a good swell.

So this big swell was coming, and we're like,

okay, who's Garrett gonna work with?

We needed somebody with experience

to drive... jet ski.

I definitely wasn't towing him in,

especially after my episode, and

we heard about this Irish tow team.

Big wave riding is an opportunity

that even the most experienced surfer might turn down,

but for two Plymouth surfers,

it's more a case of the bigger, the better.

Normally you have to sort of travel to the other side

of the world to surf waves that sort of size.

You know, Hawaii, Australia, places like that.

But it's sort of surprising

that they're actually right in your backyard.

We were sort of surfing big waves...

Trying to surf big waves,

but there wasn't really any professional big wave surfers

in Ireland at the time, so we didn't have anyone

to show us or tell us anything

about how to set a jet ski up.

We were just watching YouTube videos and trying

to work out how you tow surf.

At that time, these big waves,

they only existed in people's minds

in Hawaii and California.

They didn't exist in Ireland.

Before I met Cotton, I was struggling

to find somebody who had the same sort of vision as me,

that wanted to ride bigger waves.

And I was sponsored by a company who made surfboards.

And Cotton was the guy that fixed the surfboards.

And he also was working on a building site

as a plumber's apprentice at the time.

He told me he'd ridden a couple big waves.

And he wanted to come over and see what this was like.

So anyway, I invited him over.

So within about the first week of Cotton coming to Ireland,

I took him out to Mullaghmore Head

'cause there was a gigantic swell coming.

- We're gonna go tow surfing. - Should be fun.

I'd never driven a jet ski,

and I wasn't the quickest learner.

I was having a terrible time.

He was struggling to get me on the waves.

So I then got on the jet ski and said,

"Look, I'll put you on a couple waves."

And like that, bang, bang, bang,

and he got like three waves.

Then he's like, "Right, I want to get you on one."

He gets on the ski, and there was a big wave coming through.

Like, it was proper Mullaghmore 40-foot,

thick, big, angry thing.

I remember, like, in slow motion just thinking,

like, "This is going terribly wrong."

No!

- Oh, no! - Ahh!

- Oh, my God!

- Fuck, fuck, fuck! - Oh, God, fuck.

Jesus.

The wave had, like, swung wide out to like 100 meters,

and I couldn't outrun it, and I was like,

I've gotta get off the ski... I'll jump.

He positioned the ski where I should've been,

and basically, he went for the surf with the ski,

and I didn't.

When I look back at that footage,

it's like, what are you doing? Like, there's no...

But we didn't... I didn't know what I was doing.

I'm paddling.

It took me about 20 minutes to get back to shore.

And then I spotted the ski and him on top of it

way out off the coast.

The jet ski wouldn't start.

Somebody who happened to be onlooking

from a nearby house called the Coast Guard.

Helicopter's now overhead.

They removed him from the jet ski

and took him out of there, but the ski was gone, disappeared.

That was the end of it.

It was a pinnacle point because for me, it was like,

give up now, just, like, sack it all off,

and just actually ask for your job back,

and go out, you know.

Or, you know, you gotta really make it happen.

It was actually, like, thanks to Al.

He was like, "Oh, no, we're gonna do this.

"We'll get a new ski

and we'll, you know... We'll come back harder."

So we surfed big waves in Ireland for two years

or three years.

And then that's when Garrett reached out to me and Al.

October 2010, we had surfed this new location

off the coast, and it was really big,

really perfect, and it got a lot of media attention.

And at that time, Garrett was in Portugal,

and I think he'd seen this.

Look at that! Holy shit.

And at the time, I believe he was struggling

to find people who wanted to surf Nazaré.

When Garrett went to Nazaré the first time,

I was actually doing the stand up paddle world tour,

and I can remember him asking me to join him to go.

I think he couldn't find anybody else to go at the time.

He was out telling me and all the guys here were like,

"Uh, no, I'm not going there."

Yeah, yeah, okay, sure,

there's a giant wave in Portugal.

I don't like cold water and halfway around the world,

it's like, ahh... no.

I tried to recruit a bunch of people, lot of people.

Nobody came.

I don't think I'd met Garrett before this point,

but when he phoned me, I-I immediately said yes.

How do you feel your level of driving is?

I was kind of out of my depth.

I wasn't really that confident on the ski,

and I think Garrett realized that.

Like, I think he was on a search for people

that were obviously good but also willing to learn.

Oh, you're pretty tall there.

Andrew Cotton and Al Mennie came.

We became fast friends.

Meeting Garrett was kind of surreal.

We went from having the worst luck or driving skills ever

to, like, being asked to drive around at Nazaré

on a jet ski with one of your surfing heroes.

Cool.

That next morning, Garrett drove the car

up the hill to the lighthouse, and at that time,

the lighthouse was a kind of out of town area

no one really went to.

There's a dusty road down to this old fort

down on a very prominent headland

off the west coast of Portugal,

and there's a real feeling about the west coast

of Portugal and these big headlands.

It's an end of the world feeling.

You feel like you're on the edge of the world.

You know what I mean? It's, like, it's raw.

On that morning, I remember standing down there,

and the explosions of the waves hitting the rock

in front of the headland.

It was, like... it was literally earth-shattering.

It was going...

And the waves were hitting this rock

and pouring up over the top.

It felt like it was almost reaching for us.

It was, like, reaching up, and then as it got

to the edge of the path, it just dropped down.

And you were like, whoa.

Garrett, he actually asked the question... he said,

you are doing this for your own reasons, aren't you?

That you're doing this 'cause you want to do this?

Which made me realize he understood

that this place is very, very dangerous.

He understands the ocean in terms of big waves

as well as, if not better than,

any other big wave surfer on the planet.

So for him to tell us that this is serious,

this is dangerous,

that really made me go, hmm, how dangerous is this?

I think part of the reason that big wave surfing

resonates with so many people is because everyone's been

to the beach and played around in two-foot waves

and been tossed around by this little wave

that will hold you down against your will.

And if a three-foot wave is gonna do that,

what's a 60-foot wave going to do to me?

Falling on a 60-plus-foot wave is like being

in a car accident for a solid minute.

It's just the most violent, ragdolling experience.

If you try to fight it, you feel like your arms

and legs are just gonna get ripped clean off.

It is so much power.

You're underwater getting beat,

and you don't know which way's up.

It gets dark down there, and you're just getting spun,

and you just let your last breath out.

There's always this feeling, oh, my God,

is this ever gonna let up?

It's really terrifying.

The reality is that riding big waves is dangerous,

and you can die from it, and people do.

It's not a joke.

Whoo, nice!

I got the rush fully, more than I do in the wave.

- Just go, I'm done. - Yes, it's done.

We're done.

Coming from Ireland,

I was a self-sufficient big wave surfer.

Everything I did was by myself. I organized everything myself.

But turning up in the harbor in Nazaré,

all these local Portuguese men,

they were setting up jet skis for us.

They were, like, towing them around,

putting them in the slip way. I was like, what is this?

I started to realize this was a huge passionate endeavor

by the local crew.

Most people can't get the funding

to run a local contest,

little small wave surf contest.

But they had managed to get this crew of people

and the backing of their government

to fund and help support Nazaré

as a big wave surf destination without even knowing

if it was possible to ride at size.

There was definitely an air of concern

from the local guys, and you could see it in them,

and you could feel it in them, and rightly so.

Nazaré's a very dangerous place.

The first time we surfed together in Nazaré,

there's a lot of pressure.

You doubt yourself.

Your anxiety, your fear, you're stressing

that the wave's gonna be big,

don't feel like you're gonna be good enough.

The system we were trying to develop

for doing this safely was that we were gonna use one surfer

being towed by one driver on the ski

and another jet ski to track the first team

as a safety precaution.

That was something that hadn't happened before

in the world of surfing.

This was my first time. I'm on the ski.

Garrett's driving.

And we go around the edge of the rock, and I'm talking.

We were rounded about three seconds, and Garret's going,

"Get on the rope! Get on the rope!"

And I'm going, what?

And there's like 50-foot peaks just going...

Everywhere.

This was like a war zone,

peaks of waves coming in from every angle.

It felt like you were being hunted.

That's honestly what it felt like.

And he's shouting, "Get on the rope, get on the rope!"

I'm like, "Would you shut up? Let me have a look at it."

Nazaré isn't like any other big wave spot.

It's a different animal.

It comes in, and taller and taller, and it wobbles,

and it moves, and it shifts, and it breaks a bit,

and it breaks a bit more, and then, whoa-ahh!

What'd you think of the waves?

This looks heavy.

That's the first time I've seen it, you know?

So it's nerves, a bit of fear.

You know, we've surfed on tight beaches,

but nothing... nothing like that.

When we first got there,

a couple of really big waves came,

and it seemed really big.

And it just seemed to get bigger and bigger

and more water moving.

It seemed giant.

When we first drove out there this morning,

Garrett was like a kid at Christmas.

And I'm sitting there going...

Look at how crazy it looks in there!

I heard you were the king of the morning.

You got the biggest one.

I got... I think I got a big one, yeah, did I?

Yeah, it seemed pretty big, yeah.

As I started down the wave, all I heard was Garrett

shouting "To the bottom! Go to the bottom!"

And he's driving the ski.

Whoo!

Ahh!

Yeah, it's definitely gonna be a memorable session.

There's no doubt about that. I'll never forget it.

It was big and a lot of water moving,

and the drops were... never got to the bottom.

Never got to the bottom, right?

Did you get to the bottom of any of them?

No.

It was like, you look around... nothing,

and all of a sudden you start riding them, and it's like...

You're going down 'em, but it's scary.

Scary, right?

From speaking to the locals afterwards,

there was a real turning point that day

because when Garrett fell in a wave,

both Andrew and I immediately skied straight in after him.

We went straight in through all the chaos,

where all the huge whitewater's rushing through,

where we had never been before.

And we got him, and then we raced all the way to shore.

And we fought our way back out.

And I think that was the first time

that ever really happened.

Nobody had really had to go in and do that sort

of a rescue before.

But it made us realize that this was possible.

You were a champion in there.

It's like a cowboy. I was like, yeah!

When I was on the back of his ski, I felt really safe.

Well, that's good, that's a result.

The first day I surfed with Cotty,

I really had an amazing connection with him

and really felt comfortable.

At that point, I was a plumber from Devon.

You know, like, not many professional surfers

would have trusted a plumber from Devon

to go tow in at Nazaré.

He gave me the time.

He didn't care where I was from, my background,

so I think that just speaks volumes for me, yeah.

It was just the right time for me.

I was just at a point where I hated plumbing,

and I was just so into big waves.

It was just a dream to be doing it at all.

Surfing with Garrett in Nazaré opened my mind

to how you approach a big wave,

like, not just how you physically approach it

but how you mentally approach it,

what you can survive, and what that takes

to surf the biggest waves in the world.

I was just like a sponge. It was just amazing.

So what's next for you, going back to...

- So you're used to barrels. - Yeah, yeah!

Used to lots of water, aren't I?

Usually leaking everywhere.

Today's our last day.

We're gonna go paddle around and just really get

to know the canyon and its surroundings

and just enjoy it and get ready to come back.

I got invited here to Nazaré by Dino and the city hall,

and it far exceeded my expectations.

The waves are giant, and powerful, and challenging.

And I consider it a second home now.

I've surfed waves all over the world,

chasing swells everywhere.

There's all these guys searching

for this 100-foot wave,

and everybody wants to ride a 100-foot wave.

I know it's here, and I know it's for real,

and I know it will happen, so mark my word.

We'll be riding one out here someday.

We're gonna be riding the biggest wave we've ever seen.

There's a potential of not coming home.

Garrett and the whole crew... - Big set.

Figured out a lot of systems for big wave surfing.

I can see myself sitting in the pub saying,

"Ah, I could've done that, but I didn't."

He's had traumas throughout his life.

His childhood was far from great.

It's disturbing.

I'm happy for him that he's doing what he wants to do.

There's the flip side, which is that it's dangerous.

People love a good wipeout.

Our destruction, your entertainment.

They had no idea what they were dealing with.

Those waves were a place of death.

Nobody would believe that Nazaré

would have the biggest waves in the world.

Those hopes and dreams are now going to be a reality.