100 Foot Wave

Oh, yeah.

- Whoa. -

Man down.

That was perfect.

Whoa.

The board?

What happened, the board?

Hi.

What happened?

- I'd get that thing stitched up when you get back.

- I should probably stitch it so I can surf, though.

I got some superglue.

- Gotta get this thing all crazy glued up to the maximum.

Just putting a nice seal all around the outer edge,

and then I'm just gonna go catch one wave.

- Beautiful. - Yeah.

Head back out.

- At that time in my career, it was just like a normal thing

for me to go right back out.

Yeah.

Whoo-hoo!

- You know, I only thought I had so much to gain, not lose.

Whoa!

All day, every day, my whole focus,

keep surfing, whatever it took.

You know, this is a pretty big deal,

the Menehune Contests in Hawaii.

Every family enters it.

And Barrel was really nervous.

Like, really nervous.

And he was super young, his first contest.

- I wasn't there to help him with it,

but I did prep him ahead of time,

and I shared with him exactly where to go

and what to do on the waves.

You're just going to stay in a channel where I showed you.

And then if a wave comes that's not better than one

of the waves you already have, wait for a better wave

than what you already got.

OK.

- I love you. - Barrel.

Oh, he's gonna do it.

Barrel...

Oh, God.

- Right now we're going to give the horn a quick test.

Where is he?

By them?

That's way too far over.

- I mean, I can run down there and scream at him.

No, that'll look crazy.

- They all think I'm crazy anyway.

- Is that him? Yes, yes, yes!

Perfect.

That was exactly what he needed to do,

just needs a little better wave.

I can't see. I can't see.

Yes.

Yup.

Good job, buddy. - You did awesome.

- Way to battle all the way across too.

- Nicole, can you turn the camera around?

Whoo.

I think he made it.

Looked like top three.

Garrett wanted to be there.

He was really bummed he was missing it.

But he was in Austin to go to this neurologist

and get some sort of answers, explanations

for certain things.

In the 13 years I've been with him,

he was feeling more edgy, less patience for me,

less patience for the children.

There was like times where it was

literally like his brain just was playing tricks on himself.

The other day, the baby needed her diaper changed.

So Garrett's changing her, and then I hear this giant thud.

- I disconnected the fact that Fe was still on the couch.

I walked away, and she rolled off.

Bam.

And that was like, that was an eye opener.

That was like, something's going on here.

- It was two years ago, or three years ago in Indonesia.

But I just--I've rode big waves for most of my life

and never really thought of the concussions

that may have occurred in numerous wipeouts.

- You know, I talked to Garrett.

I'm like, what if you do have some sort

of concussion syndrome that we don't even know about?

Like, we really need to know what we're dealing with.

We're going to--

- Whenever you're ready, I'll hit Start.

OK, ready.

All right, here we go.

- Oh, I've probably had at least 100, if not more.

From just hitting the water so hard.

Concussions where I didn't remember things,

I probably had like 10, and I don't

know how many other major ones that there wasn't many

side effects from.

I don't think I was--

- All the different testing, it was scary.

Relax.

Hands on your hips.

Raise your right.

You're going to go 1A, 2B, 3C.

Oh, shit.

I was--I was nervous.

- OK, so this concussion screening, the bottom

is 50 percentile norm for your age,

2 out of 5 for concentration.

You got all the immediate memory and then 3 out of 5

for delayed memory.

So that gave you a score of 24 out of 30,

which is lower than you should be.

- Really? - Yeah.

- The results showed damage to one area of his brain stem.

Is that really good?

You're still within the range of being

able to say, like, yeah, you could go back to surfing.

But the more concussions you get every time,

this keeps getting worse and worse of a response.

- I mean, to tell him to not surf

so that he doesn't damage his brain, I think he'd rather die.

I will never stop surfing.

I really love the rush.

That's what I live for.

But the neurological testing was a really good smack,

saying, slow down, prepare, you need to be 100% ready

or you shouldn't be in the water.

I need to get myself in the best shape of my life,

focus on safety so that I can surf and protect my brain.

- Once Garrett got back from Austin,

I could feel him with the awareness

that he only has so much time left in this top echelon

of big wave surfing.

I was kind of surprised to see him still wanting it.

At this point, it felt like our paths were

diverging and splitting a bit.

After the big wipeout and that whole fiasco,

the remnants, the echo of the feelings in my body

has been really intense.

I'm just feeling really happy to be

alive and enjoy life here in Hawaii with Pavana by my side.

We met here on the North Shore at some full moon gathering,

and we just connected in a lot of different ways.

- My first impression of CJ, he's just so joyful

and he had a big presence and just aura to him.

I've done my best since the accident

to just be a safe, reflective place of, you're good,

you're complete.

- She doesn't need me to ride the big wave

to be something for her.

She's been really supportive in reminding me

that I can express myself in other ways.

- With CJ last season, I had hopes of him continuing

to enjoy riding big waves, but I didn't want

to put any pressure on him.

Dude, it's going to be like 10 feet tonight

and 12 feet tomorrow, and offshore all day.

Really?

- And I'm like so excited to surf right now.

That's great.

I'm excited to drive you.

Amazing.

- I don't think it's going to be in the next couple of days.

- For Garrett, so much of his identity

is around being out in the water,

so I know that he's just planning to be ready

and have his setup ready.

Definitely for Nazaré.

OK, we're bringing that one.

That one.

I told Garrett, if he is going to put the work in,

then he can surf Nazaré.

That's kind of the way we're dancing around the upcoming

winter season.

You know, Garrett wants to ride the biggest wave in the world,

and he definitely doesn't want to miss it.

- You got to keep all this going when you get to Portugal.

- When do you get to Portugal? - 20th.

20th. - OK.

- It's just the start of the season,

but there isn't many surfers about.

I kind of like it.

So it reminds me of the good old days.

It's so good when there's like, no one out.

I fucking love it.