100 Foot Wave

- 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