This astounding endeavor occurred, January 30, in the midst of enormous waves swarming the
coast of Nazare during the day. Had McNamara made any small mistake that would have caused him
to wipe out he would have surely been plunged dozens of feet underwater and/or possibly smashed
against the coral reef of the ocean.
As mentioned previously, it had been a question of whether or not McNamara had broken his
previous 2008 record of riding a 78ft wave and, indeed, he had. The record break was confirmed by the
experts at the annual Billabong XXl Global Big Wave Awards. At the awards ceremony McNamara stated
that receiving the award gave him 'a bigger rush' than actually riding the wave.
His comments were, “It’s
amazing we get to do what we do, I am so grateful. I didn’t want to get caught up in it all, but I have to
tell you the truth, when they announced my name I got a bigger rush than probably on all the waves I
rode this year.”
Interestingly enough Garrett McNamara, age 45, was reared in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and
had moved to Hawaii with his family at the age of 11. While there he was greatly influenced by his older
brother, Liam, and developed a strong interest in surfing. At age 17 he began to compete professionally
alongside his older brother. McNamara has been performing these amazing feats in the water as far
back as 2007. In 2007 he was the first man to ride a glacier wave on a surf board. He spent three weeks
in Alaska camped out by the 400ft Childs Glacier to await the perfect wave. When it finally came, him
and his friend were filmed riding the ice cold mass. Waves like this in Alaska are caused when huge
chunks of glacier break off and fall into the water.
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