When the Beach Boys sang "catch a wave and you'll be sitting on top of the world" back in the 60s, they didn't have what extreme-surfer Garett McNamara did in Nazaré, Portugal, on January 28, 2013, by catching an estimated, world-record breaking, 100-foot wave, in mind.
"The ocean is known as a place of death, not of riding waves," McNamara told Time.com.
However, the Portugal Tourism Committee isn't concerned about death. They see this as a tourism attraction and with the press release sent out on Monday of "We have 450 miles of clean Atlantic coastline, (and) some surfing beaches that are out of this world," according to USA Today, they are hoping for a sudden spike in numbers.
The surf scene in Portugal already allures surfers from around the globe to their beaches-the Algarve and Cortegaca regions have always drawn a plethora of surf maniacs, but "big wave" surfing in Nazaré Canyon is another topic on its own.
Micah Sklut, forcaster and CEO at swellinfo.com, a surf forecasting site made it clear that Nazaré's giant waves are generated by factors unique to that part of central Portugal:
""You get big storms in the North Atlantic in the wintertime that push swells toward Europe," Sklut told NPR.com. But Nazaré's 16,00-foot- deep undersea canyon, which points like an arrow toward the town, creates the ideal conditions for the kind of waves in the video. So, first you've got really deep water, and then as it approaches the shore it gets very shallow, and that enables the waves to climb really, really big all of a sudden," Sklut said, as reported by USA Today.
"Similar conditions exist in other "big wave" spots, NPR added - inluding Teahupoo, Tahiti; the Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii; the Cortes Bank about 100 miles from Los Angeles and Mavericks on Northern California's coast," according to USA Today.
One majoy difference between regular "big wave" surfing and surfing in Nazaré is the close proxitmty that one comes to the cliff, "you can literally yell to your friends on the cliff and they can yell back at you," McNamara told dailybeast.com.
That is great for the spectator, but not the surfer, and though no one has died yet trying to tame the wave, it is still dangerous and one should procede at their own risk.
McNamara, better known as GMac in surfing circles has garnered much praise and accoledes, but one wrong move and it would have a been a different story. As McNamara is visibly seen, thanks to a GoPro camera strapped down at the front of the board,paddling for his life to get away from the oncoming breaking/smashing wave. The footage also showed him alarmingly near to the rugged coastline, but according to BBC, at the end of the run, he was just glad that "everything came together. Everything felt right."
Don't for a second believe that McNamara is content with this massive accomplishment/feat-he only has one thing on his mind:
"He's simply focused on his next surfing mission - finding "perfect barrel" waves on his home beaches in Hawaii or perhaps even on the reefs of Indonesia or Tahiti," according to Time.com.
Below is the same clip as above from a different angle.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
