Original subtitles

[TV static drones]

[bright tone]

[waves crashing]

[suspenseful energetic music]

♪ ♪

- For centuries,

the people of Nazaré have lived by the singing sea,

reaping of its bounty.

- Here, little has changed.

The same struggle with the sea,

the last barrier to the gray waters

of the Atlantic,

rolling in to die amid the flying surf.

- [speaking Portuguese]

♪ ♪

[flowing piano music]

♪ ♪

[soft upbeat ukulele music]

♪ ♪

- Okay, sort of the best way to climb a tree

is get a work shirt on first.

- That is true.

- [grunts] - Oh, snap.

[indistinct chatter]

- [groans]

[shouts playfully]

♪ ♪

Can you get us a coconut? - Don't fall. I swear.

- When the pandemic hit, everything slowed down

to where I could actually

really be present with my family.

Putting quality time into Barrel...

Yeah!

Still on, Barrel? - Yeah.

- And then every day, teaching Theia something new.

There she goes.

- Whoa! - Go, Theia, go!

all: Whoa!

- It was more time with Nicole,

more time with everybody.

- We live on a property that has other families,

so looking back, you know, Garrett grew up on a commune.

- You guys got such good parents.

Look at all your good food.

- But our property pretty much turned into a commune.

- I'm grateful for this place,

this land that we can have a school on and--

We started inventorying life

and figuring out all the things that we needed,

and boom, all of a sudden, when the schools closed down,

there's this huge need to have a place for the kids to be,

and Nicole started a whole middle school, basically.

- Okay, so physics

is the science that studies matter.

- And then we turn this sweet, little spot here

into a little first grade.

♪ ♪

I took the role of being teacher

for that first grade class.

- My brother has a wonderful soul,

and that makes a wonderful teacher.

- Then you put it down on your flat surface.

- Wow. Check it out, CJ.

- I wanna see. - Yes.

- You guys need to look at the rainbow.

- You can look at the rainbow.

- The rainbow!

- [chuckles]

The rainbow's going away, but...

Barrel, get over there.

Everybody, smile! One, two, three!

- Whoo! - Okay, now do something crazy.

♪ ♪

- Garrett seemed great.

I think he loved, like, not having a choice.

It was almost like someone's like, "No, you stay put."

And I think that's the medicine

that lockdown really brought us, was, like,

seeing our lives, sitting in our lives,

seeing what we've created,

are we happy with our most immediate environment?

And we got a good dose of that, yeah.

♪ ♪

[chickens clucking]

- Wow.

Best forecast I've seen in a long time.

[suspenseful music]

I was still looking at weather maps,

as I always do.

I'm looking what the next tow swell is coming

or going to one of the outer islands

or going over to the West Side.

- He kept saying how much he loved just being here,

and I think he really did

and then when a swell pops up somewhere,

it's like the froth starts and he's, like,

looking at the phone, you know?

Just, like checking out.

He's like, "Man, there's this swell,"

and it's like he's wanting to go.

[suspenseful rhythmic music]

♪ ♪

- Here in Hawaii, you get to go out in the ocean

every day and surf,

It's so good,

but the big waves are in Nazaré.

♪ ♪

- He still is waiting for that perfect swell,

the most perfect conditions of a 100-foot wave.

He wants it to be perfect.

But I think even deeper down inside,

it's wanting to be able to help Cotty with his goals.

- Bom dia. - Bom dia.

- Where are you? - I'm home.

- What's been going on?

When I spoke to Garrett that summer,

he was sort of saying, like,

it's the longest time he'd ever been in Hawaii

and that he's loving it,

but for me in England,

it was quite a worrying time sponsorship-wise.

Contracts were getting canceled and, like,

little bits of revenue were getting cut and--and--

you know, it was worrying.

It was a tough summer.

And then you worry about

how you're gonna fund the winter,

how you're gonna fund the family.

You know, surfing big waves, it's just so expensive to do.

[mouse clicks]

I think it looks like, on social media...

[chuckling] All roses.

You know, like the dream.

And it is a dream, but it is--

it is full-time work.

And it's a hustle.

You're looking at every way

to make an extra few hundred quid here or a grand there

or, you know, like, whatever you can do

to sort of fund it, you know?

[soft dramatic music]

It's gonna be hard to know, like,

how a season's gonna play out with the coronavirus thing

and, like, how movement's gonna be,

whether we just stay at Nazaré or whether we chase swells

or--

I just wanna get there now.

I wanna get there, I wanna get set up.

♪ ♪

I just wanna get all my boards ready

and then I can relax a little bit.

♪ ♪

It's nice to be back and, you know, without a doubt,

here is the best place to be.

[flowing dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Every season in Nazaré has a lot riding on it, you know?

Like, you want to perform, you want to be best,

you want get that wave.

It'll make your career or break it, you know?

Or get you sponsorships or not.

♪ ♪

[waves crashing]

[indistinct chatter]

- [speaking Portuguese]

[both speaking Portuguese]

[laughter]

[soft upbeat music]

This is mine.

To be a big wave surfer,

you need to be training all the off-season

to be ready for the season.

♪ ♪

- A lot of times,

I feel like a lot of people are judging me.

Like, "Oh, you're too young for this sport."

♪ ♪

I've been surfing Nazaré the last six years,

so I can say that I have more experience

than some guys that are older than me.

♪ ♪

For me, it's the most important thing

to have a good mentality.

♪ ♪

- Right now, I am 18.

I just broke my Magic board.

- Yeah. [laughter]

- What's this? Like, it was the thing?

- The Magic board. The sick board.

- Was it? - Yeah.

- It's gone? - The Magic board, it's gone.

My idol is Justine.

When Justine and Fred are in the water,

the session just get better.

- Oh, yeah.

[speaking French]

[upbeat acoustic guitar music]

♪ ♪

- Justine is a big wave surfer.

Professional one and probably one of the best in the world.

♪ ♪

She's just, like, killing it every time she's in the water.

She's smiling all the time. She's humble.

She keeps being natural.

She's trying to do better every day.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[laughter]

- We both, like, agree that we're gonna put aside friends,

we're gonna put aside family,

we're gonna put aside everything

and focus on one goal:

Justine performing the best she can.

My main focus is to become the best I can,

drive her in Nazaré to put her on the best wave.

- I was able to improve way faster

because Fred was there.

♪ ♪

- For Justine to perform,

she really needs that kind of family feeling, you know?

To be in some place

where she's feeling home,

she's feeling safe, she's feeling happy.

- She always have new goals,

and I love to help her to achieve her goals.

[Justine chuckles]

[Justine chuckles]

♪ ♪

Whoa!

[speaks French]

- She's scared to tell me because after...

[Justine chuckles] I will be like, "Hey,

you told me you want to do this, so let's do it."

[all grunt]

- [speaking French]

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Every season,

there's a lot going on in my head.

You know, like the fear, anxiety.

[sparse dramatic music]

But when you push past those things,

that's when always, you get the biggest reward.

- For me, I'm just hoping to have, like, an amazing season,

and I want to catch the biggest wave of my life.

♪ ♪

[thunder rumbling]

[thunderclaps booming and echoing]

[tense orchestral music]

♪ ♪

[dramatic orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- Tropical Storm Epsilon

is now Hurricane Epsilon.

- 110-mile per hour winds, gusts up to 130.

- It looks to pass just east of Bermuda

before it turns northeast

and goes into the history books.

Again, Hurricane Epsilon has formed tonight.

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

We saw this big swell on the map.

It was the best-looking swell that I've seen

with the best conditions,

and it looked like it was gonna be the biggest wave

we'd ever seen.

♪ ♪

- We have spent the last ten Octobers in Nazaré.

How could we not go?

♪ ♪

[jet engine roaring]

♪ ♪

[energetic orchestral music]

- That's just the little one.

- Two stands. - Two stands.

[both laugh]

I love Portugal. I love being here.

When I'm in Hawaii, I forget how special it is,

but once I get here and step off the plane

and there's so much love and support

and it's such a beautiful country,

beautiful people.

Olá. - Uma foto?

- Okay.

♪ ♪

Wow, yeah.

This is beautiful, huh?

So beautiful.

So nice to be home.

♪ ♪

- Instead of seeing this giant swell coming like,

"Oh, look at this huge swell coming."

Like, he does say that.

He's like, "Oh, there's a big one coming."

But now, it's like...

There's one. They're going, Garrett.

"Oh, shoot. Okay, big one's coming.

"Is it gonna be perfect conditions

"where I have to go out because it's so perfect,

"or can I say, like,

the wind's shitty enough that I'm just not into it?"

- Yeah.

♪ ♪

- Since I broke my shoulder,

I haven't been physically ready.

But I don't think it's really worth it.

I don't have anything to prove.

Yeah, yeah. Now the other one. Yeah.

If my body's not feeling 100%,

I don't really feel like putting it in danger.

- All right, breathe. - Pretty good, yeah.

- Mm. - [chuckles]

He always hassles me.

I always make sure I have my board with me

if I really wanted to get away,

but I was there for Cotty.

There he is. - [chuckles]

- I just put all the stuff in the water over there

right by the ski.

Cotty has given me my life-changing,

most monumental waves of my career.

- Whoa, big set, big set.

♪ ♪

Now I really want to get Cotty the wave of his life.

Let's go.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Because I've surfed with him so much and he's so good,

I can 100% trust him

and 100% know that, yeah, he's gonna get me a wave.

I love how he drives and I love his energy

and he's got so much knowledge,

and it's good to get that and then get that feedback.

♪ ♪

- What up? - How was it?

- Yeah, so--so you--

[car horn honks]

♪ ♪

What's up?

- [indistinct]. - How's it going?

- All good. - Good.

- Tired? - Yeah.

Mikey got tired, yeah.

- Cool.

[speaking Portuguese]

- Probably, I changed life of Garrett, too.

[laughs]

[suspenseful ambient music]

- Lino's wherever he wants to be,

his role is king of the harbor, and Lino is everywhere.

We buy new boats, we buy new Jet Skis.

Some athletes arrive,

and do I have money for the Jet Ski,

and we share our Jet Skis, we make business together.

[indistinct chatter]

Put the guys on the water.

- Lino is one of those guys that

the first time you see him, you're like,

a little bit scared, like, "Whoa."

Okay?

- But then, he's just like a good person.

Always trying to help.

- [babbles to dog] [dog barking]

Hey, hey, hey, hey. [chuckles]

- Who do you know that's coming over right now?

Who's coming?

[suspenseful orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- So it's October of 2020,

and I can remember sitting on my couch

and getting this phone call.

It's from Lucas Chumbo.

Says that one of the biggest swells

of our lifetime's coming in at Nazaré.

- [speaking Portuguese]

- I was in Desert Point chasing a super nice swell,

and my phone start ringing.

[imitates phone buzzing]

And, like, there was Lucas and Michelle.

- [speaking Portuguese]

You good? Good to see you.

- How's it going, nasty? - Good, good.

- Good? - Yeah.

Another huge swell at Nazaré.

It's like, "Oh, so much adrenaline."

And it's pretty amazing. Good to be back.

[speaking Portuguese]

- Well, I woke up at 5:00 this morning and it was fog.

From the hotel, you couldn't even see the lighthouse.

It's gonna be really big.

It's gonna be interesting to see

how big it actually gets.

I hope it just doesn't peak at night.

♪ ♪

- [laughing] 'Cause I got old, man.

♪ ♪

- Now, say you love surfing more than anything,

but surfing for you somewhat ended,

then you pick up a camera

and you're right there in the water

and you're in the game, you're in the ocean,

you're right there with all your friends.

Well, like Laurent.

For him, it's for sure

just like trying to get that best wave.

He's trying to get that best shot.

[jet engine whirring] - Oh, here we go.

Here we go. - [chuckles]

That's one-- this is the shot I like.

Look. How big is that wave?

Look at this guy on the right charging it.

Oh, he pearled!

See? Now, watch this.

Like, the lip hit and I watch the lip bounce from it.

This is when you know it's a gnarly wave,

when that lip bounce comes out of the frame.

Yeah, I'm stoked on that one.

Here's a good spot to be,

because you're away from all that shit.

You can see it all, you know?

You can see the first peak really well from here, also.

There's a lot of guys shooting waves these days.

Everybody wants a piece of it.

[drone whirring]

- Here we go. We're surfing.

My family, we're all born at Nazaré.

We are all 100% locals.

[electronic beep]

After the boom here at Nazaré, I actually thought,

"Hey, I could have a shot at that."

♪ ♪

- Joao's starting to, like,

really get good at his drone, man.

He's super low.

He's getting some really cool shots.

- When I get really close to the surfer

and you can see the expression of the surfer,

you can see the water moving,

it's a totally different way of shooting waves.

Whoo! What a rush, man.

Man, it's just like surfing.

I think about it when I'm up

and think about it when I'm asleep.

♪ ♪

[suspenseful orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- [speaks French]

♪ ♪

- [speaking French]

[blows raspberry]

♪ ♪

[music fades]

[indistinct chatter]

[suspenseful music]

[walkie talkie chimes] - You there?

Hi, Theia.

- Testing! [giggles]

- We're testing something.

- Listen, because of corona,

they're not gonna let you up on the lighthouse.

Okay?

And Mommy has to go make sure Daddy stays safe

so that he can come home.

Okay?

- [cries loudly]

[waves crashing]

♪ ♪

- Fuck, I've been looking at this far too much.

They only update every four hours.

I check it, like, 20 times every four hours,

looking at the same stuff.

A storm like this might never happen again, know what?

Yeah, it can be another ten years.

You spend, like, years and years wanting something,

and then it gets to the day and it's like, "Fuck."

[chuckles]

It's like, "Fuck, did I really want this?"

♪ ♪

- I'm ready to go. Just waiting the waves.

Super excited for that, though.

I think we're gonna have, like, a 100-foot wave, maybe.

I don't know. Let's see.

We are keeping looking the waves all the time.

- Oh, my gosh.

Jesus. Oh, my gosh.

[waves crashing]

It's breaking, like, a mile out to sea.

[engine revving]

- I feel confident for tomorrow.

I have, like, a lot of energy and anxiety

to catch, like, a good wave tomorrow.

Like, a really big one.

Maybe--maybe the biggest of my life.

We don't know.

[chuckles] We'll see.

♪ ♪

- We could see the waves, like, from everywhere.

It was, like, totally visible from all the sides of Nazaré.

- I couldn't sleep for a while.

I was still with Indonesian time, like,

my head was freaking out with the size of the waves.

- [speaking Portuguese]

[upbeat suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- Yeah, just making homemade burritos for lunch today.

I don't know if you guys heard it out there,

but, um, I walked out,

and all of a sudden, I could feel the ground

on one wave just go boom, I was like, "That's big."

[droning ominous music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful percussive music]

♪ ♪

- Ready.

♪ ♪

- You don't usually get a swell that size in October.

You couldn't ask for more to start the season.

- You know, the hype of this swell was so intense.

It was the biggest swell ever.

Maybe the 100-foot wave was gonna be living today.

♪ ♪

- Sebastian got a bomb.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's a new world record,

'cause you really get the canyon effect

and you went to the bottom, real deep, and bottom turn,

and that thing is-- that thing's huge.

[cheers and applause]

[light orchestral music]

- I told Lucas in one of the biggest waves I ever seen,

it was massive.

I look at him and I say, "Hey, what do you want?"

And he said, "Yeah, I want it, I want it,"

so I speed up as much as I could.

I slingshot him.

[soaring orchestral music]

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

- As soon as he got out of the wave,

the cliff was like, "[imitates crowd cheering]"

Everybody screaming. [cheers and applause]

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

- I think it was the most amount of people

ever on the cliff.

You know? Like, it was insane.

- I've been out there pretty much

every swell the last three years.

More people than I've ever seen.

I think because it was COVID and everybody was locked down

and nobody's working and everybody's just like,

"Shoot, I'm going to the beach."

[waves crashing]

- Can you give me your relative location?

- It's almost impossible to keep eyes on you guys.

[suspenseful ambient music]

♪ ♪

- I think it, like, surprised everyone

how many people turned up in October.

That many Jet Skis, that many people,

and everyone's hungry, you know?

Like, everyone wants it.

- A lot of guys, they wanted to break the Guinness record,

so every single wave that was huge--

with, like, four Jet Skis, five Jet Skis,

six Jet Skis.

[suspenseful upbeat music]

- For me and Cotty,

we kinda just stuck to our own, little thing

and did what we wanted to do

and we were very patient, we got our goals set.

♪ ♪

- Cotty was super focused, had a good plan.

He just wanted to get one good, big right

is what he was hoping for.

And we waited and waited and waited

and finally, one came.

♪ ♪

It was a big one. It was a challenging ride.

He could barely stay on the board.

He said he was going faster than he's ever gone.

♪ ♪

- We were doing speeds of, like, 75 kilometers an hour.

It felt good.

Like, the speed, the sensation.

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

Didn't fall off. [laughs]

You know, and it felt amazing.

Whoo! [laughs]

- That thing was huge, huh?

- Yeah!

- Good wave!

- [muffled speech]. - Right, yeah!

[cheering]

- It's Christmas!

There hadn't been this big of a day in quite a while...

Whoo!

Whoo!

So there was all this chatter around

"Guinness Book of World Records" this, like,

biggest wave ever ridden.

People were going out there with that reason,

and I never surfed big waves till I try to go win awards

or try to get the tallest wave.

It's more like I want to focus on my performance.

- Kai was just on fire. Unstoppable.

Just--he can do anything he wants on the waves.

He's a machine.

- Since Kai arrived at Nazaré for the first time,

everything changed.

Yeah, completely.

He's making heads spin... [laughs]

With his approach.

It's a very aggressive and high-performance way

of approaching a wave,

which people were just not ready to see.

♪ ♪

- Kai Lenny with the huge airs, with the 360s,

for me, it's the best guy from that day.

- Those performances, you know, like Kai and Lucas,

it's what you dreamed about as a kid.

You know, it's a computer game.

You know, you have to be super confident

to be busting airs on 60-foot waves.

If I had the skills to do it, I'd definitely be doing it.

[laughs]

♪ ♪

- After catching a ton of big waves,

I decided, "All right,

let me try to do something different here."

Whoo!

And so I had my pull with a GoPro

to show someone what it's like to ride this giant wave.

Which way? Left? Yeah.

[soaring choral music]

♪ ♪

So I ended up dropping into this wave

and it was really bumpy and I'm like,

you know, I thought everything was fine

and the wave ended up flaring

and, like shooting out and just eating me.

♪ ♪

I remember falling underwater and being like, "Oh, my gosh.

Well, at least the shot's gonna be really cool," you know?

The water shooting out over me?

♪ ♪

I remember popping up and being like,

"All right, I'm ready for the pickup,"

and just Lucas going the opposite direction.

[ominous choral music]

♪ ♪

And in the video, you can see me going, "Hey!"

Hey, hey!

Hey! Hey!

And I was like, just trying to get anyone's attention.

It was like, "Hey, I just want to make sure

"you know where I'm at

so you can track me when I get dragged 100 yards underwater."

♪ ♪

And I can remember, "Okay, here comes another wave."

Like-- [breathing nervously]

♪ ♪

I got so violated underwater.

And so the one driving force

to get me through that experience was literally like,

"All right, stick the camera up high!

Really get it!" You know?

Like, own it.

And I was trying to stay above surface

as long as I could before the next wave would land on me

'cause I wanted the wave to get as close as possible

to get the shot.

And I'm kind of removing myself

from the horror of that experience.

And then there was a huge one

that was just absolutely the worst.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

[laughing] And I remember just getting

so pounded, pulverized,

oh, the GoPro's starting to slip out of my hands,

and then I popped up and I'm like,

"Please, someone, just pick me up."

And then I saw Sebastian come zooming in.

I just was like, "Hey! I'm over here!"

Oh, fuck!

[soaring choral music]

♪ ♪

[engine revving]

Holy shit!

Thank you so much!

Oh, I got so fucking pounded, dude.

- Really? - Ah!

♪ ♪

[suspenseful orchestral music]

- There's not enough waves for everyone,

so there was definitely some tension in the water.

- The biggest wave of the day comes once.

♪ ♪

- We were in the middle of the pandemic, you know.

People were scared during that time.

Now you have these big, scary waves coming,

so I think it just, you know, increased everybody's, like,

fear and survival mode.

♪ ♪

The wave is passing you and you're still on the rope,

and, "Come on, Fred! Go, go!"

I remember, like, screaming at Fred.

Like, "Go, go, go faster, go faster!

- I did have my eye on Fred and Justine here and there,

and I noticed that they were kind of struggling.

Either somebody would come behind them and take the wave

or they would go for the wrong wave.

It just didn't seem like they were in sync.

- We were starting to argue, and, like,

"Yeah, let's stop it."

Like, "We're not here to argue."

But then, I see Garrett.

I'm like, "Hey, Garrett.

Do you mind, like, putting Justine on some waves?"

And Justine was like, "What the fuck?"

- You guys are farthest out, correct?

- It's pretty big and it's coming in on the north.

It's actually huge.

[soaring orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- Garrett put her, like, exactly at the right spot.

Justine's boyfriend, Fred, is a really good driver,

but we cannot compare

with Garrett's experience at this place.

♪ ♪

- It's a real pleasure putting her on waves,

'cause she's such a good surfer.

Everything just fell in place.

She just rolled down this monster.

It was amazing. She rode it so well.

♪ ♪

- I really love Justine. I think she's awesome.

I'm glad she got that wave,

and I'm glad Garrett put her on it.

- When I was watching Justine on the Ski,

I was like,

"[exhales] I'm nervous. It's really big."

[soaring orchestral music]

- My first wave, I was going too fast.

That is like a huge wipeout.

I got really pounded.

I came to the surface

and my dad was looking for me like

with eyes like this, like, "Where is he?"

- I was like, "Okay, now I need to catch a wave."

- My father look at me and was like,

"So do you wanna go on this one?"

I was like, "Yeah, sure. Let's go."

I was so fast, I was going straight to the rocks.

I saw two Skis passing in front of me,

and I was like, "Okay, if I fell here, I'm dead."

I just needed to go straight and survive.

[dramatic orchestral flourish]

[wave crashing]

♪ ♪

Going down that wave,

I don't have a word to describe.

It was like helpless with adrenaline

with fear and everything together.

When I finished the wave,

I heard everyone on the lighthouse, like,

just cheering and screaming.

- On that day,

he really took the biggest wave

of his life, for sure.

I remember he's coming out of the wave like...

you could see his heart coming out of his chest on that wave.

- I was just like the happiest guy on Earth.

Like, I did it.

♪ ♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

- We were like, "Okay, it's a sign. It's over."

[energetic rhythmic music]

♪ ♪

[Philip Glass' "Knee Play 1"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪

- ♪ Will it get some wind for the sailboat ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪ - ♪ And it could get those ♪

♪ For it is were ♪ - ♪ 7, 8 ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ - ♪ It could be franky ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪ - ♪ It could be franky ♪

- ♪ 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

- ♪ It could be very fresh and clean ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ - ♪ It could be a balloon ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

- ♪ All these are the days, my friends ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪

- ♪ These are the days, my friends ♪

- ♪ 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪

♪ 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ♪

- ♪ Will it get some wind for the sailboat ♪

- ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

- ♪ Will it get some wind? - ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ♪

[bright tone]