Big-Wave Surfer Garrett McNamara Found Stability on a Board
By Marc Myers April 18, 2023 2:30 pm ET Garrett McNamara, 55, is an extreme surfer who in 2011 set a world record in Nazaré, Portugal, for the largest wave surfed, at 78 feet. He co-stars in the second season of the HBO documentary series “100-Foot Wave.” He spoke with Marc Myers. When I was 1½, I was in a child seat on our dining table as my father prepared to feed me. He later said I used my legs to scoot across the surface to the edge and then went right off the end. Apparently, my face expressed a desire to see what that experience was like. After landing, I cried briefly, shook it off and ate everything on my plate. That was my earliest attempt to seize the moment and not worry about what might happen next.
By
Marc Myers
Garrett McNamara, 55, is an extreme surfer who in 2011 set a world record in Nazaré, Portugal, for the largest wave surfed, at 78 feet. He co-stars in the second season of the HBO documentary series “100-Foot Wave.” He spoke with Marc Myers.
When I was 1½, I was in a child seat on our dining table as my father prepared to feed me. He later said I used my legs to scoot across the surface to the edge and then went right off the end.
Apparently, my face expressed a desire to see what that experience was like. After landing, I cried briefly, shook it off and ate everything on my plate. That was my earliest attempt to seize the moment and not worry about what might happen next. Much of my childhood unfolded this way.
Not long after my table-top plunge in 1969, we moved from Pittsfield, Mass., to Berkeley, Calif., where my brother Liam was born.
Mr. McNamara, right, with his brother, Liam, and their mother, Malia, in Hawaii in the late 1980s.
Photo: Garrett McNamera (Family Photo)
My father, Lawrence, had been a Latin teacher and basketball coach at a Massachusetts boarding school before we moved. My mom, Mary, who later changed her name, wanted a new life for us.
In Berkeley, we stayed in a two-story shingled house with 20 others. Then we moved up to Sonoma County where we again lived communally. I had fun being free, but I was exposed to a lot of crazy adult stuff.
After my parents separated, my mom and I moved around a lot. When I was 5, we drove down to British Honduras and lived on a lake. Two years later, we came back to San Francisco, where my mom dropped me with my dad. From age 7 to 11, I lived with him, my brother, Liam, and my father’s new family. We learned to skateboard and ride BMX bikes.
When my mother returned, she took Liam and me north to live in Mount Shasta, a city at the foot of a 14,000-foot volcano. About six months later, we moved back to Berkeley, where Liam and I stayed with my dad. Mom went to live in Hawaii’s Kalalau Valley.
In 1978, my mom returned and said the three of us would be moving to the North Shore in Oahu, Hawaii. At first, Liam and I put up a fuss. Then Mom told us about surfing: “It’s like skateboarding but on the water.” That sounded cool, so off we went.
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Subscribe NowIn Hawaii, we lived in Cement City, a low-income housing development. The upside was that we lived a block from the beach. Liam and I befriended a local boy named Butchie Wong. He took us surfing for the first time using his father’s cool kneeboards.
I stood up and felt as if I was walking on water and flowing with the ocean’s energy. My brother and I had the skateboarding background, so it was a pretty natural progression to surfing.
Our family didn’t have much in Cement City, but it was a place where it didn’t matter. We had our shorts and surfboards, and we were out in the ocean. You can be out there all day and enjoy every moment. When we came back in, we’d have our Kraft Macaroni & Cheese or Frosted Flakes. The cycle began again the next day.
My brother and I hung out a lot with older surfer guys. Many of them became father figures for us. One of them was Gustavo Laberte, a Peruvian who had the best surfboards. One day, he said, “Punky, we’re going to surf Sunset.”
I froze. I was afraid of the big, violent waves there. He grabbed me behind the neck and said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to teach you how, and I’ll give you the perfect board.” That day, I caught every big wave I wanted.
From there, I hunted bigger and bigger waves. When you catch a big one, you can either ride it down and outrun the rushing water behind you. Or you can put it all on the line and turn into the wave’s barrel. Inside that blue cylinder, it’s noisy but time stands still.
School was a challenge, since the lure of surfing was always on my mind. But I made it through and graduated at 17. By then, I was considered a pro surfer and kept pushing into new territory.
In 2007, surfer Keali’i Mamala and I rode a tsunami wave near Cordova, Alaska, eight miles from the beach up the Copper River. A massive chunk of ice had just broken off a glacier and the impact on the water initiated the wave. Four years later, I set a world record surfing a 78-foot wave in Nazaré, Portugal. Since then, I’ve surfed higher waves but none were officially measured.
Today, I live with my wife, Nicole, an environmental-sciences educator, and our three kids in Hawaii during the warm months and in Nazaré in the winter.
Our children are learning to surf. The oldest, Barrel, is 7 and already tow-in surfing 10-foot waves. You can’t stop them if they want to know what the experience is like.
Jack Johnson performing at Coachella in 2008.
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Garrett’s Plans
What’s new? I’m still surfing big waves and helping to run our foundation program, Wave of Life, which uses surf as therapy for disadvantaged children.
Fave surf music? “The Waves We Give” by Beautiful Chorus from their “Rhythmic Meditation” album.
Others? Jack Johnson, reggae by Landon McNamara and classic rock.
Horizon? We’re moving to Italy next year to slow down, enroll our kids in a bilingual school and connect with the land and community.
Surfing? Hey, Italy is closer to Nazaré than Hawaii.
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