And then south of the lighthouse we have the main city of Nazaré.

And then the more north we have Praia do Norte.

The biggest wave in the world.

"Now, here's something you just have to see to believe."

"You got to see this."

"The most amazing picture that we saw in the newsroom today has got to be this."

"Take a look at that surfer right there."

"Garrett McNamara is the fearless surfer."

"The wave is 78 feet tall..."

"...that is taller than a 7-story building."

"This is a new world record."

"He is riding a mountain of water off—"

"The coast of Portugal."

"Portugal."

"That's in Portugal right?"

That moment made Nazaré...

a small town on the coast of Portugal...

home to the biggest wave ever surfed.

And over the past decade, many surfers havecome here

to make their own attempts at a world record.

Even at the risk of their lives.

How can I explain it?

Nazaré right now, it's the Formula 1 of big waves.

But for a long time, these waters weren't at the heart of an extreme sport.

They were driving an entirely different culture for centuries.

A culture that's changing dramatically today.

[in Portuguese] The history of Nazaré will be different

from what it would have been,

if there had never been the wave.

[in Portuguese] Nazaré has been going through

an intense transformation.

[in Portuguese] History and memory are gradually

being erased.

The world had no idea that we have the biggest wave in the world here.

So yeah, it's never been like this.

This one is a 9'6".

It is not the biggest one I have.

It's already double size.

My name is António Laureano.

And I'm a professional big wave surfer.

What's up?

I'm from here, I'm Portuguese.

-It's getting bigger. -For sure.

I'm the youngest kid surfing Nazaré.

Tomorrow with the energy really strong, it's gonna be way more farther out.

And some days ago, I just won my first big wave contest in Spain.

A couple of years ago, Tony went viral

for one particular wave, estimated to be 101 feet tall.

But, he's still waiting for the Guinness World Book of Records to make it official.

The adrenaline that we have surfing those waves is something that is impossible to explain.

Like every big wave scares me.

A crash on a wave at Nazaré...

You feel that your foot is out behind your head...

your shoulder is on your knee...

and then you spend, like long time under the water.

It doesn't seem like it's too long.

But when you're getting kicked by 50 guys...

believe me, it's too long.

It's that extreme danger, and the rush that comes with it

that led to the discipline of big wave surfing 70 years ago.

Big wave surfing began in Hawaii, where for a long time

the sport had been limited to waves less than 10 feet.

But in the 1950s, a group of daring surfers

successfully rode the notorious 25 foot waves on Oahu's North Shore.

That inspired many surfers to scour the globe for bigger and bigger waves.

And they found them:

Jaws, Maverick's, Teahupoo, Fiji, Australia, Mexico.

But they missed a spot.

A place where the perfect conditions that could generate waves

larger than anyone had ever imagined.

Storms are critical to big waves around the world.

When a storm moves over the ocean, its winds hit the surface

resulting in pulses of energy called swells.

Which eventually become waves.

Some of the most powerful storms form over the Pacific and Southern oceans

which send swells to places like Hawaii and Australia.

The North Atlantic has similar storms..

that send powerful swells barrelling towards Nazaré between October and April.

And there's one on the way now.

Friday, we are going to have one swell that is supposed to be

the biggest swell of the season.

The swell is huge.

The wind is perfect.

The direction is like a good direction.

The direction is really important because if it's the right direction

we can have the effect of the canyon.

The canyon that sits beneath the surface, just off the coast

sets Nazaré apart from every other big wave spot.

It begins here, then runs for 230 kilometers right up to Nazaré's beach.

It's half the length of the Grand Canyon

but nearly 3 times as deep at its deepest point.

[in Portuguese] If Nazaré didn't have the canyon

Nazaré would be a different land.

[in Portuguese] My name is Jorge Barroso

I was the mayor of Nazaré for 20 years.

So how does this canyon lead to giant waves?

Can you give me... two minutes?

[in Portuguese] So, here we have the canyon.

[in Portuguese] The canyon's head is 300 meters

off the coast.

From that point, here, the canyon plunges in depth remarkably quickly.

Over here, the water is just 20 meters deep.

But right over here, the canyon is 200 meters deep.

The length of a 60-story building.

This difference has a major effect on incoming swells.

When a swell approaches Nazaré

it hits the canyon and gets split into two.

The part in this shallow water slows down.

But the part inside the canyon continues to move fast and turns inward

toward the canyon wall.

When it hits the wall, it's suddenly forced upwards

resulting in a big wave.

But when that coincides with a slow swell, the result is a humongous wave.

[in Portuguese] We've here almost a perfect storm

of current waves,

depths, and energy.

[in Portuguese] That's why this place is the

only one in the world.

So, why did it take so long for big wave surfers to find Nazaré?

It's Portugal!

Portugal is a small country and we don't have a big culture of big-wave surfing.

But for centuries, Nazaré did have a unique culture

one that was also shaped by these waves.

"Nazaré in Portugal."

"Where the only industry is fishing."

[in Portuguese] It was a quiet neighboring village,

with simple

and calm people.

[in Portuguese] In my family, we're all fishermen.

[in Portuguese] Men have all been sailing

since my grandfather's and great-grandfather's time.

[in Portuguese] And the women are fish sellers.

[in Portuguese] Since there has been Nazaré,

there has been dried fish.

[in Portuguese] It was for people to have

something to eat during the winter.

[in Portuguese] Here in Nazaré

anything about fish is what

gave Nazaré its soul.

Fishing sustained Nazareans for generations

but it also required many to risk their lives.

[in Portuguese] It was known worldwide,

precisely for death.

[in Portuguese] For the harshness of the sea.

[in Portuguese] Many people died,

many people.

[in Portuguese] People still came at night

to see if they could find the bodies.

[in Portuguese] Because, you know, people died at sea

and could appear

six or seven months after.

But despite the dangers, fishing continued to be Nazaré's main industry

until the mid-20th century, when it began a slow decline.

Largely because the fish populations

were dwindling.

[in Portuguese] Our fisherman

was an ecological fisherman.

[in Portuguese] They preserve by fishing with hooks.

[in Portuguese] Then, trawling began to appear

from other ports.

[in Portuguese] Trawling destroys everything

that it catches along the way.

[in Portuguese] There are less fish,

you can tell.

[in Portuguese] I don't know if it has to do

with global warming or

if it's exploitation with extensive catching

[in Portuguese] But it's noticeable.

The drop in fish populations forced Nazaréans

to turn to a different source of income which came from here: Praia de Nazaré.

In the summers, Nazaré's waters were calm

and this beach attracted a lot of tourists.

[in Portuguese] I was already very resourceful as a child.

[in Portuguese] Always here on the beach.

[in Portuguese] I would hold out my hand and say,

[in Portuguese] "Sir, money to eat?

[in Portuguese] My father died on the boat."

[in Portuguese] My father would die 30, 40 times.

[in Portuguese] As many times as I decided.

But these tourists only came during the summer.

So Nazaré needed a boost in the winter.

And they found it on the other side of town: Praia do Norte.

[in Portuguese] Praia do Norte was completely forbidden.

[in Portuguese] Absolutely forbidden for any Nazaréan.

Forbidden, because of the monstrous waves that launch out of the canyon

here in the winter.

But that changed in the early 2000s, when some locals

who had been bodysurfing in these waters

recognized the the thrill in riding these waves.

And it inspired them to look for someone who was willing to try to surf them.

[in Portuguese] There's a guy who surfed a wave,

who waited for a glacier to fall

to surf the wave.

That man was Garrett MacNamara.

They invited him to Nazaré.

And after a year of training, McNamara caught the 78 foot wave

that set the world record in 2011.

I was seeing Garrett and I was like...

"Wow!".

[in Portuguese] I thought it was impossible

for a guy to get into those big waves.

[in Portuguese] We saw that there was an opportunity,

we tried to take advantage

of that opportunity.

Over the next few years, big-wave surfers increasingly came to Nazaré.

In 2017, Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa beat McNamara's record

by surfing this 80 foot wave.

And in 2018, another Brazilian, Maya Gabeira set the women's world-record

here on this 68 foot wave.

Then set it again in 2020.

Today, 5 out of the 6 biggest waves ever surfed happened at Nazaré.

And it's led to a rise in tourism, year by year.

Driven by people visiting in the winter to watch big wave surfing.

In less than a decade, Nazaré became the new capital of big-wave surfing.

But all this success has come with complications.

[in Portuguese] This used to be a fiber,

ship building,

and repair shop.

[in Portuguese] And then surfing came.

[in Portuguese] All this is gone.

This is João Delgado.

A former fisherman who's now, a politician.

[in Portuguese] Nowadays, people are coming to Nazaré

from foreign countries

who can pay several hundreds of thousands

to buy houses in these places.

[in Portuguese] Something that is practically inconceivable

for the average family living in Nazaré.

[in Portuguese] Many younger families are leaving our community.

[in Portuguese] Our concern is that Nazaré doesn't become

one of those examples that most typically defines mass tourism,

where the culture fades

and disappears as a result of

this invasion of visitors.

Tomorrow, here at the lighthouse, is going to be crazy.

When I'm in the water, if someone does a really good wave

you can see the crowd just getting crazy and cheering.

Honestly, I feel nervous.

But I feel ready and I'm confident in the people with I'm surfing, with my boards

with my surf, and with my voice.

I just want to go out there and do the best performance possible.

[in Portuguese] This is it, it's a swell day.

[in Portuguese] At the best height of the day, I'm going to surf, make my waves.