“Nazaré is like a grand canyon. One of the deepest canyons in the world runs just outside (the break). A deep trench attracts all of the swell in the ocean and once that swell hits and rolls into the canyon it accelerates. All this power of water is shot up into one direction once it hits the shallower part closer to the cliff… All of that energy facing the shallower part just ejects up. That’s what it feels like in the water. All of a sudden out of nowhere you have these 50-foot waves popping up.It is incredible, like staring at a moving mountain that’s coming in your direction to eat you alive.” – Nic Von Rupp

In the quote on the opening spread of this story, Nic is of course talking about the world’s biggest wave, which is located in the town of Nazaré, Portugal. Locally it is known as ‘Praia do Norte’ or North Beach.In the season between October and March, the break can whip up faces in the realm of80 to perhaps 100 feet. To give you a little scale that’s a 10-storey building or three school buses stacked end on end. Von Rupp has surfed at other big wave venues like Pe‘ahi (Jaws) in Hawaii and Mavericks in Northern California but admits that the size of the waves at Nazaré are second to none.

Von Rupp calls it a “perfect mess” but indicates there are certain patterns to the lineup. “There’s three main peaks. The bombs are gonna come in one place, the second peak is gonna come in one place, and the third peak is gonna come in another place. But the water is constantly moving around. Those big first peak waves are right in front of the rocks.”

In the past decade, Nazaré has …