A biography for Garrett McNamarahasn’t been written yet.
“I wake up early, between 3 and 5 in the morning.”
“I'm not a thrill seeker.”
“I lived for big waves. It's where I felt comfortable and I could surf with ease. With smaller waves, it didn't feel as natural.”
“Surfing is my life. It's my passion.”
“One of my favorite road trips of all time was here, in Australia, in Western Oz.”
“The first time I tried surfing, we went out in front of Cement City and I just remember falling in love. It just instantly became all I wanted to do.”
“CrossFit is amazing if you can leave your ego at the door.”
“Nothing I've achieved in my life has ever come about because of alcohol.”
“God must love tow surfers - and I'm not a religious person.”
“My son was made on North Beach, and my daughter was named after Nazare.”
“To be honest, as an average American, one who got his education in the ocean, I didn't know where Portugal was.”
“When I was sixteen I was terrified and I vowed never to surf waves over ten feet tall.”
“You always hear, 'You can do whatever you want. You can make your dreams come true.' It's kind of a cliche, and I always thought of it as a cliche.”
“When you wipe out, all you can do is let the wave take you and stay calm until you can come up for air.”
“I might just paddle out to hang out, and if I get a wave, I'd do it, but if I don't, it's still worth it.”
“After I made my comeback in 2002 and won the Jaws Tow-In World Cup, the eyes of the surfing world were on me in a way they'd never been before.”
“Half the people think I'm out of my mind... and half are just - I think they all think I'm crazy, actually.”
“So, when you come down a big wave and everything's perfect, you make it to the shoulder and you kick out. But, when you come down and it closes out or you fall on the way down, then this massive, basically like an avalanche. just lands on you and it feels like a ton of bricks.”
“When I'm riding a wave and making it, it's just like, 'Alright, yeah, another wave.' But when you're getting pounded and thrown in every direction, when you have no control, you really feel alive.”
“I wanted to be the first to ride a 100-foot wave.”