The fearless surfer who was caught on tape riding a record breaking wave - a 90-foot wall of water off the coast of Portugal - said he had no idea how massive it really was until it was all over.
"When I rode the wave I didn't know how big it was, and then it landed on me at the very end," Garret McNamara said in an interview with ABC. "It was like a ton of bricks on my shoulders and that's when I realized if I had fallen it could have been really bad."
The video shows McNamara, a 44-year-old surfer from Hawaii, in full glory - a speck in a sea of blue, barely visible as he glides along the record-breaking wave.
McNamara is in Praia do Norte, Nazare, where waves are known to reach extraordinary heights due to an underwater canyon that magnifies wave energy. The surfer is working with the Portuguese Hydrographic Institute to study the phenomenon.
In the meantime, he's catching waves - big and small.
"I always say it's not how big the wave is, it's how you ride it," he said to ABC. "Once it gets to a certain size, there's so much water moving you could easily end up having that be your last ride.
"Half the people think I'm out of my mind … and half are just - I think they all think I'm crazy, actually."
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