The FIGHT for SURVIVAL

Nazaré, Portugal, boasts the biggest waves in the world and is the Mecca of Big-Wave Surfing. In his latest book, sports journalist MATT MAJENDIE shares the highs and lows of the 2021-22 season, witnessing massive waves, wipe-outs, rescues, near tragedies and death-defying escapes. In this edited extract he gives us an insight into a daredevil's ordeal while searching for the perfect wave...

- MATT MAJENDIE

One minute, Andrew Cotton is reclining in the December sunshine, the next, fighting for his life, a lone black blob teetering in Nazaré’s death zone. Whitewash surrounds him and for two-and-a-half minutes – a time frame that feels infinitely longer for his girlfriend Justine White, friends and teammates watching on the clifftop above – his life hangs in the balance. Things tend to go wrong quickly in Nazaré. One minute, he is being picked up on the back of a jet ski after riding a latest wave. As his rescuer Alemao de Maresias hits the throttle to surpass the crest of the next wave, the lip of it juts up just that bit higher than either anticipates.

The rescue vehicle lands heavily back on the water’s surface. Cotty, as he is better known to everyone, shakes the water from his eyes only to realise, as his vision returns, that his rescuer has been knocked clean off. He quickly shifts himself into the driver’s seat and hits full gas to try to evade the next breaking wave – only to be sideswiped and sent battering towards the rocks on which the Fort of Sao Miguel Arcanjo stands.

Those looking out for him on the walkie-talkies, the so-called spotters, are unsighted on the clifftop – their view blocked by the fort – and unable to help. Others on the fort wolf-whistle to the jet skis surrounding the rock as their drivers try to spot him and find a safe passage to rescue. The level of panic from the helpless above to the even more helpless in the water rapidly grows and reaches a crescendo.