:48:00
And you just wanna stroke
as hard as you can.
:48:05
Heart in your throat,
paddling as if catching a wave...
:48:08
...only you're trying to get out.
- It's just a total survival thing.
:48:12
Nobody cares about
the other guy at that point...
:48:14
...you just wanna get over it.
:48:20
Each successive wave
will be bigger than the one before.
:48:24
You pray the one you barely made it
over is gonna get you to the next one.
:48:29
The next one's twice as big
as the wave you just saw.
:48:32
- It's gonna land right on you.
- Then the sinking feeling.
:48:36
"I'm caught, I'm caught,
and I'm not gonna get away."
:48:38
Oh, that guy's in the impact zone.
:48:49
There's a point
where it gets so critical...
:48:52
...you have to either commit,
and you'll make it out the back...
:48:55
...or you slide off your board
and swim into a vertical face of water.
:49:02
You feel like, "Oh, I made it."
Then you're getting sucked back.
:49:06
The feeling of going over
backwards is horrifying.
:49:09
It's the worst kind of beating.
:49:11
Oh, shit.
:49:14
There's a fiendish pleasure,
though...
:49:17
...of watching, one by one,
the people you started with...
:49:20
They get picked off,
don't quite punch through right...
:49:23
...and they're goners.
:49:40
Not only is the takeoff
the hardest part of big-wave surfing...
:49:44
...it's the most fun.
:49:46
It's entirely different
than any kind of normal surf...
:49:49
...because it's basically
one burst of energy.