Record-smashing surfer Garrett McNamara has long been known for adrenaline-seeking stunts. Always chasing what he calls “the rush,” he is perhaps best known for riding the biggest ocean wave, a 78-foot mammoth in Portugal. But in a recent CNN report, McNamara says it’s difficult to get that rush anymore now that he’s felt the thrill of riding a glacial wave, what might be one of the most death-defying extreme sports ever dreamed up.
McNamara became the first man to ride a glacial swell in 2007 with some help from Kealii Mamala, who towed him on a jet ski (it’s not technically cheating, the practice is known as “tow-surfing”). In a test of patience, the duo waited in freezing waters for 20 hours a day over the course of an entire week until a chunk of ice fell off a 300-foot glacier, creating a nine-story wave. McNamara tells CNN riding the wave was “mind-bending,” and has since found it difficult to “get that rush in the ocean.”
Watch the video above, but be warned: the videographer is in such shock that it’s happening, he can’t help but yell obscenities.