16 minute read
What’s worse than being in a high-stress, critical situation? Being filmed in a high-stress, critical situation!
100ft Wave is the two-Emmy award-winning big wave surf docuseries that follows the life and passion of Nazaré’s big-wave pioneer, Garrett McNamara.
The show exposes much more than a unique insight into the world of big-wave surfing that many of us could only dream (or fear) of experiencing.
It captures the human stories behind the big-wave surfing community, who have lived and breathed riding incomprehensible, mutant waves long before the cameras started rolling.
One of these big wave surfers is the UK legend and Dryrobe® ambassador Andrew Cotton (Cotty). Cotty has been with Garrett pretty much from the beginning of Garrett’s quest to surf Nazaré.
Now, in its third season, which has been filmed over the last three years, it has shifted its focus away from Nazaré while it waits for another mega swell and instead follows other exciting swell-chasing missions worldwide.
Cotty’s down-to-earth take on this season after living it? “Well, it's just… It's never good to watch yourself.”
If you’re wondering how one of the most unpredictable sports gets filmed and what it’s like to be in high-stress situations with the cameras there, you’re in the right place. Cotty reveals all.
100ft Wave has returned for Season 3. What a journey! The series has won two Emmys for Seasons 1 and 2. Did you ever think it would be this successful?
No. I didn't. When the project started, it was Garrett's project, and the goal was to make a documentary about Garrett. I think the fact that it went into that episode, sort of series-based, was really smart from the producers and the directors.
I think they've done well because there aren't many surf documentaries that keep it interesting for the mainstream, but also for a core of surfers as well.
They've done a really good job keeping both parties happy. And I think it's because it goes more into this human element about it, which is kind of unique. It's not just about catching the biggest wave, it's actually what it takes to get there, and the teamwork and how relationships are built, which isn't always transactional, like financial, it's more like trust and you're building that up. I've been working with Garrett for over 15 years, and that's taken that time to do that.
The third season seems to shift focus as it explores different big wave spots beyond Nazaré, like Morocco, Waimea Bay, and Cortes Bank. Can you explain how the mission to Cortes Bank happened?
That mission is definitely one I consider like a trip of a lifetime.
Especially how it all sort of came about and with the people it was with. For me, growing up in North Devon, I never in a million years expected to be at a place like that.
Cortes is like 100 miles off San Diego. It's an underwater sea mountain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The logistics and how you get there are so expensive; it's such a mission.
And I wouldn't even know how to read a chart out there, for waves and stuff.
I knew it was always on the cards because Garrett wanted to go there, but I think we've been looking at the charts for almost two years, and there wasn't even a window for it to be good.
So when Garrett phoned and said, “Oh, it looks like it could be on”, it was like “Oh right, this is it.”
Didn’t it take nearly 12 hours to get there from land?!
We went quite slow out. I think we left San Diego port in the afternoon and then we got there as day was breaking. So yeah, it probably was 12 hours on the boat.
The logistics were really impressive. Because usually, I think it's kind of hard because you need to put the jet skis on the boat or sometimes put fuel on the boat and they drive the skis out, which is a mission but we have this huge boat with like 10 jet skis craned on the deck.
It was amazing because obviously you're in the middle of nowhere, so you can't see land anywhere, and there was not a breath of wind. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
It was a really, really beautiful still morning, and it was just that sunrise, and being that far out to sea was insane.
And then you could see the sort of backs of waves, but you can’t tell how big it was, and it was just insane, and then it took about an hour to sort of get all the skis off the boat because they sort of crane them off.
Then we started surfing pretty much by 7 a.m., I think. And we surfed all day, all the way through.
On the way back, we went a little bit faster, and I think it took about nine hours to get back.
What’s it like to be so far out to sea without seeing any land?
It’s hard to line up. So, usually, when you surf a big wave spot or any spot—it doesn't matter where you’re surfing or how big the waves are—you have line-up markers, which you sort of wait for or know where the wave breaks. So, being out there and not having that, you kind of get disoriented a bit, so you don't know how deep you are on the wave.
Although we had a good day of surfing, I kind of left feeling like I played it a bit safe.
But it was an amazing day; the sea life being that far out to sea and the number of seals, like sharks and sea birds, was insane. There's so much going on out there. There’s so much living stuff moving around. So yeah, it was really beautiful.
Is it distracting seeing so much incredible wildlife like that?
Yeah, it kind of does freak you out a little bit. But like I said, I'd never, in a million, million years, believed that I would have the opportunity to be there and go surfing in a place like that.
I remember reading about it in Surfer Magazine and there was a guy called Mike Parsons and Brad Gerlach went out there in the early 2000s and surfed an amazing swell out there and I remember looking at it like, “No way, how do they even get there and how do they know the waves break there?“ so having the opportunity was insane.
How does filming work? When you guys are about to go on a strike mission, does someone ring up HBO and say, "Oh, we're off?"
So it varies. In some seasons, I have a filmer who is with us every day, which can get super draining.
So you get allocated a filmer, and they're with you 24/7, and then other times, you're just trying to avoid them, really!
It can be a lot having someone around, but you kind of end up bringing your guard down.
You know, you get the vlogs and people who film stuff for content, and you can almost put your camera face on, and you can hold that up for like a day.
But when you're filming with someone for six months, you become yourself. You can have some sleepless nights thinking, “Oh God, what was I just saying today?”
So you have some anxiety moments, thinking “Shit, what have I done, what have I said and maybe I didn't really mean that.” But I think that's what makes good telly. It's real. It's like Big Brother, I guess, isn't it? Because at the beginning, everyone's a little bit reserved. And as time goes on, they become more themselves.
HBO will film a lot of people, but not everyone makes the cut because people can always put up the blockers. I’ve really learned loads about it, and I’ve learned so much about myself as well.
And then you just hope that they use the good bits and the parts where you’re moanng and sounding like a dick!
That must be hard as you’re being filmed in such highly stressful and critical situations, so there really is nowhere to hide.
Even sometimes you’ll set up a GoPro, you turn it on, you forget, leave it, and then you can have conversations you don't even realise it’s been recorded.
I had loads of messages. I think Garrett and I had an argument in one of the episodes. I can't even remember it being filmed. And you know, you can have an argument, and it's done and forgotten about that day. But people are like, “Oh no, I can't believe you two fell out.”
I think it sometimes highlights things that go in and out that you don't think about again. Then, they can focus on that and make a bigger deal of it, which is cool.
I suppose, at the end of the day, we all have our own stories of how something played out, and it's up to whoever's sitting in an office in New York to take their opinion on it. Because it’s not how I'd always play out that day, if I were to say, “Oh, tell us about this surf trip or this swell,” my highlights would be different from someone else's.
Someone looking over thousands of hours of footage is then picking out the storyline. So it all happened. It's just maybe not always how you would put it out. For example, if I were to put out an episode, I wouldn't put in the argument, but I think that's really good and refreshing as well, because content now especially feels filtered.
It's often filtered by surfers, brands, and athletes, so it loses a lot of its rawness. However, when you get all these hours of footage and it's edited by someone who doesn't know you and who doesn't surf a lot of the time, they're picking out what they see as interesting. These are the best guys in the business as well, so they're picking out all these little bits that they find interesting.
I feel really fortunate to be included, but it's Garrett’s story. It was his vision, it was his goal, his thing. So just to be a part of that, I feel really grateful.
There seems to be some hard-hitting issues in this series, especially regarding Garrett and his health.
Yeah, I see that as an up and down because we all go through injuries and we go through incidents, and last year, I felt that Garrett was probably surfing the best he had in a long time. He did have a couple of years where, just every time he was getting really unfortunate injuries, he'd recover from his shoulder, then broke his foot. And then he broke his wrist.
It was constant, and I think that was really holding him back, not only physically but also mentally. The guy is 57, and he's putting his body and himself in really gnarly situations that not even some super fit 30-year-olds can cope with.
He's got a wealth of knowledge and skill, but you definitely start slowing down. So that puts pressure on him, but also on me if I’m surfing with him.
And he's not taking the risks that he used to take.
When I first met Garrett, he was completely bonkers in a good way, but he was also fearless. It was quite frightening to surf with him because he would go on anything and put himself, and obviously you, in the most gnarliest and scary situations, which was really beneficial to me because it upped my game, but now he doesn't take those risks. He's sort of more calculated, I think.
He also knows that if he has a really bad injury now, he's probably not coming back from it.
How does that affect you? Do you feel you must be riskier if he's not pushing as much?
No, that's all personal. I have my moments where I'm happy to send it. But I think I've always been more like more calculated in a way.
But if it's the day of days, if the moment's right, I’m good to go, and if it’s not, I have nothing to prove.
That's the thing with big wave surfing, there is no fixture list. So if you go injuring yourself on a shitty day or like a day, like next week might be the biggest day of the year or ever and if you're injured and you’ve injured yourself on a crappy 10 foot day, you’re kind of pretty pissed off.
So in ways, you're managing your body and you're managing your goals for that season.
It's just such an unpredictable sport that you're sort of holding out all the time for a potential.
Yeah, and then you can hold out, and then you might not get the day you’re wanting, and you’re like, “Oh fuck, I kind of didn't do anything all season because I was waiting for this day that never happened.”
From an athlete's performance point of view, it’s really tough because if you have a fixture list, you can taper your training and your performance to the day, which is what it should be like. But if you can't do that, it definitely makes it harder.
There are so many big wave locations around the world to monitor. How does that work?
Yeah, so I know my spots off by heart.
So I'd say, like I'm an expert in the charts for Ireland and Portugal, because there are so many intricacies that go into reading the chart like that. And then you just rely on other people so for like for like Mavericks or Jaws or like Cortes I’d rely on Garrett, because he's grown up or spent 30 years studying those waves and knows when it gets good, so you kind of like rely on those people.
I don't think I'd ever look at like the waves or the swell forecast for the Pacific. I just always look at Ireland, Portugal, and sort of France and Spain. And then if it looks good, I'd share that with whoever, and then vice versa.
With Nazaré, you’ve surfed there for over a decade. Do you feel really comfortable there now?
I do feel comfortable, but when it's big, it's definitely still a scary spot. It's changed so much, even in the last five years.
For me, it's a great place to train, it's still a dangerous place, and it can still be super scary. But I feel like there's more out there, you know?
The reason we went to these places in the beginning was to see what's possible and what's new, it's the adventure, and then when the whole circus turns up, it's like, “Oh, okay, well, let's find somewhere else.”
And I think that's happened with many big wave spots, the same with Jaws, Mavericks, and all those spots. It has its golden years and then gets sort of saturated. But I think it goes in ups and downs. Sometimes you find that the beginning of the season can be really busy and chaotic, and then February/ March, and people sort of drift away.
It still has its moments.
So it’s not a victim of its own success yet?
I wouldn't say it's a victim, but it has changed a lot. It's brought a lot of tourism money into the town, and it's created a lot of jobs for the local people, and that's amazing.
I think the lighthouse alone —I'm guessing at these numbers— had over a million visitors in the season, and it might have been more.
They’ve opened that up as a tourist destination, and they have a museum in there. They charge two euros for someone to come in and look around it. So, just that is creating X amount of pounds extra for the city, and you add up all the vendors, the restaurants, and the hotels.
The beautiful thing about it is that it's not really aimed at a surfing audience—it's the general public. So it's bridging that gap from the mainstream because surfing is so niche and small.
People have heard about Nazaré and are interested in it, but have never surfed. They're just interested in the ocean and nature. And I think that's kind of cool.
Final question: Is there a season four in the works?
I don't know. All I do know is that there has been a lot of our filming. But, you know, season three was over three years. So we're already a year and a bit into season four. The production company films, but it hasn't been signed off on or bought by HBO yet.
So they have footage, they might turn into season four, or they might not.
But there hasn't been a big swell in Nazaré for probably four or five years, I think, since 2021 when CJ broke his arm.
This has been kind of good because it has enabled us to go to other places and do those other things. I don't know. If we get a big swell this season, maybe that will be Nazaré's grand finale.
There are a couple of other waves that we've been looking at, which are also sort of an earmark for shooting, but they aren't Portugal, so I don't know if that might be the grande finale if we get Garrett out on a giant day in Ireland.
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Published on July 24, 2025