Big Wave Surfing

Laird Hamilton grew up in Oahu Island, Hawaii. One day while playing on Pupukea Beach of the North Shore of Oahu, Laird met later-legendary 1960s surfer Bill Hamilton, a bachelor at the time. Even though Laird was a young boy, the two became immediate companions. After bodysurfing with his new friend, Laird "coerced" Bill Hamilton to follow him home to meet his mom. Laird's father had left the family before his first birthday. As Laird recounted of his match-making efforts, Bill Hamilton was smitten by the beauty of Laird's then single mother and married her, becoming Laird's adoptive father.

As he grew up through the 1970s and 1980s, Laird lived in one of the greatest surfing regions in the world, the north coast of Oahu, which he enjoyed with a well-known surfer as his father and coach. His father's friends were other surfing greats of the modern surfing era and Laird spent endless hours hanging out with them from an early age. This environment contributed to Laird Hamilton's growth into a surfer who would ride the largest and most complex ocean waves ever ridden.

Laird is now unarguably the greatest big wave surfer ever.

Here's a documentary called Riding Giants that tells the story of big wave surfing: