THE NAZARÉ NOTEBOOK

A First-Hand Record from the Beginning of the North Canyon Project,

2010–2013

By Al Mennie

Signed paperback · 201 pages

Dimensions: 156 × 234 mm

Artwork and cover design by Fonda Shae

Photography by Al Mennie, with contributions from Titus Haug and Marcus Covell

Worldwide shipping available.

Pre-order now. Orders are expected to dispatch from 10 November 2026.

Before the crowds, the live broadcasts and the claims of hundred-foot waves, Nazaré was still an unknown quantity within big-wave surfing.

In November 2010, Irish big-wave surfer Al Mennie joined a small international project attempting to understand how gigantic waves at Praia do Norte could be surfed. He carried a pocket notebook and recorded what happened as he and the rest of the team confronted the canyon, the currents and the extraordinary force of the Atlantic meeting the headland.

Its pages capture the team’s early attempts to establish a workable system for surfing Praia do Norte, the development of the two-ski safety system, the failures, the long periods of waiting and the events surrounding the enormous wave ridden by Garrett McNamara on 1 November 2011. They also follow Mennie beyond Nazaré, through Irish big-wave expeditions and his nine-hour paddle across the North Channel to Scotland.

Mennie later returned to those brief handwritten entries and expanded them with the detail and perspective of someone directly involved. The photographs are predominantly his own, taken from inside the experience as it unfolded.

Combining the original handwriting, personal photographs, contemporary records and a complete facsimile of the surviving notebook, this book preserves a raw account of a formative period in big-wave surfing, before the story became something told and reshaped by others.

This is not a reconstruction from the outside.

It was seen from the water, photographed from within the project and written while it was happening.