From: montage
The opening of the Hawaiian season began with a tearful goodbye to Andy Irons that spread worldwide, followed by a clash of former world champions at the Reef Hawaiian Pro.
Consider two representations of two very big waves, below. The first is a photograph of Mike Parsons at Cortes Bank. The second is a video of Garrett McNamara near Nazare, Portugal. Now take out some measuring tape and make the distance of one foot between your hands. That's the amount, according to the Billabong XXL committee, that McNamara's wave is bigger than Parsons's wave.