Description: In this thrilling and candid memoir, world record-holding and controversial Big Wave surfer Garrett Mc Namara chronicles his emotional quest to ride the most formidable waves on earth. Garrett Mc Namara-affectionately known as G Mac-set the world record for the sport, surfing a seventy-eight-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal in 2011, a record he smashed two years later at the same break. Propelled by the challenge and promise of bigger, more difficult waves, this adrenaline-fueled loner and polarizing figure travels the globe to ride the most dangerous swells the oceans have to offer, from calving glaciers to hurricane swells. But what motivates Mc Namara to go to such extremes-to risk everything for one thrilling ride? Is riding giant waves the ultimate exercise in control or surrender? Personal and emotional, readers will know G Mac as never before, seeing for the first time the personal alongside the professional in an exciting, intimate look at what drives this inventive, iconoclastic man. Surfing awesome giants isn't just thrill seeking, he explains-it's about vanquishing fears and defeating obstacles past and present. Surfers and non-surfers alike will embrace Mc Namara's story-as they have William Finnegan's Barbarian Days-an its intimate look at the enigmatic pursuit of riding waves, big and small. Hound of the Sea is a record of perseverance, passion, and healing. Thoughtful, suspenseful, and spiritually profound, Mc Namara reveals the beautiful soul of surfing through the eyes of one of its most daring and devoted disciples.