Ever heard of Pernambuco State, in Brazil? It's the country's best big wave zone. So, it should be no surprise that Carlos Burle – now retired but still revered as one of Brazil's all-time best big wave surfers – comes from there. Carlos was Brazil's first-ever big wave freesurfer. Rewind to 2001 and some of the biggest news to hit the surfing world that year was Carlos bouncing down the face of the biggest wave ridden to date at the time: a Mavericks bomb that clocked in at 68ft [20.7m].
But before that, way back in 1990, Carlos was Brazil's first big-wave champ. Two years later, he surfed what was then called the 'wave of the century' at Off the Wall, in Hawaii. Later, in '98, Carlos won the Big Wave World Championships, using his arms (no ski!) to scratch into avalanches at Bahía de Todos Santos, Mexico.
