Surfers took the sea off Nazare, Portugal, to face huge waves towering up to 65ft on December 16.

The footage shows professional surfers tackling the huge swells head-on seeing several wipeouts resulting in the athletes being towed to shore by jet ski.

December has been a specially active month during the current winter, with several low-pressure systems in the North Atlantic sending big swells against the coast of Portugal.

This raw footage video, captured this Monday, December the 16th in Praia do Norte, shows surfers riding up to 65-ft waves and experiencing terrifying wipeouts in the last Big Wave session in Nazaré on the coast of Portugal.

This big swell originated from a storm in the North Atlantic a week ago, and reached the Portuguese coast late on Sunday, reaching it’s energy peak on Monday. The heavy rain and unfavourable winds made it even more challenging to surf, but did not stop some of the best big wave riders in the world to charge it from early morning to the end of afternoon, when the energy peak declined.

Despite the extreme weather conditions, hundreds of curious spectators drove down to the muddy cliffs of Praia do Norte in Nazaré to watch these surfers perform. Sebastian Steudtner, Rodrigo Koxa, Nic Von Rupp, Andrew Cotton, Andrey Karr, David Langer, Caio Vaz, Ian Cosenza, Maya Gabeira and Justine Dupont and other Professional Big Wave Surfers were in the water, several big size waves were ridden and some will most likely end up being nominated for the WSL Big Wave Awards later this season.

December has been a specially active month during the current Winter, with several low pressure systems in the North Atlantic sending big swells against the coast of Portugal. Another big swell is about to reach Nazaré in a few days, possibly with unfavourable direction and wind for surfing.

Praia do Norte beach, near the fishing village of Nazaré, has become famous worldwide for huge waves in 2011, when Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara set a world-record for the largest wave ever surfed at 78-foot at the time, in 2017 that record was broken by Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa, setting the bar at 80-foot.