Hailing from San Diego Greg Noll was part of a post war exodus of surfers to The North Shore of Oahu. There he slowly pushed big wave riding into the unknown realm. At first surfing breaks like Sunset at new sizes and then riding Waimea bay for the first time, and then charging it for years that followed thus opening up the greatest big wave spot of all time.

He also surfed the biggest wave ever attempted at Makaha, during the legendary 1969 swell, setting new levels of what could be achieved in huge surf. Simply put he set an early bar in giant swells and from this modern day big wave surfing grew.