The big-wave surfer is speaking from the sheltered beach of Port Vieux. The late spring sun is setting into the Atlantic, shedding pastels on the white sand. Above and to the right, tourists walk along the metal bridge designed by Mr Gustave Eiffel to the Rock of the Virgin Mary, the statue that stands sentinel over Biarritz. The distant laughter coming from the local kids as they jump off the rocks into the ocean below speaks of the summer soon to arrive in the Bay of Biscay.

It was from Port Vieux that the Basque set out in their boats in the 12th century to hunt whales. The chase led them farther and farther west, with the result that the fishermen of Biarritz discovered the Americas a few hundred years before Mr Christopher Columbus did.

Very much later, Porcella’s Sardinian father made a pilgrimage of his own from Europe to the Americas. A journalist, he was covering a sporting event at Madison Square Garden, when he met and fell in love with Porcella’s mother, a native New Yorker.

Porcella was born in New York, but the family moved to Sardinia when he was a child. He was a gifted footballer and was signed by his local Italian Serie A team, Cagliari. When he was 14, however, the family moved to Maui and football was replaced by ocean sports. He was a talented windsurfer and surfer and developed a real passion for big-wave surfing.

In 2017, he won the XXL Biggest Wave Award, after riding a giant wave, measured at 73ft high, in Nazaré, Portugal. In 2022, he won the Ride Of The Year, for a wave surfed at his local spot, Jaws in Maui. Out of the water he has added backcountry snowboarding, base jumping, ballroom dancing (he finished as runner-up in Italy’s Dancing With The Stars TV show) and modelling to an eclectic CV.

“Whatever the environment, my goal is to click into the situation and the mood and be relaxed and confident,” the 36-year-old says. “But like in the ocean, you need to remain humble and alive to any changes.”

As the sun’s last rays splinter over Biarritz, Porcella is already planning his next move. A giant swell is forecast to slam into the big-wave spot of Teahupo’o in Tahiti. He is going to make sure he arrives in the South Pacific just before the swell does.

“I feel at home having the ocean close to me,” he says, as the Basque light fades slowly around him. “It brings a certain stillness. It’s an escape, but one that adds a texture and style to my world. I wouldn’t be me without it.”