It was that simple. The only question was when to let go, and Garrett gave him the signal, releasing him early, as the wave was sloping. And Sharkey found himself in a series of big sets that would have exhausted him had he needed to paddle into them. The others in the lineup that day, those who’d paddled out, eyed him and frowned, but they recognized him and said nothing. Only one of the younger surfers, a haole, hardly twenty, whom Sharkey did not know and who did not know Sharkey, called out, “Dude, you hitched a ride!”

To make a point, Sharkey took the next wave, paddling in front of the young surfer, crowding him, forcing him aside while he swore and spat seawater. Sharkey dropped in, surfing the right face of the wave that curled over him, and rode inside the barrel to finish, bursting through the overhanging foam at the far side of the bay.

“Two more rides,” Garrett said, picking him up again, “and you’ll have it down pat. Just a little softer on your release.”

On the beach, toward sundown, Sharkey thanked Garrett for towing him. In his gratitude, he wanted as a gift to tell Garrett, almost twenty years younger, that he was learning tow-in surfing in order to ride the wave at Nazaré.

But he resisted sharing the name, and in the end they talked only of the day and the great surf and the vibe.

“Thanks for the rides,” Sharkey said. “Who knows what monster waves you can conquer with a tow-in.”

Garrett nodded. “Yeah, who knows,” he said. “But we’re not out to conquer, man.”

Sharkey’s smile was a query, a cue for more information.

“It’s not about conquest, Joe,” Garrett said. “We’re just complimenting the wave.”

But Sharkey saw it as much more than a compliment; he regarded it as a decisive statement, the assertion “I’m here, I’m on this monster wave, I’m still in the game”—and also as the last public flourish of a long career. No more trophies, no more contests, no more jostling; only the solitary ride down the greatest wave in the world, acknowledging the acclaim and then returning to his old haunts at Rocky Point and Leftovers and Pipeline. He hoped to leave his image on the memory of all the younger surfers: the old man bursting off the top of the wave at Nazaré and riding to the shore into obscurity, never to compete again.

The message he’d left for João was, “Call when it’s predicted to be monstrous.” And he advised his sponsor, Prime Fuel, that he was planning to attempt the biggest wave in the world; that the marketing team and photographers would need to be ready to converge at Nazaré in Portugal this coming winter.