The extremal spatial dependence of significant wave height in the North East Atlantic is explored using Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network satellite altimeter observations for the period 2002–2018, and a spatial conditional extremes model motivated by the work of Heffernan and Tawn. The analysis involves (a) registering individual satellite passes onto a template transect, (b) marginal extreme value analysis at a set of locations on the template transect and transformation from physical to standard Laplace scale, (c) estimation of the spatial conditional extremes model for a set of locations on a template transect, and (d) comparison of extreme spatial dependence for different template transects. Inferences for two transects considered are qualitatively similar; however, for the “normal ascending” transect running approximately south-west to north-east lying between Iceland and the United Kingdom, extremal spatial dependence is found to decay more quickly than for the second “opposite descending” transect running approximately north-west to south-east to the west of Ireland.