When I turned 25, I took a two-week solo trip to Australia to meet up with a few friends who lived down there.
Upon landing in Sydney, I immediately caught a domestic flight to Brisbane because the Noosa Festival of Longboarding was going on.
Simon Patchett his cousin Andy scooped me up from the airport in a rad little truck—the kind we don’t really have in the States, but seem to exist everywhere else in the world.
The next morning we all wanted to surf, but the waves were SMALL.
Like real small.
Artist, Photographer, and Long-Distance-friend, Simon Perini suggested we try a right hand point break a few headlands over from Noosa called Granites.
Big, heavy log in tow, I was ready for anything. I was just excited to surf.
We started hiking the trail toward our destination, and we just kept going and going. The air was humid and the board was getting heavy.
When we reached Tea Tree, Perini offered an alternative: I could keep hiking with the board, or I could paddle around the headland and Granites would be “just on the other side.”
Sufficiently sweaty, I opted for the paddling option.
Little did I realize “just around that headland” was a generous description of the path ahead.
I knee paddled my longboard out past the few surfers at Tea Tree and rounded the point toward our destination.
As I rounded the headland, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Separating me from the tiny specks that were two or three surfers in the distance was a massive bay stretched out before me.
Years later, I measured it on Google Maps. It’s about a 0.6 mile paddle.
My arms were already pretty cooked from paddling around the point, and there was no option but to put my head down and keep paddling.
Perini snapped this photo of me midway through that paddle. You can’t tell from the trail, but I’m SWEATING.
When I finally arrived at the break, the only two guys in the water were Matty Chojnacki and Ellis Erickson—two surfers who are masters at generating speed and flow in even the smallest waves.
We traded little right-handers for a while, and I remember being blown away at how fast and precise those guys could surf in such weak waves.
This was me doing my best to keep up, while Chojnacki paddled back out on the inside:
I honestly can’t remember the walk back to the car, but I know for sure I didn’t repeat that paddle again. Heavy longboard or not, I opted for the hike.
It remains one of the most memorable surfs of my life—both because of the effort it took to get there and the pristine little setup we scored that day.
Not sure I’m quite ready to tackle two flights, a drive, a hike, and a long-distance paddle to get there again, but I’m thankful for the memory and the photos Simon Perini snapped that day. And you can bet if I work that hard to get to waves again, it will be for a Left.
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