Episódios

  • Who modelled kindness for you? Who showed you how to be kind and curious in the face of difference?

    Before he was a Fulbright Scholar, Jamie Brisick surfed on the ASP world tour from 1986 to 1991, and has since documented surf culture extensively.

    His writings and photographs have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Guardian.

    Jamie hosts the podcast Soundings and is the author of several books, including We Approach Our Martinis With Such High Expectations, and Becoming Westerly: The transformation of surfing champion Peter Drouyn into Westerly Windina – which Jamie adapted for the screen.

    Jamie popped by after the World Premiere of his film The Life and Death of Westerly Windina at the Byron Bay International Film Festival -- where it took home top honours as Best Surf Film, as well as the festival’s highest recognition, Best Film.

    The Life and Death of Westerly Windina explores Westerly’s upbringing, her years as a surfing titan, and follows her into a new chapter as she searches for acceptance from friends, family, a still-hyper masculine sport, and most importantly – from herself.

    We were grateful to sit down with Jamie to chat about the film, the fire that took almost all his earthly possessions, where tech is taking surfing, and the folks in his life who modelled curiosity and compassion.



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    Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

    Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander

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  • Longevity in any career begs for reinvention. With more than a decade at the pro surfing game, Josie Prendergast has been navigating new waters in her career - by taking the reins on her own storytelling.

    Born in Siargao and raised in both Australia and the Philippines, Josie is a standout surfer on any craft – from 10+ gliders to fishes – and she’s expert at nasal navigation on heavy logs.

    We caught up with Josie for her first podcast experience between surfs in Byron – where she talked us through finding early commercial success in the surf industry, finding belonging between two cultures, surviving the Philippines Supertyphoon of 2021 and aiding her community to rebuild after the disaster.

    Josie’s latest edit Expressions of Interest is out now. It’s a film she produced with local filmmaker Georde Grigor as a tribute to the simple pleasure of wave riding and the special moments shared with friends in the water.

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    Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

    Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander

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  • Did sailing have more to do with early human locomotion than the wheel? Hanneke Boon, head of James Wharram Designs, suggests that may be so.

    Born in the Netherlands, Hanneke grew up in a sailing family. She was building and sailing Polynesian Catamarans at the age of fourteen and joined the James Wharram team at the age of 20.

    A gifted artist / graphic designer / craftworker, she became James Wharram's co-designer. For half a century, all Wharram Designs have been marked with her signature.

    According to Yachting World, “Despite this unique pencil stroke, she has remained in the shadow of Wharram’s mythology for 50 years. Since 1970, Boon has drawn the majority of the construction plans by hand. They’re works of art and the best way to imagine yourself aboard a Wharram. Without her, JW Designs would not be what it is.”

    Of the Polynesian double canoe inspired designs - once called ‘dangerous and eccentric,’ James Wharram said:

    “A philosophic attitude behind the Wharram designs is that 'urban man' can, with a little financial saving and some handcraft work, create an object of beauty. This object of beauty can then, for a period of hours, days, weeks or months, carry him/her out of the urban world into a natural never-never land; the seas and oceans; to a time when the world was young; when Mankind was directly and intimately interacting with the beauty and power of nature. There are hundreds/thousands of Wharram builders or, as I prefer to call them, "Sea People", who have done or are now doing that!"

    Hanneke has built, or taken part in building, more than sixteen Wharram designs, including developing many prototypes and the 63ft Spirit of Gaia - and is an expert epoxy worker.

    She talked us through the simple joys of life at sea, the central role that sailing has played in human evolution and the near death revelation that set her a new course.

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    Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander

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  • Over the last half century, Bob McTavish has shaped thousands of custom surfboards.

    Always an innovator in surfboard design and technology, Bob pioneered cutting edge changes to the basic concept of a surfboard.

    In 1965, he started tinkering with rail and bottom design to maximise performance. This was part of the movement that would become known as the shortboard revolution, in which Bob’s role was pivotal, but only part of his ongoing contribution to the evolution of the surfboard.

    Now in his eighth decade, Bob continues to push the limits of surfboard design across the full range of wave-riding vehicles, including the shape that we focus on in this conversation – the 10 foot plus glider.

    After 5 years dormant, Bob brought his objective surf contest concept - The McTavish Trim - to our local surf festival with three rules:

    Rule #1 - Board must be 10ft+
    Rule #2 - Furthest up the beach wins -- must hit the sand (paddle around the very wide buoy)
    Rule #3 - Must stay on your feet

    Surfing is full of old men who calcify and only speak of the good 'ole days. Bob is not one of those guys -- he's still full of wonder and has made a career out of his wave riding curiosity.

    We were lucky enough to sit down with Bob in front of a live audience at the 2024 Byron Bay Surf Festival in the parking lot of the McTavish factory - to talk all things glider, the surf/life balance, and how he has stayed perpetually stoked.

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  • Did you feel safe in your childhood home? If not, were you able to leave, or did you have to stay?

    Ruby Southwell hit the road, travelling solo for years, searching for guidance. What she found was a deep and clear inner well - and a renewed love for riding waves.

    At age 22, Ruby moved to Indonesia’s remote Mentawai Islands, where she surf guided, taught herself how to tube ride, and lived offgrid with a local family for just over two years.

    Ruby is known as a wildly talented navigator of weighty situations – both on land and in the water. Clips of her have been shared readily on social media – where you’ve probably seen her riding twinnes, pulling into big barrels, and displacing water in a distinctly feminine way.

    When "Big Surfing" came knocking about sponsorship, Ruby took the deal, but she also took the reins. With her content budget, Ruby defied the norms and made a short film about the Mentawai’s pioneering female surfer Siska.

    Parallel to wave riding, and now back in Australia, Ruby works to support at risk youth, with her sights on exploring the best of what her big island home has to offer.

    She shares generously about the joys and adversities that have shaped and are shaping her path forward: the life changing joy of a magic board, travelling humbly, keeping an eye out for gurus in the Himalayas, and the only core surfer she's ever met.

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  • What's the most challenging experience you've faced? Did it ultimately hinder or heighten your self-clarity?

    Brett Burcher is a heavy water specialist - a slab hunter who chases the thickest waves to some of the most far flung locations. He was given an irrevocable invitation to learn to lay down, be still and breathe when he hit the reef and suffered a spinal cord injury in remote South Australia.

    We wanted to talk story with Brett not only for his crazy stories of stretching the edges of his genre of wave riding, but also because he’s transformed the intense things that have happened to him into meaningful action to help others.

    Brett is a former professional surfer, turned primary school teacher, who now shares his experientially honed breathwork skills through retreats and workshops.
    Brett also works as a disability support worker. He was recently in town to support surfer Cliffo Gralton — who competed at the Adaptive Surfing World Tour event held in Byron in March 2024.

    We caught up with Brett between heats to talk about facing insomnia, training the "Sunset special" and getting into flow.


    ...

    In this episode we also hear briefly from 5x ISA Para Surfing World Champion Victoria Feige who is campaigning for the inclusion of Para Surfing at the 2028 Olympics. She's looking to gather 25,000 signatures - Sign on to support her efforts here.

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  • As a follow up to our episode with heavy water specialist Brett Burcher we wanted to share a couple of breathwork practices that Brett found most practical in his own life - whether he’s dealing with insomnia, or about to drop into a bomb set wave.

    This is a levelling breath practice— not an upper or downer -- just a way to reconnect with a gentle balanced breath state.

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  • In this bonus episode slab hunter Brett Burcher takes us through an energising breath practice that he’s found useful when you need a little extra pep in your step.

    This is your reminder: breathe like you mean it.

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  • “Whether or not you think you belong to the Earth is irrelevant, for you simply do. By virtue of breathing in you receive a gift of oxygen given by the tree and soil, by virtue of breathing out you gift carbon dioxide to the kelp so the fish may have their home. To accept our shared responsibility to the Earth, IS to remember our belonging.” – Nidala Barker

    Nidala is a surfer, musician and custodianship educator. She traces part of her ancestral roots to the Djugun and Jabirr-Jabirr people of the Kimberley in Australia’s North West, where she was initiated in lore and story.

    Nidala holds a Masters Degree in Sustainability, in addition to degrees in Public Policy and Social Justice Law. In 2021, she released a carbon neutral EP named ‘Colours of my People.’ and sits on the board of Green Music Australia and The Returning Indigenous Corporation.

    Through her music and custodianship workshops, Nidala blends Indigenous wisdom with innovative scientific perspectives to remind us of our belonging to this world. Her work invites us to step bravely into our shared responsibility to protect country.

    Nidala talks us through the near drowning that saved her, how to acknowledge country meaningfully - and why, building a tiny home from waste, and what it means to step into custodianship.


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  • Why are some octogenarians still surfing, while others struggle to walk up the stairs? It isn’t luck.

    Harvard and Stanford trained Orthopaedic surgeon Kevin R. Stone, MD, believes that injuries present as opportunities to better our athletic potential - they can make us fitter, faster, and stronger than before. He is the author of Play Forever: How to Recover From Injury and Thrive.

    Dr. Kevin Stone is a waterman and a world-renowned expert in biologic joint replacement. He founded The Stone Clinic and is Chairman of the Stone Research Foundation.

    Dr. Stone has served the US Ski Team, the US Pro Ski Tour, the Marin Ballet, the Smuin Ballet, the Modern Pentathlon at the US Olympic Festival, and the US Olympic Training Center. His innovative work in the orthopaedic arena has led to multiple awards, publications, and grants and has resulted in approximately fifty issued US patents.

    Dr. Stone talks us through a recent injury, the vulnerabilities of a surfing body, new paradigms of ageing, the remarkable regenerative capacity of our bodies, and why play should be part of every day.

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  • How to fund a pro surfing career in the 1980s? Sell stickers, Levi’s jeans, bicycles, whatever. Sleep in your board bag. Live on a diet of mushrooms and bread. World Champion Pauline Menczer got resourceful and hustled however it took to get her to the next stop of the tour.

    “In the 80s and 90s, surf culture was toxic, especially towards women. Pauline was a dirt-poor, chronically ill teen from Bondi, who defied insults and intimidation to make a name for herself in the surfing world.

    When Pauline's determination propelled her onto the pro tour, her battle for acceptance and equality didn't end there. The endemic sexism of the industry meant prize money for women was a pittance, while sponsors ignored her because she was gay and didn't have the stereotypical surfer girl look that male marketing managers were after. Despite these challenges, Pauline became the 1993 World Champion and played a key role in bringing greater equality to the sport.

    Pauline recently penned a memoir called Surf Like a Woman. Through it we see clearly the unfairness of a sexist surf industry, and the rise of a modern surf shero who won the world title — and has made a life of sharing the gifts of a surfing despite physical, emotional and financial adversities.

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  • When is surfing about more than just selfish wave hoggery?

    Mozambique’s first professional surfer, Sung Min Cho, or ‘Mini’ for short, is writing a new story for surfing – he’s part of a burgeoning surf culture rising from the wake of three decades of armed conflict in the region.

    In 2018, Mini co-counded Tofo surf club, Mozambique’s outpost of Surfers Not Street Children, which empowers street kids through surf coaching and mentorship. The effort has been funded in part by Pope Francis.

    Mini is on a mission to earn representation for his country in the Olympics — and spoke to us passionately about his love of surfing – not just for himself, but as a tool to lift up others, especially kids -- and as a lens for Mozambiqucans to write and tell their own stories in their own words. Stories about a nation brimming with natural beauty, resilient people and very good surf.

    photo credit: Alan Van Gysen

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  • Ever want to pack up normalcy and set sail over the horizon? What’s it really like to live at sea for a year and rarely be further than 35 feet from your new significant other?

    Torren Martyn and Aiyana Powell talk us through the peaks and troughs of life aboard Calypte, a borrowed 35-foot sailing boat that they spent 12 months sailing 9,000-kilometres - from Pattaya in the Gulf of Thailand to Lombok, an Indonesian island east of Bali - a journey chronicled in their new independent film Calypte.

    With little practical sailing experience, Torren and Aiyana learned as they went – how to be fisherfolk, navigators, meteorologists, and mechanics to take care of running repairs — and still found plenty of surf along the way.

    Torren and Aiyana talk us through the happenstance of meeting, their time aboard Calypte – the trials of trust and communication at sea— and their newest adventure – starting a family together.

    Photo credit: Ishka Folkwell

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  • The loudest human-made sounds: Nuclear Bomb (224 dB), Rocket launch (204 dB). And clocking in at 260 underwater decibels is the seismic blast, part of a process for exploring for oil and gas in the ocean. Unlike bombs and rockets, however, seismic blasts "fire approximately every 10 seconds around the clock for months at a time."

    For eight years, Marine Biologist Annie Ford worked onboard seismic blasting vessels, and felt the relentless explosions and reverberations from her bed at night. She has since peddled away from the fossil fuel industry and become one of its most creative whistleblowers.

    Annie is a mountain biking world record holder and has spent time surfing and sailing around the world, including multiple expeditions to Antarctica.

    Today, Annie is the National Campaign Manager for the Surfrider Foundation Australia, where she is currently working to halt the largest marine seismic blasting project ever proposed. It is slated to take place off the coast of her home island of Lutruwita (Tasmania) – and will emit some of the loudest human made noises ever created – to the detriment of an entire ecosystem.

    We caught up with Annie as she completed a 4,000 km bike ride (that about 2,500 miles) to talk about endurance, optimism, changing careers, and her entwined commitment to kindness, climate action and adventure.

    ....

    To get a download of the seismic blasting audio file to share at your community event, school, or tense family gathering, please send us an email: [email protected]

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    Photo Credit: Rod Drury

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  • Are you investing in yourself and your curiosities? At 63, Sally Parkin sold her home to spend the better part of 2023 surfing in Australia with her family.

    Sally is known for "single handedly" reviving the 100 year old tradition of English surfing on wooden bodyboards. She first surfed one at age 5, and decades later, when her family's quiver started to break, she realised there was only one local maker of traditional boards remaining.

    She founded The Original Surfboard Company to both produce timber boards and to recover the lost art of English prone surfing.

    Joined by surf historian and shaper extraordinaire Tom Wegener, we met up with Sally on her tour of Australia, and she talked us through the logistics of reviving a nearly-lost art, researching the great novelist Agatha Christie's surfing adventures, and the joys of adaptive bottom contours.

    ...


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    Photo Credit: Celia Galpin

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  • Injuries are mostly out of our control. But recovery offers many choices. Will we allow the scar tissue to stiffen or soften us?

    Stu Nettle is the editor of Swellnet, one of Australia's leading independent surf media and forecasting sites, where he has written about board design, surf industry happenings, surf science, and coastal geology since 2008.

    Stu is a lifelong surfer but late-comer to surf media. He “had many unrelated life chapters, business failures, social experiments, and surf adventures before he ever got a word published.”

    We first encountered Stu’s work amongst the lively pages of Kurangabaa, an academic – leaning surf journal he helped to found and run in the early 2000s. It was a trove of thoughtful essays, along with poetry, fiction and interviews – and part of a larger, exciting, indepedent DIY surf culture of that time.

    We wanted to know: what kind of life has shaped the voice and perspective of one of Australia's most prolific surf journalists?

    Stu talks us through the Sunset Beach hold down that changed him, the value of knowing our history, gender politics at Swellnet and the the future(s) of surf media.


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  • Raised on a diet of deep ecology and the DIY spirit of her single mom, Pacha Light earned her first surfboard busking as a tween. She then forged her way into professional surfing as a teenager on Australia’s Gold Coast: signing a big endemic sponsor, training every day, and making a name for herself as a competitor and surf model.

    Until she couldn’t do it any longer. She felt she was not fully in alignment with her values.

    Still, along the way, Pacha found her storytelling voice, bringing depth and meaning to her surf travel by weaving in local social and environmental projects wherever she went. Her three part Women of the Sea series dove into the rich aquatic cultures adjacent to surfing in Japan and South Korea.

    Now in her early 20s, Pacha talks us through what led her to say “thanks, but no thanks” to her long-time surfing sponsor. She shares about the search for belonging after her father’s passing, vying for a spot in the Olympics, and “understanding that we are called to be a part of the Earth protecting itself.”

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    Photo Credit: Unknown (If you took this photo please reach out)

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  • Have you ever felt like something was wrong, but you weren't quite sure how to name it?

    Tyler Wilde is a teacher and bodysurfer from southern California. In 2017, Tyler won the prestigious International Surf Festival bodysurfing contest and was later voted into the Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association as one of their youngest members.

    As a physical education teacher, his goal is to help his students "feel more embodied."

    Tyler went through a lengthy bout with depression and anxiety, and like many of us, he struggled to pinpoint the underlying causes. Getting back to the ocean helped - he says that "bodysurfing saved his life."

    But it was supporting one of his students through their own reckoning with embodiment, and their gender transition, that helped Tyler to understand that he, too, was a trans person. He learned a new language that helped to unlock some of what he was feeling and helped him to finally envisage a healthy future for himself, as his true self.

    Tyler's story is documented in the film Gender Outlaw (watch it here), which chronicles the role bodysurfing played in his gender transition.

    He talked us through bodysurfing binaries, finding his community in an unexpected place, the joy of love, and bringing kindness and compassion to complex conversations.

    ...

    Tyler's recommended resources for gender inclusionary insights, support and education:

    @translifeline is a peer support and crisis hotline for the trans community

    @trevorproject is a suicide prevention hotline for the LGBTQ+ community

    @pinkmantaray Schuyler is a wonderful resource for people who are trying to learn more about trans people and specifically trans athletes

    @alokvmenon - love their educational work

    @athleteally

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  • A little fire can keep you warm; a big fire can burn your house down.

    Two time ASP World Surfing Champion Tom Carroll speaks candidly about his struggles to harness the power that made him famous. From the highs of professional surfing to addiction and meditation, his large life is a study in harnessing and honing one's power in mind and body.

    Few surfers ever perform a wholly memorable maneuver . Tom broke down that norm in 1991 when he threw down a turn under the heaving lip of Pipeline - "a move that was so beautiful and so grotesque" that it is still recalled as "one of the boldest moves ever pulled in pro surfing.

    Tom excelled competitively on the World Championship Tour for 14 years, finishing in the top 5 nine times, winning 26 events and earning surfing’s first million-dollar sponsorship contract. As a three-time Pipe Masters Champion, Tom is often considered the performance bridge between Gerry Lopez and Kelly Slater.

    Today, Tom is recognized as a teacher of meditation and wellness. He spoke with us about his sobriety, the "sharing wave" competition format, fathering while on meth, learning to listen and the absurd list of injuries he has endured as an elite athlete.



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    Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

    Additional music by Dave & Ben

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    Photo Credit: Quicksilver

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    Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

    Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander

    Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

    Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander

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  • Many of us dream of laying roots in some balmy, wave-rich location far from where we sprouted - to grow food and let the ocean dictate the day. Few of us do it.

    Christian and Ka'ale Sea have spent the last 21 years together - surfing, diving, planting, growing a family. They have three daughters, all homeschooled on the remote West Coast of Sumba Island, Indonesia, where they own and operate Ngalung Kalla retreat.

    Christian started life in the Atlantic, on the 48-foot wooden sailboat his father rebuilt. Launching from their homestead on St. Thomas, Christian chased waves in Fiji, Tahiti, New Zealand, Hawaii and Australia before settling on the Big Island of Hawai’i, where he earned a degree in Marine Science and eventually worked up the nerve to ask out Ka'ale.

    Bree Ka'alemalu Sea - Ka'ale for short - is a surfer and dive instructor who was homeschooled on the wild Puna Coast of the Big Island. In her late teens, she took off to explore the wider world spending time elsewhere in Polynesia, Thailand, India, Nepal and Indonesia. She eventually settled back on the Big Island where she studied Hawaiian culture and, together with Christian, nurtured a rustic homestead and put permaculture principles to practice in the jungle.

    They spent ten years as the in-house waterman and woman at one of the best hotels in the world before packing up their truck to camp on the land that is now Ngalung Kalla Retreat. Over the past decade they’ve established flourishing food gardens to help feed visiting adventurers, and have built a collection of cliff-top Sumbanese guest houses to share.

    Together, they've had many beginnings, most initiated by their commitment to the water. Listen in to hear about their experiments in systems thinking, remote parenting, and building spaces that keep us present.



    Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

    Sound Engineer: Ben Alexander

    Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

    Additional music by Dave & Ben

    Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast

    Send us a text

    ...

    Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

    Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander

    Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

    Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander

    Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast

    ...

    Get monthly musings and behind the scenes content from the podcast by subscribing to our newsletter.

    You'll get water-centric reading and listening recommendations, questions worth asking, and ways to take action for the wellbeing of Planet Ocean delivered straight to your inbox.

    You can stream every Waterpeople episode from your desk.