Patagonia NZ

I was born into a family who made its bread and butter in the southwest of Tas. Dad dropped out of school for the lure of the ocean and its lesser explored coastlines. A few years later mum would drop out of uni for the same reasons and, together, they bought an old timber cray boat. The rest is history. During their time working, exploring and existing in this seemingly endless wilderness, they came to understand it’s raw and untameable beauty.

Their love for wild places naturally washed over me and before too long I was able to spend my time as a stowaway on the cray boat. It was daunting at first. The untamed energy of the place is a lot to take in for a little grom. As you steam through the southern reefs of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel you’ll find yourself losing sight of civilisation bit by bit, until there’s nothing but hundreds of miles of untouched coastline and the merciless Southern Ocean to keep you company. Looking back, it doesn’t surprise me that it used to scare the shit out of me. At times it still does. The feeling that washes over you in that moment, when the rest of the world fades into nothing and your phone becomes useless, is one of the best feelings in the world. It’s pure freedom.

As a surfer, being able to spend time in tune with the ocean allows you to connect to a place on a different plane of consciousness and understanding. The ebbs and flows of the tides, the subtle changes in the movement of the ocean, the patterns in the clouds; it’s all a language, allowing those who have their eyes open to tap into their surroundings. I’ve always noticed how tapped in my old man has been and I think that surfing and living on the ocean in such a wild place has given him the ability to understand things on that deeper level. It’s like a sixth sense, a sense that seems to equate to a lot more time spent in the tube.

Surfers from Tassie seem to be built a little differently to your average mainlander. For the most part, there’s this element of mystery and adventure that drives the surfing community down here. It’s not about the surf half the time – if it was, no one would have much fun because the waves are shit a lot of the time. That love of the adventure in itself is what makes it so exciting and that sets it aside from the rest of Australian surf culture. To be completely honest though, sometimes it gets to the point where you start questioning why you started surfing in the first place.

But every once in a while, Huey throws you a bone and you’ll have one of those sessions that reminds you why you just spent the last couple of months in your 5/4, hood and boots, getting skunked time after time.

This element of adventure is rooted into our DNA as Tasmanian surfers. It’s why my dad decided to spend his life devoted to the southwest, and it’s what’s created some of my fondest memories. It’s nothing like all that low-hanging fruit found in the more favourable surfing parts of Aus. Down in Tassie you’ve gotta earn it.

Chasing waves in the southwest is another kettle of fish altogether. The whole experience hits a bit different when you’re completely isolated and left to your own devices. The weather can change at the drop of a hat and the charts are all pretty useless. If you’re not in the know then things can get pretty ugly, pretty damn quick. I was lucky to be passed on the knowledge gained by years of observing and endless hours handling crayfish, countless skunkings and the occasional epic session. This knowledge is something that will only keep growing with time and exposure whilst sinking in to this beautiful place, which I plan on doing for the rest of my life.

With 200 nautical miles of untouched coastline to explore, endless surf potential and unfathomable wilderness, I am grateful for the unpredictable weather and shit conditions 300 days of the year. If it wasn’t such an inaccessible and hostile part of the world then the empty lineups would look very different.

Thanks to a growing bunch of wilderness warriors and the relentless power of the Roaring Forties, I’m sure that I will be able to show my grandkids the same pristine and unfathomably wild coastline I’ve grown to love. I look forward to seeing the same fear in their eyes as we round South Cape and venture into the wilderness, all the while sharing the memories and understandings learnt from the handful of sessions when everything lined up just perfectly, shining through the backdrop of countless gloomy skunkings.