Waterpeople Podcast

What does it take for you to slow down? Ziggy Alberts started playing live at 17, admittedly underprepared, but fizzing. By 21, he was staring at a studio ceiling noticing the lights had gone dim, but no one had touched the switch. It led him to break down to a friend. After years of “hell-for-leather” world-touring, he'd finally stayed still long enough to feel what he'd been outrunning...

When was the last time you had an epiphany?  Artist/activist Howie Cooke shares the sudden realisation that steered the course of his life's work - a handful of decades on the front lines of marine protection via NGOs, art, music and direct action.  Howie has spent 50 years boogie boarding, playing guitar and painting. He has shown in hundreds of art exhibitions around the world – in addition...

There's no straight lines in the ocean - nor in a surfing life. We sit with professional surfer and Bundjalung waterman Soli Bailey to trace his lines from early talent and success, through the grind of competing and a life-threatening neck injury, to a grounded love of surfing that’s deeper than any accolades. Soli opens up about the quiet crisis that arrived during lockdowns: paddling out a...

What are you unwilling to ignore?  Through her experience in pro surfing, journalism and law, Patti Paniccia is a formidable advocate for equity in the water and the workplace.   Patti helped build the IPS tour from the ground up, organised the Hawaii Women’s Surfing Hui to create opportunity, and then carried that same tenacity into law and journalism—ultimately winning a landmark workplace discr...

Ever felt the ocean fix what land couldn’t?  This episode, we turn the mics on one another and answer your questions about grief, love, parenting, and crowded lineups.  Hear the stories behind the sails, the garden, and the choices that have shaped us.  Also:  It’s time for our annual giveaway – you can enter by leaving a review of the podcast before January 15th – wherever you listen to podcasts....

What's a river to you ?  After cyclone Alfred crossed Australia's East Coast earlier this year, tens of thousands of fish died in our local river, Dave got a persistent staph infection and our community tousled with a question: what's wrong with our river? And what can we do about it ? How does change happen when we, and the world, seem stuck in our ways?  We’re curious about how ch...

At age 8, Sterling Spencer was signed to surf sponsorship and then had a successful amateur career before chasing the Pro Tour.  He was an early internet adopter who found his stride not in competitive surfing, but in making good fun of an earnest surf industry and culture.  Sterling is a pro surfer and media maker from Florida’s Gulf Coast known for blending high performance surfing with comedic...

Not long ago, Lady Elliot Island was basically unrecognisable. In the late 1800s, it was mined for guano used as agricultural fertiliser. The island was  stripped bare.  This is a story about what happens when one person has a vision and refuses to let hard work, qualifications or accepted definitions of 'possible' get in the way of curiosity. Regenerating the precious coral cay Lady Ell...

Grief, love, and lineage shape a rite of passage as our guests recall learnings from storms, stars, mentors, and manta rays at midnight. Ke'ilii Mcevilly is an environmental scientist with a Masters degree in sustainability. Ke'ili grew up surfing in California, and is now based on the island of Oahu. She is an artist and waterwoman involved in the flourishing of traditional Hawaiian cul...

A captain wakes in the night certain he’s wrecked in mangroves—only he’s on his own porch. That jarring reentry from a month under sail becomes our portal into a deeper story about attention, tradition, and becoming a different kind of person at sea with artist-sailor-filmmaker Chris Miyashiro . Chris takes us from his grandfather’s walls—painted with visions of Hōkūleʻa —to a 2,700‑mile, unsuppor...

What does it mean to live a life of service? Pipeline pioneer John Peck was devout to many things over this 81 years, and exploring this question was amongst them.  In 2015, we hosted John for what was a precursor to this podcast - a storytelling evening in our local community hall. He was captivating - virtually no one moved for hours, as Dave's questions and John's stories interwove wi...

Two friends chart a path from pain to agency: Layne Beachley examines the drive behind seven world titles and finds a search for self-worth, while Tess Brouwer turns a hidden spinal injury and a hospital-bed reckoning into a mental fitness toolkit.  Together, Layne and Tess are the co-authors of the book Awake Academy , wherein they share the life altering changes that shook their respective sense...

Every mid-aged Aussie bloke's favourite surfer? That's Margo.  Widely recognised as the first paid freesurfer - Brenden 'Margo' Margieson is famed almost as much for his gentle demeanour as his explosive power surfing.  We traced some of his undulating journey through a surfing life's highs and lows. From early days being propelled by legendary filmmaker Jack McCoy, to une...

How does change happen when we, and the world, seem stuck in our ways?  We’re curious about how change happens – and what people are doing on the ground, in our community, to create the causal pathways to shift social and environmental ideas, norms, and policy.  Listen in for stories from the 2025 Waterwomen Camp Out put on by the NGO Surfers for Climate .  The Waterwomen Camp is an annual weekend...

Is there a particular fear that's still holding you back?  Holistic surf therapist and coach Holly Beck talks us through the way she sees terrestrial life play out in the water -  in terms of how we behave and how we engage with others and with the ocean.  Holly spent 10 years as a professional surfer, where she pioneered new pathways for women in the industry as a competitor, savvy freesurfe...

Who's your youngest friend?  We just met one of ours: 11-year-old surfer, shaper and filmmaker Hunter Williams .  This year, Hunter won the grom shorts category at the Noosa International Surf Film Festival with his movie Heirloom .  Informing an impressive depth of knowledge about surfboard building and design, is Hunter’s spectral surfing skill – he talks us through peak moments of tube tim...

Rites of passage , once central to marking life’s transitions, have faded in modernity. As we navigate rising anxiety, social fragmentation, and a world where technology permeates nearly all aspects of our shared human experience, what role could a revival of rites of passage play in reclaiming our resilience and our capacity for social cohesion? Dr Arne Rubinstein is the CEO and Founder of the Ri...

How much has your homebreak shaped you - your life, livelihood, the person you've become?  The quirkiness of Dylan Graves '  Puerto Rican homebreak shaped a lifelong obsession, and subsequent career in chasing, riding, and documenting Weird Waves around the globe. Tidal bores, standing waves, wedges, glacial calving swells; Dylan's Youtube channel shares an astonishing diversity of...

What moves you through the world? In the most literal sense, it's the same answer for all of us: muscle.  In On Muscle , Bonnie Tsui brings her signature blend of science, culture, immersive reporting, and personal narrative to examine not just what muscles are - but what they mean to us.  Bonnie attended Harvard University, where she rowed crew, snowboarded, and studied American literature....

Besides being a professor of chemistry, Dr. Sarah Gerhardt was the first woman to ride one of the world’s most feared waves, Mavericks in icy Northern California. She is a mother of two and acknowledged as the first female tow-in surfer.   Amidst a tumultuous childhood, Sarah found stability in an unexpected place: The Periodic Table of Elements. Sarah learned to surf in the late '80s at Pism...

When was the last time you followed a spark of curiosity all the way to some distant shoreline? Kiana Weltzien 's ocean adventures began in 2016 when she left her real estate career in Miami for a year of travel. Along the way, she met a mentor and moved onto his boat; a replica Polynesian double-canoe. She sensed that this was her new way of life. In 2018, Kiana acquired her own boat, Mara N...

What's lost when we hand over skills or experiences to technology ?  We sat down with localisation pioneer Helena Norberg-Hodge to learn more about the waves of radical economic and social changes she has experienced first hand.  In 1975, as a student of linguistics amongst the glacial melt of the Himalayas, Helena witnessed the rapid erosion of traditional culture that followed the introduct...

How do we make magic boards last longer? Gary McNeill and Dave have been experimenting with alternative, non-petrochemical materials for the last decade. The front runner in their experiments? Flax cloth, for board strength and durability. Stab recently ran The Electric Acid Surfboard Test , to explore the validity of their flax tinkerings. This episode features the flax master himself, shaper Gar...

How do you better a culture?  How do we better surf culture? Dr. Krista Comer is a scholar of American literature and cultural politics. She has written widely about women and surfing as a way "to build bridges between university and community, or subcultural knowledges. Because we need each other to understand the worlds we inhabit, and to make better worlds. I need bridges to stay true to w...

Many professional athletes struggle to transition from their sport-as-career. The highs are often out of reach for pedestrian life - especially for pro surfers who spend their years in whirlwinds of hedonistic wave chasing. For Puerto Rican tube connoisseur Otto Flores , the key to transition was community. After many national titles and a spell on the World Qualify Series, Otto veered away from c...