Waterpeople Podcast

Called the "most underrated sports person in Australia" and the "greatest Bells surfer of all time”  Gail Couper has been both: at the centre and the sideline of surf culture and sport for the better part of her 77 years. She's seen a lot change, and helped to lay the foundation for Aussie surf culture as we know it today. Gail is a five-time national champion, and 10-time winn...

How many kids from Tennessee end up devoting their life to the world's heaviest waves? At least one. That's Lane Davey: Pipe Disciple, PhD, journalist and college lecturer at UH Mānoa.  Lane has dedicated much of her adult life to being present in the line-up at Pipeline – she was long the lone woman amongst the sword fight. We trace her unlikely trajectory from growing up in Tennessee,...

We’re getting tangential. This episode is part of a three episode slip slide behind the scenes of a project that Dave’s been working on for the better part of 2024: The Electric Acid Surfboard test .  It's a series that explores “alternative” surfboard design. Basically, iconic surfers on left-field, experimental surf craft.  Our very own aquatic wombat, renowned question repeater, one David...

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 aut...

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 c...

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...

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 ro...

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 offgr...

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...

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.  Send us Fan Mail ... Co-Ho...

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.  Send us Fan Mail ... Co-Hosts + Production: Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll Additional music by Kai Mcgilvr...

“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 custodi...

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 S...

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...

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 stre...

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 Lomb...

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 onboar...

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...

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 t...

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...

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 s...

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 man...

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...

Around 500,000 people were displaced by the 2018 earthquake that rocked the island of Lombok in Indonesia. It was estimated that 80% of all structures were levelled on the North of the island. At the time, Flora Christin Butarbutar , then in her early 20s, had taken up surfing on the Island of Bali. Originally from Sumatra, Flora was shaken by the need for help on the neighbouring island of Lombok...

Can a single wave really change your life? For Hawaiian waterwoman  Moana Jones Wong , one wave changed everything.  She shares about the fated, sparkling bomb at Pipeline that altered both her sense of self, and her surfing career.  Moana made history by winning the first ever Women’s Championship Tour event at Pipeline.  As a North Shore local, she cut her teeth in heavy water, earning her the t...