When I was young I was shy and quiet. Either crooked teeth or lots of braces. 5-foot 90 pounds. Extreme neck tan line. Internalized everything. Read the lyrics to every song I heard with intensity. Emo. Third place finisher in most heats and I was Casper the friendly ghost to girls — nice and invisible. Life wasn’t a struggle though. Suburban. Pleasant. Skate ramps and shorebreak after school with good homies. Adolescence was pure and blessed.

Then I went to Australia when I turned 18.

I landed on the Gold Coast with three surfboards and two buddies. We immediately ran down to the sandbank at Snapper to check the waves for the first time and gazed out at the cerulean blue point bathed in sunshine, hearing the clean, fine white sand squeak beneath our feet. The prehistoric looking Ibis birds we later learned to loathe swarmed alongside frolicking teenage girls and surfers smothering the point with healthy bodies. We had unlocked a new level of life.

I’ve recently been reminded of this trip to surfing’s Never Never Land thanks to the seemingly endless running of the Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro. They say today is the final day but I’m still skeptical — they’re going to drop another round on us, I know it. But in keeping with my push for positivity, I will say it’s been a delight to watch despite having no idea who I’m watching due to the surf media’s contextual void on up-and-coming surfers. The Gold Coast is a mandatory stop for surfing and I’m thrilled it’s back.

During that first trip to Australia, our neighbor at the shabby rental apartment was a pure-blooded Australian mate named Mick Rabbidge — son to underground legendary shaper Mark Rabbidge (who actually shaped the board Tom Curren’s riding on that first wave at J-Bay). At the time, Mick was unemployed, but doing just fine. He surfed all day (absolutely ripped!), had a piece of shit car that was yellow and didn’t work well enough to get us to the next town, a rad girlfriend named Carly and he sank Victoria Bitter’s every night while watching surf videos. To us at 18, he was a legendary figure. He introduced us to cooking snags, showed us how to jump off the rock at Froggies (something that absolutely required local guidance), the bus schedule to Surfers Paradise and he always made sure we adopted the deepest cuts of Australian slang and were never caught in the rain without a VB. “Ah mate, bit of a storm rolling in…better head back and get a beer,” he’d say. Wise, right?

After 30 days in Australia we returned home thoroughly imprinted upon. Soldiers of surf travel. I can’t watch Snapper without reliving those first rides down the point and the fact that I’ve gotten one from “behind the rock” thanks to Mick. And while my heroes don’t necessarily live off the Dole anymore, Mick made an impression that I’ve never forgotten. Through simple friendliness he instilled confidence and enthusiasm into some groms who are still living with that. I know this because last night, my pal who was with me on that fateful trip, “Seves of the Sea” himself, texted me from a work trip in Mexico while watching the contest on his phone. “Stand talls behind the rock.” Only a friend of Mick Rabbidge knows the feeling. —Travis Ferré

[Above art: "Devil Returns from the War, Glazed Ceramic, 24 x 34 x 8 cm, by Nick Cave]