Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, what's the Gingerbread man brought in?
[00:00:04] Speaker B: The Gingerbread man's brought in a cheeky monkey hard ginger beer. I'll tell you what it is an absolute ripper. T Bone, have you tried that cheeky monkey Ginger beer?
[00:00:14] Speaker A: I actually had one last night, mate. I like how it's called the Hard Ginger beer because a lot of ginger beers aim for the mid strength 3.5. But Cheeky Monkey have gone on the 5.8% ginger beer, and I feel like that's where it needs to be. Not much sugar, lots of alcohol, hard ginger beer, cheeky monkey.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: Get it, India.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: And if you go in a vass in the industrial area, they'll give you 10% off if you mention barreled.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Sick, sweet, refreshing and spicy. Just like you, T Bone.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: Barrel Surf Podcast.
[00:00:43] Speaker D: Barrel Surf Podcast.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Barreled Surf podcast.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Barreled Surf Podcast. Barreled Surf Podcast.
[00:00:48] Speaker D: Barrel Surf Podcast.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Barrel Surf Podcast.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Yeeha.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: All right. G'day Legends naming here for Barrel Surf Podcast. This week on the show, T Bone catches up with legendary and perhaps slightly mystical shaper and surfer Jim Banks. Living in Bali these days, T Bone was just over there. Recently, Jimmy Banks was under the pump.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: With deliveries, so he suggested to T.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Bone that he jump in the car with him and have a bit of a journey around the booket, delivering boards and stoke all around the place. Classic T Bone and classic Jim Banks. Absolutely love it. As usual, the Barrel Surf Podcast is brought to you by Cheeky Monkey, Forester, estate shark eyes, and of course, down South Physio. Now, if you've been listening to the show for a while, you'll be aware that all of us are on the Ag One train. Athletic greens. For me, it's all about the gut. Health helps me out immensely in that area. And now my whole family's on it, so I don't actually get to drink as much of it as I used to. But if you want to take ownership of your health, jump into Ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. Just go to Ag one barreled. AG one barreled. Now it's on with the show.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: I'm Nate Florence, and this is the Slab tour, brought to you by the Barreled Surf podcast. So I've just rocked up to a restaurant in Bali, and now I've just jumped in the back of Jim's Suzuki car. And it's probably the first time that we've recorded a podcast while we're mobile. But Jim, you're a busy man, but thanks for taking the time.
[00:02:33] Speaker C: No, worries.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Now you've stepped out of the shaping bay, mate. Can you let us know what you got your hands on today?
[00:02:40] Speaker C: I was shaping a couple of boards for a buddy who surfs pretty hard, charges a lot of the bigger days. So I shaped them a nice seven foot, three pin tail twin fin, and a seven foot kind of a. More of a mid lengthy type swallowtail twin fin.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Now, I heard you recently. Well, by the way, firstly, I did try just recently, your wing keel fins. Actually, a mate of mine back home raves about them because I've been riding quads for a long time, and he goes, you got to try these keels.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: The hookers, I think they're the hookers.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: They're like a golden color and just changed up the looseness of the surfboard and the speed of.
[00:03:21] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it's a good fin, that one I originally developed for Kelly because we were making a couple of boards for Kelly, and I thought, how can I get more performance out of the.
You know, what I've learned is with twin fins, for me, is that having that keel base, having that long base is really critical, and that without that fin base, you just don't get the drive and stability that I like to feel under my feet. So it was all about, okay, I need to keep the base, but how can I get more performance out of it? So what I did was I tuned the tip of the fin to be more of a performance type tip. So you've got all that drive and speed and power from the base, but then you've got that nice, lively response from the tip, and it seems to work really good for everyone.
Boards for small ways, boards for big ways. I mean, I ride them in my nine foot, my gun is a nine foot twin fin, and I ride them in that, and then I ride them in my short, my little six foot grovela.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: So it doesn't really matter for you. You're purely Twin fins these days.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: Pretty much.
Pretty much.
I still like single fins. So I have a few single fins that I like to surf every now and then. I just like that there's something really pure about riding a single fin, and it's a bit more challenging.
It's like you just can't get away with stuff that you can on a multi fin board. So I like that having that more of a challenge. And I don't know, it's something about a single fin that, for me, when you watch the birds gliding along a swell, it feels like that. That's how a single fin feels to me. When I'm on a nice know, but apart from it's just, it's all, you know.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: You're speaking about Kelly. I think he wrote, didn't he ride a twin when they had that CT comp in crumace? And everyone was, you know, look how loose and drivey that thing is. I can't remember what board he was on, but, yeah, I did notice he picked up a couple from you recently. A couple of twin fins.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: Just this year. My memory is so bad. I think it was actually last year. Last year we made him a little thruster, but it was just a real dart throw. I didn't really know what rocker he was using, and I just sort of wanted him to feel the bottom contour that I've been working on for the last five or six years.
And he was heading off to J Bay. I think something happened. I think the boards got lost or stolen. Something weird happened. And I think it would have been a really good board for him, for Jay Bay, but I don't think he'd ever made it there.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Now, what sort of bottoms have you been working on? Because I did see one of your photos you put up. It looked pretty unique sort of bottom design there.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: Yeah, well, a few years ago, well, it was probably about six years ago, I was looking at some friends, had some pizza padillax, and I was taking a look at the boards, and I saw the V in the bottom, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I was like, yeah, that would make sense for big waves to drop a V in. But I've shaped V bottom boards for decades, and I know the limitations of the V. So I was like, well, what Can I do to sort of get around the limitation of the V? So I sort of combined it with a concave.
And if you look at it, you go, okay, well, it's just a V with concave panels, but I've spent about six years working on now fine tuning it.
I used to make Concave V's, and, man, this doesn't serve anything like a concave V.
There's a performance level that makes a concave board just feel, like, really slow and clunky and clumsy.
And it really does.
In surfboard design, it's a trade off. You gain this, you lose that.
And this combination of the V with a concave has really surprised me because I've lost all the downside of the V, and I've lost all the downside of the concave. And I've kept the pluses, I've kept the beautiful rail to rail transition of the V, that beautiful smooth feeling under the feet, the way it naturally finds its own line. All that beautiful stuff that the V's do. But then I've got all this drive and acceleration and lively response of the concave. So it really surprised me how well it's worked. And I've tested it in everything from know. I go up to West Bali where the waves are so soft, they're as soft as anywhere in the world.
And that worked well there.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: And I ride it, just generate heaps of speed on it.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: I ride it in my nine foot guns and, yeah, it's just really amazed me just how well it's turned out. I really think that further down the track, it'll become the standard bottom contour because it just surfs so much better than the contour.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Wow, that sounds interesting. Yeah. So, just with surfing in general, are you the sort of guy that sort of picks the eyes out of the conditions or are you just happy just to get out there no matter what, just to get in the water?
[00:08:25] Speaker C: I think all of us that live here in Bali, we're pretty fussy. We catch such high quality surf. If there's a slight blemish in the swell line or something like, oh, yeah, that's a bit ordinary, I'll pass.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: That sounds very similar to how we feel down in the southwest. Wa.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Yeah, now we get so much surf here, it's crazy. Which is, for a sHaper, it's a dream.
It's incredible to have better to go test boards out on a daily basis.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Epic.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: And Uluwar, too. It's got every single wave under the sun. You've got wedging peaks, you've got long walls, you've got soft days, you've got powerful days. You've got massive days, tiny days. There's every wave under the sun out there.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: You need a full quiver, don't you?
[00:09:12] Speaker C: So for a row testing round for surfboards, it's just shape is dream.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: I see that you went in the single fin up at Ulu's. Looked like you had an epic day of surf. Yeah. How was your heat? Was that your first competitive heat for a while?
[00:09:27] Speaker C: Well, since the last single fin contest.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Okay, see, that's your one a year event. Done.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: That's the one contest I go in mainly just so I can. And like most of us who go in it just so we can surf. Ulawat, too. With six people.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Exactly. Not 600. Yeah.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: But for me, it was a bit frustrating because I still ride single fins and I have these really beautiful single fins that perform really well. So to be forced to paddle out on these, some of the boards are not very good.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Did they have, like, a ruling on the vintage of the surfboard or something?
[00:09:59] Speaker C: Pre 1982.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:01] Speaker C: And some of them, I was lucky. For my first heat, I had a decent board that turned all right. But then for the Masters final, the board I was riding was just a complete. I was embarrassed. The board surfed so bad, I felt like a kook.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Oh, no. That sounds like a set up to me.
It's funny. Right now we have an annual through the yelling up board riders. We actually got the single fin on right now. So I'll give you an invite to come down the southwest one to. I know you've been up north a bit. Do you still get down to Western Australia much?
[00:10:36] Speaker C: No, I don't go to Australia too much anymore. My father passed away a few months ago, so that was, like, the last time I went to Australia. But apart from that, I probably haven't been back to Australia four or five years.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Quite a stint. So, surfboard shaping, is that your main bread and butter?
[00:10:54] Speaker C: I don't think shaping has ever been bread and butter.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's funny. I thought you might say that, because most shapers do say that.
[00:11:00] Speaker C: If I was going to register my business in Australia again, I would register it as a.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: We've got a bunch of shapers in Dunsboro, and I think most shapers do it for the love, that's for sure.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: You would not make surplus for the money. You really wouldn't. I mean, I think I crunched the numbers the other day, actually, it was my marketing guy, because he was complaining about how little he was getting paid. And I was like, okay, well, while you're crunching the numbers for you, how about you crunch the numbers for me and see how much I'm getting paid? So it worked out. I'm getting $16 an hour. Wow.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: That's like probably. Twelve year old, 13 year old at McDonald's probably gets a couple of dollars more.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: I think they get better. Yeah.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, well, yeah.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: You wouldn't do it for the money.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Do it for the love and the Stoke.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: Well, I think for a lot of it just becomes an obsession.
I don't know if there's a massive drive to keep making a better surfboard, but there's an endless curiosity.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Of like, wow, what about if I tried this? I wonder how that would go. And so this is the constant, sort of.
Because. Really.
And I said this like, five years ago, if you told me, I had to ride these boards for the rest of my life and that I was not allowed to make any more surfboards. I'd have been totally happy. So it's not like I feel like I need to make my boards better, but there's just curiosity of like, oh, what about if I try this?
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: And it's amazing. It's like nine times out of ten, actually. They keep going better and I'm like, wow.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: You'Ve been shaping what, 30, 40 years?
[00:12:45] Speaker C: How long? Yeah, more than actually we missed it. We should have had a 50th anniversary release or something. But no, we should have got at.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Least a Rolex watch from someone. 50 years of shaping, but, yeah, no more than.
[00:12:59] Speaker C: I think it's 51 now.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: No, 52 years now. I started in 1971.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah, 1971. Okay. So that's the year I was born. SO that's epic. I did send you a bit of a blurry photo.
I don't know whatever happened to it, but I did own one of your boards, a 72. I picked it up in Europe and it was the only board I rode for about 18 months.
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: In 1ft and ten foot. And you know what I loved about it? I guess I got used to it. It felt so maneuverable in small waves and just felt really good in larger waves. It had these purple glass in fins and it had a real nice pin on it and, yeah, it's absolutely love that board.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: I think that's the thing. People will ask me what's the best conditions for this board and what I found. If it's a good board, it just goes good in anything. The good ones just go good in anything. It doesn't matter whether it's like, we have a model called the Indo Rocket. So of course you imagine. And it was designed for screaming through Indo barrels, head high overhead, just draining Indo barrels. But I remember the current sort of version of it, which has probably been around for about five or six years now. I remember when I made that first version and I had been shaping all day. I went stay with my budy Ash Grillmore, the musician who was living in Chengu at the time. So I went and hung out with ash for the night. We went surfing the next morning and it was just pretty soft, small beach break. And all I had was this brand new six foot six Indo rocket quad. And I was like, nah, I don't really want to spoil. Take the board out and that soft little beach break. I want to wait for some proper waves for it. And I sat on the beach for a while and eventually I was like, oh, fuck it. So I paddled out and I think it's the best board I've ever ridden in my life for like, waisted, chest high waves. And it's not designed for that at all. It's designed for, well, overhead screaming barrels.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: As a surfboard builder, that's just like the best feeling to take a board out and what you thought it wasn't going to perform in and then it performs great. It's like, wow, that's the payment, it's not the cash.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: And it gives you so many great memories too. Yeah, definitely. Hey, did you want to go get your plants and keep driving or.
[00:15:33] Speaker C: No, I'm okay. I'm fine.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah, keep going. Keep going now. Hey, what I wanted to ask you, because I first came into Bali in probably 87, just still going out to Ulu through the cave. Do you get any sort of feeling or stoke or anything that you first experienced back in 77?
77. Do you sort of get any sort of that magic still these days?
[00:16:02] Speaker C: I still.
I still get my days when I get to paddle out and just depending on the swell and the tide, I can find little windows where there's no one else in the water where I've paddled out to and I can sit out there in the ocean and have double or triple overhead waves, beautifully groomed coming in and I'm the only one in the water.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: That's still a pretty magic feeling, that one.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: I bet it is.
When's the last time you sort of had moments like that?
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Them two days ago, actually.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: The swell was pretty big, wasn't it? Yeah, it was on the east. Well, actually I was in Bali Valley, had a bad case of Bali Valley, but I was on the east side, up at Crumace. And that had a lot of swell.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I think in the morning, I don't know, it might have been the biggest sets I've seen this year, actually.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Early in the morning. Yeah, there were some big sets came.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Through over 15ft or I don't know.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: What you call 15ft. But I didn't surf till the afternoon, so the afternoon was like solid triple overhead.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: But the morning was definitely bigger than that.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I had a look at your website and I know you've listed a whole bunch of epic left handers like Uluatu gland deserts, Cloudbreak, Nalu. I'd like to know, is there any elements of those waves that you particularly stand out for you or you just love them all for whatever they provide?
[00:17:45] Speaker C: Each one of those has its unique thing Cloudbreak has that barrel you pull into and you think, oh, my God, I'm never going to make this. And then you're just going like a bat out of hell and come out there and you're like, wow, that was amazing.
And the bluff is that thing, know, you pull into that bluff and it's got that almond and you're sitting up high in the almond and you're way back inside and that almond just stays open and you just run through that. I love that.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: How did you find Nalu? Did you get to surf that with a bit of size? Because that gets pretty hectic.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: Yeah, well, when I first started going up north, you couldn't camp at Nalu, okay? So you had to drive up from the bluff. And so some of the early trips there, I was just there with my wife and my oldest daughter, who was just a little kid at baby that time. And so I would just drive up and surf it by myself and pretty sizable.
I remember one day surfing it and I think I was sitting at Toomey's and I was watching these barrels come through from Center Peak. And I think at the time, they were the biggest, most open, most perfect barrels I'd ever seen in my life. More than G Land, more than pipeline. I'd never seen barrels that were open so far back inside and so perfect. So perfect. No boils, no ledges, no steps, just these absolutely perfect barrels.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, it's pretty insane. And it does get pretty crowded up there over the years, but I'm on my back end there, so I sort of get a bit uncomfortable taking off on some of those ways up there on sort of more of a forehand.
Bigger ways are sort of more.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Especially Toomeys are when they get those.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Ledges, I just leave them for all the young animals, all the young bucks. Yeah.
And what we love on barrel Surf podcast.
I know you must have had so many good surf trips.
Is there anything traveling to all those destinations? Sometimes it could be just the thrill of getting there or something that happened to you along the way or the wave. Is there anything that still stands out for you on any of those missions, to those spots?
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the stuff I do remember.
I can't remember what I said to someone yesterday, but the memories of those trips, I still have that so firmly embedded in my mind and so many incredible moments of just pulling up somewhere and seeing it firing or going to Desert Point and waiting for ten days pre Internet.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Got to be patient and having no.
[00:20:40] Speaker C: Idea if there's coming or not. And about to leave, literally as we were about to leave and I paddled out and went, I'm just going to catch a couple. There's like little knee high dribblers. I'm just going to catch a couple of ways before we pull anchor. And I'm sitting out there and within about 1520 minutes this four foot set comes down the point.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Epic.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: And then it's six foot and then it's 8ft and then it's the most perfect desert point I've ever experienced.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: My bodies came out. There was three of us in the water. We surfed for hours. Eventually they wore out. They went in and I was sitting at Desert Point and it was mind blowingly perfect. And I was the only person in the water.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: And it kind of freaked me out a little bit because it's like you spend your whole life chasing the perfect wave and the perfect surf. And I realized, oh my God, this is it.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: I found it.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: It's never going to get better than this.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: No.
[00:21:29] Speaker C: I've reached the top of the mountain.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Perfect barrel, isn't it?
[00:21:31] Speaker C: And it's like, oh shit. What are we going to looking for now?
[00:21:34] Speaker A: It's just multiple barrel sections. What's sort of the longest barrel would you say that you've had out there?
[00:21:39] Speaker C: I don't know. It sort of became a thing where measuring a barrel sort of became irrelevant.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
1 second can feel like tents or something.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: Yeah. I remember one session where I was just really curious and once again just there with a couple of buddies and I wanted just to surf the end section and I remember just taking off, pulling straight into the barrel and never came out. And I just ride the whole wave in the barrel until it closed out, pull out through the back pallet and do it again. But right from the takeoff was in the barrel and never came out of the barrel. Wave after wave.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Just being in the hole and just enjoying the ride is all you need.
[00:22:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I'm interested to hear about G land own personal experience. I went there, I think in 88. I'd be interested to know a little bit about your first journeys over to G Land.
[00:22:39] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I originally went with Boyum.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. What year was that?
[00:22:43] Speaker C: It was 1981 because I just won the Bali Om contest and I actually had money.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: What did you get paid there back then? Do you remember?
[00:22:54] Speaker C: I think the first prize was five grand.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: 5000 Aussie dollars. So that would have been a few rupees back then.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: That's right. And then to go to G Lamb with Boyham I think was $400 and back in those days, we're living in Bali for a dollar a day.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:08] Speaker C: Spent $400 for a surf chip was, like, incomprehensible.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Spend that on food with my family a day now. $400, yeah, easy.
[00:23:18] Speaker C: But I was hanging out with Thornton Philander and Joe Engel, and I was like, classic. What do you guys reckon?
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Should I go?
[00:23:23] Speaker C: Should I throw the money down? And of course, it's not their money. So they're like, yeah, go.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: They didn't go with.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: They were. They were like, know, dollar a day. Dollar a day.
So I jumped in with Mike Boyman. It was Peter McCabe, it was Bruce Raymond.
There was another guy from Brazil, maybe John Law, I don't remember. But, yeah, there was something about five of us. And Mike had a little platform where it was like a kitchen, sort of, know, some tables to eat on. And then he built these platforms up in the trees. That's where we slept on the platforms.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: How about the monkeys back then? Because they're pretty bloody bad now.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Well, they weren't monkeys.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: They were apes.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: They were about the same size as us.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Oh, Jesus.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: There's these really big black apes.
Luckily, they were pretty shy and they didn't come over and annoy us or harass us or, like, if they'd have turned nasty, man, we'd have been in serious trouble.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: I betcha. So you mentioned Thornton Philander. I spent a lot of time with Thornton, actually, on the Gold coast and down in Engari.
Yeah, he's a classic fella, and I know he loves to have a strict budget. Did you surf against Thornton in the Omboli Pro? Do you remember? Do you remember much of that event? Obviously, you won't. Who was in the final?
[00:24:55] Speaker C: It was funny.
I had probably the toughest run you could possibly have in that contest. And I remember the first heat. I can't remember the guy's name. He was from, like, the Norah Head region. And I think my first heat was the toughest heat. We were going wave for wave back to back, and I think I just squeaked through past him. But then my next heat was like. Mr.
And then it was against Simon, who just won the bell.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Heavy hitters there.
[00:25:24] Speaker C: And then it was Shane Haran.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: So how old were you then?
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Was it 81? I might have been like 22.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: And then it was Terry Richo in the final. Wow. He was the favorite to win the contest. So, yeah, it was a pretty tough run, but I don't believe in surf contests because it's such a personal expression. And it's like we've all, someone likes this, someone likes that.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:25:59] Speaker C: And it's like going to a music festival and going, oh, who is the best band? And you go, well, I like that band, or I like that band. And so many times the Heat is won by the person who gets the best wave. You get the best wave, you get the high score.
So I struggled to be a pro surfer.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: So you were on the pro scene for what, few years?
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Yeah, probably four or five years. I think I was on the tour.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: You're in the top 16 for a while. Yeah.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: I think I was top eight when I walked.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: I was in the top eight and I was just like, I don't want to do this anymore.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Did you have sponsors at the time?
[00:26:38] Speaker C: Well, I got signed up to the Bronze Aussies for about three years.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:44] Speaker C: And then after that, it was self funded like most pro surfers.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: What were you doing? Was that you were making boards to self fund or actually, that's a silly question. Were you doing other jobs to self fund yourself?
[00:27:00] Speaker C: I took the prize money from what was left of the prize money in the Bali om contest and opened a surf shop.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:06] Speaker C: And that sort of funded my.
But by then I was pretty much off the tour. I might have still been going in.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: A few concerts, but, yeah, I sort.
[00:27:15] Speaker C: Of wasn't really into.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: How did you stumble into it anyway? I mean, you had to have some sort of competitive sort of prowess about yourself to.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: It was just kind of a series of accidents.
When I was about 14 or 15, they had a contest at Cronulla for like the under 15s or something.
And we're all just a bunch of kids and like, oh, surf, connors, let's go to Surf Con. We had no idea what we were doing or anything about competing.
We were just going out, paddling out, and you'd come and go. You got through your heat, you're in the next know. And I ended up getting all the way to the final, much to my surprise, and then getting third place, classic. And I thought, oh, okay. You know, and know that time contest surfing was just kind know pro surfing was just kicking off. So decided to be more contests. So I just kept on going in the contest in Cronulla and sort of ended up winning most of the time. But it was never a dream of mine. It was never to be a competitive surfer or be a pro surfer or win a know. My dream was shaped know Kevin Norton and Craig Peterson in Surfer Mag going off into remote locations around the world and surfing beautiful ways. That was my dream.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that was a lot of sounds. That sounds amazing. So just on the competitive surfing, were there any high? I mean, you've won the on pro. Were there other highlights during that time?
[00:28:45] Speaker C: Well, I think good times. I got signed up to the Bronze Oz because of a tube that I shouldn't have made.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: Where was that at?
[00:28:53] Speaker C: It was at the Coke contest was at Narrow Bean. And in those days, they had 16 seeds, and then 16 guys got through the trials. Right. And it was the world's toughest trials.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:03] Speaker C: I mean, all the best surfers were in the world trying to get into that Coke corners. It was the world's most prestigious contest at that time. Maybe the biggest prize money. I think Hawai has probably always been more prestigious.
So I got through the trials into the main event, and then they go. And it was a lot of it was televised. So that night they had the draw, the heat draw. They basically were taking the trials names out of a hat and putting them up against the seeds. And they're going down through the list of seeds, and they come to know Mr. Was the Kelly slave of the day. Right. So they come down to MR's heat, and everyone in the room just goes quiet.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: He would have won his four world titles by then, wouldn't he?
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Something like that. And everyone's like, oh, my. You know, not Mr. And they pull my name out against. And I'm just like, oh, fuck, here we go. I just got through the toughest trials. I'm into the main event, and I got friggin Mr. First heat.
I'm driving home that night, and this little voice goes, well, you know what? If you could actually win that heat, theoretically, you could win the whole contest, which was a concert I'd never even considered. I was just kind of, like, stumbling.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: And I was like, okay, that's interesting. Interesting thought. So the contest starts in the first day. They get to the end of the day, and they're, like, tossing up whether to run my heat or not. With Emma. The last minute, they go, yeah, you guys are out in the water, lights fading. It's the end of the day. We paddle out, and there's no priority. Boy, in those days, so it's just gentlemen rules. Emma's a beautiful guy on the land, I tell you. Put him in a heat, and he's fierce, man.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: His teeth, his claws come out.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: He's fierce.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: And it's like we're actually bumping rails and on, and I'm so nervous, and I get like two or three waves, and I'm so nervous I can't even surf. And I've just cooked it. And it gets to a point in the heat. I'm like, no, I'm done.
There's no way I can recover this heat. And I take off in this wave, and it basically looked like a close out. And I was just, like, pulled into the close out. Okay, game over. Try again next year. And I pull into this close out, and I think I might have even closed my eyes.
And I'm like, why can't I have not wiped out?
And I opened my eyes and I could see way down this tunnel. I could see a little ray of light. And I'm like, shit, that might be know.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Classic.
[00:31:25] Speaker C: Back in the single fin days. So Allah, Sean Thompson, I put my front foot up my board and start driving through this barrel going, maybe I could make that. And I freaking did, and I squeaked out.
[00:31:36] Speaker D: The end.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Epic.
[00:31:37] Speaker C: And the whole beach started screaming, and all the guys down the water surfing down the beach, everyone screaming.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Did you claim were people claiming back in those days?
[00:31:49] Speaker C: I mean, it's a heat. I'm still on the wave, so I'm, like, busy trying to rack up as many points as I can, and I managed. I squeaked through the heat by half a point. Wow. And then getting all the way to the semifinals and got third in the co contest.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: That's a memorable one. Yeah. So was know during that competitive time, was. Mr. Your toughest opponent or was there other people that you bang rails with?
[00:32:13] Speaker C: It's funny, you know, I had three heats against Mr. And I won two of them.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Okay. You've got the nod on Mr.
[00:32:19] Speaker C: So I had the nod on Mr. But, yeah, he was the Kelly Slater of the know, and he had the best boards. He had the twin fins.
He was a step ahead of the rest of us, for sure.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you follow current competitive surfing?
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Not at all.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Not at all. Don't care. No.
[00:32:34] Speaker C: Look, I love to see great surfing. I have no interest in contests. I find them boring. I watch how people surf in contests. I'm like, that's not how those guys surf.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker C: They're trying to rack up points.
And to be honest, I feel like pro surfing has devalued surfing. Contests have devalued surfing. It's like they've turned it into Battle of the Bands.
It could be like a music festival of surfers going out and performing and let's see the show and let's just see them going all out with no regard for losing points and not racking points and just going all out and putting on the best show they can.
I would watch that, I think.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: What the punt. I know I would like your mother Nature.
You really rely on Mother Nature to deliver. But still, some of the locations that the WSL go to now, they're just not waves of consequence and people just want to see big tubes and big slabbing ways where the surface have got to perform in high risk conditions. But they did bring back cloud break this year. Sorry. Yeah. Next year Cloudbreak is back on the tour, so make a few people happy.
Just a question.
You don't follow the tour, but every September they run this finals five format and the last couple of years they've run it at Trestles. Philippe Toledo's won it. A lot of people are calling for different locations. If you could run the WSL Finals anywhere in the world during September for the best waves, where would you go?
[00:34:21] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Surely somewhere in Indo.
My thoughts were stick them on a boat and just go sailing somewhere through Indo you've got five men, five women and just try find the best tubes.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: They did that, didn't they? One time up at the men's, I vaguely remember them doing that, running some sort of Connors. They just had them on a boat and they were running heats, weren't they? Ocky was in it.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: That was probably a specialty event potentially. I'm not sure.
[00:34:54] Speaker C: Yeah. But for sure put them on a boat and send them off to the mints.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Well, yeah, exactly. That's what I think. Instead of holding it in trestles.
[00:35:01] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Going back to just surf trips in general. Have you done many boat trips? Is that something you got into or you more just did overland sort of stuff?
[00:35:13] Speaker C: Seven years of boat.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Boat trips. There you go. So you've done a bit.
[00:35:16] Speaker C: Yeah, we did a surf charter business.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:20] Speaker C: And it was called the Indo Odyssey.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Okay. Yes. Right.
[00:35:23] Speaker C: And for seven years we sailed the entire coast of Indonesia.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: Trying to find the best ways we could.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: And what sort of boat were you?
[00:35:34] Speaker C: We were just using traditional Phoenici boats. I never had the money to buy boats, so our only option was to lease boats.
But what I eventually learned over the years that anyone's leasing a boat is because it's run down, it needs a lot of work or they don't know anything about boats, which also means that it's run down and needs a lot of work.
So we would often spend the start of the season spending months fixing up someone else's boat. So we could take people sailing and then still be at the mercy of stuff that the owners had not told us about the boat and dealing with various mishaps of. There's a lot of things that go wrong on a boat.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: I bet there is. Was it a motor sailboat? Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker C: I mean, the Phoenicians are sailing boats traditionally, but they're pretty inefficient sailing boats. And a lot of your long distance stuff you do at nighttime. So often at nighttime, there's not much wind, and you can't expect the crew to stay awake all night and then awake all day as well. So usually night is just motoring and just the captain with his eyeballs falling out of his head at 03:00 in the morning.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: When did the Odyssey sort of business sort of wrap up for you? Is that a few years ago?
[00:36:55] Speaker C: I think 2016 was our last year.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Just had enough.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it was a lot of pressure to fill the seats.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: A lot of other boats. Right. Was that another.
[00:37:10] Speaker C: It's a business and a lot of pressure to fill the seats. And then a lot of risk, too. And not just things that go wrong on the boat, but risk of people seriously injuring themselves.
And thank God we never had anyone seriously, really seriously injure them. A life threatening injury on the boat.
We had a lot of stitches, and we had a chef got really burnt.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Badly in the galley.
[00:37:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
But, yeah, thank God we never had that very serious kind of life threatening situation.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: Man overboard.
[00:37:49] Speaker C: McCallough Jones.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
Very sad.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: Most experienced surfers, you can't be more experienced than Michelle Jones. And there you.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: I know. Yeah. Your life just takes over the worst. Yeah. Very sad news. Most barreled human.
[00:38:12] Speaker C: Probably.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
During that time of doing boat trips, did you ever have a trip where it was just every day it was on, it was just the perfect trip.
[00:38:23] Speaker C: We had some pretty good trips. And it was funny, I remember, like, one trip, we were getting good waves every day, and we pulled up to telescopes.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:32] Speaker C: And telescopes is about head high. It's glassy. There's no one else there.
And the guests look at me and go, is there somewhere else we can go?
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Head.
[00:38:46] Speaker C: You guys have been on the boat too long.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Wow, that's getting fussy. Yeah.
[00:38:50] Speaker C: But there was one trip down to Somba. I only had one guest, and we were kind of like, well, he's paid his money, so it cost me $10,000. Take this guy surfing.
But we'd run the trip for the customer, and we just had this back to back epic, huge swell.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:12] Speaker C: And we were mainly surfing this one particular right hander down there and I remember we woke up one morning and it was like triple overhead and it looked like shorebreak.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Wow. Jesus.
[00:39:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it was nuts. We sat and drank coffee for all, waiting for the tide to fill it up a little bit and palled out, shoulder hopped a couple and went, okay, that's good.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: There's one thing about surf trips. You always see the epic photos of the really good trips, but you never hear about the real bad trips and shit goes wrong.
You have a few of them, whether during your own traveling days or during your boat trip, venture on your own traveling days.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: Okay, yeah, I had some shit trips, but that's luck of the draw. No big deal. But when you got people who've paid their money to go on a surf trip and it might be their one surf trip of the year and you're just getting skunked, it's like, yeah, I really felt for them.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: It happens.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: We just had some trips where it's just like it was rain, storm, no swell, just couldn't find waves. It was just like, what do you do? I just felt so bad for the guys.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: I bet. But I guess with the Internet you can sort of have.
People will check the weather, they'll have a fair understanding, hope that they may get mediocre surf. I'd like to know, in your traveling days when there was no Internet and you've rocked up to a surf spot, I mean, just sit and wait or look up at the clouds and see the birds flying, did you have any other ways to predict swell and wind?
[00:40:55] Speaker C: Not really, no. I mean, there was a bit of a thing here in Indo we always kind of felt a few days after the full moon we'd get a swell was kind of a common thing, but that was about it.
You just kind of went somewhere and what you got is what you got. You didn't really go with. Well, of course, you went with the expectations of getting incredible, perfect barrels. But, yeah, there was no forecasting or predicting.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: I know there's obviously a couple of older Balinese surfing legends, but when you first came, do you had any contact with any people surfing, like local surfing back.
[00:41:39] Speaker C: Well, back in those days when I first came, that Kuda was the only place to stay.
Legy Elm was off in the bush. No one even heard of Sam Miak or Krabakan or Changu or anything like that. So Kuda was just still a pretty sleepy little fishing village with a couple of arungs, a couple of little market shops, a couple of cassette shops, and I'd say, from what I can recall, there was maybe half a dozen Indonesian surfers at that time, and they all hung out at this one cassette shop. So we get to have dinner and then you get in the cassette shop.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: And miss the old cassettes. Yeah.
[00:42:13] Speaker C: Hang out with the boys and listen to cassettes.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: And you've obviously seen surfing evolve, especially local surfers evolve over the years.
Any sort of favorite Balinese surfers you like to see in the water, whether past or present, over your time.
[00:42:33] Speaker C: To be honest with you, I don't actually see much surfing because I don't go down to the warongs at Ulawatu. I have another access to Uluwatu and pretty much where I look at the surf and where I surf. Very few surfers will come out and have a surf.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: We make boards for guys like Blackie and Goblig and Monot.
They send us videos of them surfing. So it's great to see them surfing so well.
But, yeah, mostly I'm often not surfing with many people or just Westerners.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, fair enough. Fair enough. There's a lot out there and there seem to be.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: I mean, the main sections of Dolawai, too. I can't surf any. I just don't enjoy it.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just too crowded. Fair enough. Fair enough.
[00:43:30] Speaker C: Too crowded.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: Did you spend much time up at Nass? You mentioned Thornton before.
[00:43:35] Speaker C: We would stop through on the boat and surf it a little bit, but no, never really. It's a right hander.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I can see that you love your left. Fair enough.
[00:43:47] Speaker C: Why are you going to chasing rights when there's so many good left?
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
Hey, we have.
I'm going to let you go pretty soon, Jim, so I know that you've got to get plants and head back to Ulu's and with the traffic and everything, but we've got a couple of questions. Well, two segments. One's called the Clive Palmer Cup. Basically, we ask people for nominations just on anything that, whether it's a person or something, that just gives you the shits. It's just a double thumbs down. And on the flip side, on a more positive note, we got the Steve Irwin salute.
And we ask anyone who's got anyone deserves a double thumbs up. Steve Irwin Salute. So put you on the spot, mate. But is Clive Palmer cup first?
You know Clive Palmer is. He's a greedy bloody miner who tried to sue Western Australia. So we don't love him much, but he's a dickhead.
Anything that shits you or doesn't have to be a person or whatever does anything.
[00:44:54] Speaker C: Just gives you the shits.
Yeah, I don't think. It's not really anything personal, and I don't watch the news or anything that's politics or anything that's going on in the world. But there's no doubt about it, we are living in a massively corrupt system which is basically designed to enslave us. And that's the gag, isn't it? It's like we've become enslaved chasing freedom because we believe that having money is going to give us freedom. But what happens is we become enslaved chasing that freedom.
And I check in with a lot of people and I'm like, hey, how are you doing? What's going on? And a lot of people are just sick of it. Just sick of continually chasing money and always feeling like you're never going to have enough.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I know that feeling.
[00:45:40] Speaker C: And there's such a terrible sharing of the planet's wealth. There's a small handful of people know, holding and controlling so much and then keeping everyone else with so little.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Do you have that feeling in Bali, Jim? Are you pretty content with.
[00:46:02] Speaker C: You know, I still have that feeling of know, got to keep the money coming in, keep the money flowing.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: You got to put something up.
[00:46:10] Speaker C: I still don't own a piece of land, or I don't own a house. I don't even own this car, actually. I just rent it. So it'd be nice to know one day that I've got a piece of land that I can go. Okay.
Regardless of what happens, I've got that piece of land in that little house and I can live there.
So I still feel the pressure to chase the continually elusive dollar.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely do.
Have you found the prices coming from a dollar a day to, can I ask you, you lived on a dollar a day. How many dollars a day are you now?
[00:46:49] Speaker C: I wouldn't even know.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: Later.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: I don't even know.
It's definitely not a dollar a day.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: No.
Staying up there. Yeah. Real estate and everything, but no, I hear you.
[00:47:07] Speaker C: I can still go get lunch for a dollar. Yeah, I can get breakfast for a dollar. I can get lunch for $2 if I want.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you can, can't you?
[00:47:17] Speaker C: Yeah, but it's not the highest quality food. No, it's a lot.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: True.
[00:47:20] Speaker C: Not these days. I mean, back in the day, it was what was now a lot of the oils are using the sort of dodgy oils, so it's not so good.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: You can't stop it.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: So on the flip side, Jim. Steve Irwin, salute on the thumbs up.
Anyone out there that you want to give the double thumbs up to?
Anyone doing good things in Bali or globally.
[00:47:54] Speaker C: I see a lot of good things happening. People like cleaning up the plastic in the ocean.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's huge, isn't it?
[00:48:01] Speaker C: I think that's a fantastic thing to see that happening.
Anything along that sort of vein. I really like any sort of reforestation stuff. I've seen people that have taken on entire valleys and reforested an entire valley. I think that sort of stuff. I love to see that sort of thing. So I suppose it's anything that's more positive for the environment that I like to see.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I like to see that too. And I have seen a fair bit of that, especially the plastics in the oceans and in the rivers and organizations working together to clean it up. And it's just trying to.
Whether they just keep continually cleaning it up or can we stop people just throwing trash in? The generations of behavioral habits, I guess.
[00:49:03] Speaker C: People are so critical of the trash in Bali, but what they forget is these guys had recyclable packaging forever.
It's our culture that's brought all this crap and plastic into their culture. Their classic culture, man. It's all recyclable. It's wrapped up in a banana leaf and you throw the rubbish in the corner because it's going to decompose and turn into mulch.
A lot of them, it's still a massive education to switch them from like, oh, that's not going to break down like what used to use. And it's happening and they're doing it in the schools now.
I think Bali is definitely cleaner now than what it was four or five years ago. But sure, there's still places where there's big issues with the plastic. That was a great thing. During COVID this guy was doing plastic for rice. He was bring all the plastic in and he'd give everyone get rice.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: That's a good incentive for people to go clean up.
[00:50:09] Speaker C: Yeah, so they were recycling the plastic because like I said, a lot of them still are. The culture of like, yeah, well, you just dump the rubbish in the creek and it decomposes and washes down and maybe ends up in the sea. But most of it probably decomposed before it even got to the sea. But now it's all plastic and non biodegradable. It's clogging up all the creeks and then does end up in the ocean.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: You mentioned COVID. I mean, how many people were in the lineup during the height of COVID Because I know there's a big expat, local community of surfers. Was it that much? Could you notice the difference in. In the number of people? Yeah.
[00:50:51] Speaker C: I mean, there were some days at Ulawa, too. There was just me then.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: You were having your flashbacks to 77, I bet.
How good.
[00:51:00] Speaker C: See, yeah, there was a point where they really came down hard and blocked off access to the beach.
But there's a few of us, like cockroaches, we found our way to the ocean, managed to paddle out. I remember a couple of days paddling out and being the only person in the water and no one on the beach. And, yeah, it was just fantastic.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: It was, Jim, you know, for punters that are coming to Indonesia, coming to Bali, and if they want to get hold of you to check out some of your designs that you've been working on, what's the best way for people to get hold of you, Jim? To look.
[00:51:39] Speaker C: Just go on Instagram, look up Jimmy Surfboards. Send us a message on the Instagram. Or go to the website. Just Google. Jim bank surfboards. We've got a contact page.
Just reach out and we can build you something.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds epic. Well, Jim, mate, it's been unique sitting in the Suzuki here. We're just parked outside the plants place. Jim needs to pick up some plants before he shoots back up to Ulu, so we're going to let him get about his business. But I do appreciate you making time, mate. And, yeah, thanks for coming on Barrel Surf podcast and all the best.
[00:52:14] Speaker C: Yeah, mate, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Cheers, Jim. Thanks, mate. See ya.
[00:52:30] Speaker D: Today. I heard of the song, so I cranked it up and I sang along. It was such a way out day, I made up my mind. You kept the rainforest import girl and the town the way step.
It occurs to me there's no to you.
Don't grab a girl down your opinion. You're.
I'll be dressed dreaming of Jesus.
