By then Dylan was surfing heaps too, and Dad would take us to the coast on the weekends. Looking back, it was probably one of the best things that could have happened to us in our development as surfers, because we got to appreciate it a lot more than we would have if we’d stayed in Cronulla. Having the waves on your doorstep makes it easy to get spoiled – you can pick and choose when you want to go out. Now we had to wait for the opportunity, and when we got it we’d spend every single minute in the water. We knew we weren’t going to be coming back tomorrow.
In those early years, whenever Dad wasn’t that busy he’d take us surfing. We’d usually go to The Farm down at Shellharbour, or to Port Kembla. At The Farm, in the early years, you had to pay forty cents at the one house with a gate and they’d let you in. Dad had surfed it since the ’60s. There were a lot fewer people surfing back then, even when we were in Dapto, so you’d get loads of waves.
Mike Davis had emigrated from California in the early ’70s and parked himself in Kiama because of the abundance of consistent waves in the area, so we’d go down there too. Mike was a great storyteller and would have us grommets sitting on the edge of our seats as he delivered these great tales in his heavy American accent. Dad and the other guys would egg him on, and the stories would get more and more fantastic.
The weekends were taken up with soccer and surfing, and I started playing squash too. I settled into the new school and made friends – playing lots of sport helped. I went with the flow, but surfing remained the love of my life, the thing I had to do.
As I got older, I discovered there were a lot more surfers in Dapto than I’d first thought.
Sparkes: I remember the first time I saw Dazza. I was in Year Six and I thought I was really cool because at my school no-one surfed and I had a surfboard. Then one day I was playing soccer on the field right down the back of where I lived, and I looked and there were these two guys with surfboards. They had stickers everywhere, and I thought, Who are those guys? It was Dyl and Daz, walking down to the train station. They had more sponsors and stickers on one board than Kelly Slater’s had in his life.
Most of the older guys who were surfing would catch the train down the coast to Kiama, and by the time I’d turned thirteen, Dad had got to know them. He trusted them enough that he let us tag along.
On Saturdays we would wake up super early. We’d pack our lunch and walk twenty minutes to the train station with a backpack and board, catch the 5.30 train, surf for most of the day and then catch the train home. The group I was in all went to primary school together. I’m a bit older than Sparkes, but we’d met at school in Dapto. Sparkes was in Dyl’s year, and when we all started surfing it came together.
Sparkes: We’d go for a surf and I’d have my vegemite sandwiches, because I couldn’t afford chocolate bars. But Dazza would go to the squash court and grab a handful of Mars Bars. I’d surf, and when I came back to my stuff I’d find that someone had gone through my bag and eaten my sandwiches, and it was Dazza. Dyl, Zom, our friend Bones and me were the younger ones from Dapto. We were a bit scared of Dazza and his crew.
I made sure to look out for Sparkes because I went to school with his sister, Janine, who I always liked. I wanted to stay in her good books. And regardless of what he says, it wasn’t me stealing his sandwiches – it was Trent – but I got blamed for it all the time.
When we were in school, Sparkes’s nickname was Captain Snooze, because he had a little trouble getting out of bed in the morning for an early surf. We’d have to catch an early train from Dapto, and even though we’d walk a different way to get to the station, sometimes we’d pass by Sparkesy’s house. He’d still be asleep, so we had to chuck stones at the window to wake him, otherwise we’d end up missing the train.
Most of the time we’d go to Minnamurra. We’d walk from the train station until we got to the river, which we had to paddle across to get to the beach. We’d get into our wetsuits, strap our backpacks on, paddle a hundred metres across the river and walk through a bit of bush to an unpatrolled beach. We’d surf all morning, make a little driftwood fire and cook our baked beans for lunch, surf all afternoon and then paddle back, get dressed and catch the train home.
By the end of the day we were totally knackered, but we’d get up on Sunday and do it all over again.
We might have gone through school together, but the thing that brought us closer was surfing around Kiama every weekend and after school. We had a few dramas with the locals who lived around that area, calling us out as tourists or the famous ‘Daptoids’, mainly because there were other stupid ‘Daptoids’ who would steal stuff from people’s houses on the way past, but there was nothing too nasty. Because Dyl and I were good little surfers, we got to know most of the locals and talented younger guys, and we had a head start because Dad was making surfboards in Kiama as well. The Junior Australian Champion at the time was Brendan Russell, who was from Kiama, but guys like him – Tim Queripel; Scott Poll; the brothers Adam, Dean and Zac Mitchell – were part of that hot breed, and they relaxed the taunts and eased the stigma of being a Daptoid.
It almost seemed inevitable that one day we’d move down there too.
There was a bit of a surfing subculture in Dapto that started with our generation. It must have looked strange. At 2.30 on a Saturday afternoon people would see fifty guys walking up the street with surfboards. They must have thought, Where are THEY going? I don’t know if was just our age group, but it seemed to take off all of a sudden.
We were pretty good. Some older guys started Rangoon Island Boardriders, which was based at Minamurra, but it was mostly made up of Dapto surfers, and we ended up coming second in the whole region. All the boys from our crew were beating the big names from Woonona, Wollongong and Sandon Point. We were part of a really good generation of surfers, and we earned it.
We were still getting on a train at 5.30 in the morning in the middle of winter, getting to Minnamurra when it was still dark, to paddle across that icy river to the secluded beach. We had friends who actually lived on the coast, and they would pick and choose when they surfed. Sometimes they wouldn’t bother going out, but because we had spent time and money to get there, we’d be like, ‘What are you talking about?’ They were spoilt and too picky; we’d made the effort and were going out no matter what. This meant we learned how to get the most out of any wave, even on bad days. As we grew older, and the other guys got cars, we’d get lifts down more and more.
Squash boomed in the early ’80s, but after a few years everyone had walked away from it; the family business was struggling. My parents split up around that time, and it took them a while to sell the courts. They eventually sold in ’89, and that’s when we moved down to Kiama.
Dad was still making boards all over the joint, mostly in Kiama but still doing a few in Sydney too. When he finally managed to sell the business, things worked out really well – a position came up to run the squash courts and a gym complex at Wollongong TAFE. My dad, Dylan, my younger sister Kelly and I moved down to the beach at Bombo, just north of Kiama. Suddenly we were back on the water again, and it felt so good. After all those years of really having to appreciate the waves because the ocean wasn’t on our doorstep, we were back to surfing virtually every minute of every day.
I had managed to keep playing soccer while we were living in Dapto. We had a really good team and were winning everything. The A team had stuck together through that early time, up through the age groups until I was sixteen. That was when I quit – playing soccer on the weekends meant missing a day of surfing. I had aspirations to be a pro surfer, and you can’t be a pro surfer if you’ve got other things on your mind. I’d started surfing in contests by then, and I was doing pretty well. The soccer coach who had been with us all through that time decided to stop coaching, and I thought, Well, if he’s stopping, then I’m stopping too.
I stayed out of soccer for a couple of years, but just when we were selling the squash courts my old coach came back. He was involved with a new s
enior club in the Illawarra Premier League, and he wanted to get the gang back together. He came to see me when I was turning seventeen, and he told me about his plan. My first reaction was, ‘Nah, nah, nah,’ but after a month or two I thought, Well, I might go along, have a kick and see how I feel.
It was my first experience of a senior club. There were under-nineteens, reserve grade and first grade divisions. I went for a trial, we played our first game, and I really loved it, especially running around with all my old friends I’d grown up with. So I started playing with them for a club called Lysaghts.
Something else changed: I now had my own car, so I was quite mobile and independent. I figured I could still surf and play soccer. I was competing in semi-professional surf competitions up and down the coast, and I got a job working at Mike Davis’ board factory in Kiama. I started off being the shit-kicker, polishing boards and cleaning up the factory, so I had plenty of time to go surfing – just what I had dreamed of when we’d lived in Cronulla.
By the time I was eighteen, I knew I wasn’t going to be a pro surfer. I wasn’t good enough. I’m very competitive, so I was taking the comps seriously, but my expectations weren’t to win them; I just wanted to keep that competitive element alive. Maybe that was part of my decision, but I really liked playing soccer again, and playing for a senior club was more challenging, more aspirational.
When we were younger, I think I was a better surfer than Dylan given I was two years older, but I had more interests or distractions, like soccer and girls, which hurt my potential. Meanwhile, Dylan didn’t have those other interests as much, so he was surfing all the time. He was always talented and had done well in comps, but then he seemed to take off overnight. When he hit sixteen or seventeen, he was surfing a lot of contests. Dyl’s a pretty humble, cruisy guy, so he wasn’t chasing everything, and he didn’t have any real expectations to win, but it didn’t stop him from doing exactly that. It came easy.
At each event, competitors would freesurf outside of the heats, and everyone would have their eyes on Dyl because he’d be pulling off all the big moves, all the explosive stuff. As he progressed, winning comps like the Australian Pro Juniors, he landed a good sponsorship deal with Billabong, and his style of surfing led him into more of a freesurfing role: ‘Don’t do comps, let’s go and do photo shoots instead.’ Soon he was travelling the world surfing, getting all the shots for his sponsor.
Meanwhile, I was just competing locally, travelling between comps and helping Dyl out. I really enjoyed watching him develop; he was winning in his sport in his own way. I didn’t feel any jealousy because I was happy with what I was doing. Surfing was still the biggest part of my life, but because I wanted to win at everything I did, and I was winning at soccer, that became more of a focus.
Back on the soccer pitch, I played for the under-nineteens and watched the reserves and then the first team. My only thought was, I’ve got to play first grade. Within that first year we won the champion ship, and I was sitting on the bench for the first team within twelve months of coming back to the sport.
The first-graders were getting paid, but it was only about fifty dollars for a win. There were clubs that were paying more in the National Soccer League (NSL), but even in our league some clubs were paying two hundred a win, which felt like a lot back then, being a regional league. The pay discrepancy was because many of the clubs were backed by different ethnic communities: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian and Greek. Lysaghts was born out of the steelworks, and we were the English-backed club, which felt familiar since I come from a family of lifelong Arsenal supporters. The Lysaght supporters loved their beer and their chanting. It was a really good community and there were some colourful characters.
One of those characters was Sid Wesley, my first coach at Lysaghts in the ’90s. He was a tough but funny guy, and we got along well, but he was easy to wind up. I’d continually get him by walking into the sheds just before the game eating a pie or a sausage roll.
He’d shout at me in his strong Pommie accent, ‘Fookin’ ’ell, Longee. What the fook are you doin’?’
‘Just eating my lunch,’ I’d say.
He’d chase me out of the sheds, wanting to rumble, or he’d just shape up to box. By that time I was six feet tall and about eighty kilograms, and I thought it was hilarious, watching this little grey-haired, beer-bellied Pommie wanting to fight. But we’d eventually settle down and he’d always come up to me before we ran out and say, ‘You just make sure you cut down their centre-forward straightaway, fookin’ Longee, or I’ll fookin’ get you!’ He was still shouting the same thing years later when I was in first grade and he was a supporter in the stands. I absolutely loved him.
When I was in my early twenties I was happy to take things day by day, like most people at that age. After working at Mike Davis Designs for a while, I moved to another surfboard factory, up in Wollongong. Byrne was one of the best surfboard makers in the world at the time. They made boards for world champion Tommy Carroll and a whole bunch of other top guys. I really enjoyed my time there, learning from the legends Phil, Dave, Tony, Laurie and Coop, glassing and helping out with the spraying and shaping in the factory, as well as working in the shop.
I’d always shown an interest in making boards, going right back to watching the guys in the factory in Cronulla. Over the years I’d learned a lot by riding different boards and feeling how they performed in the water. I knew what made a board work, and so when I went into making the boards myself, I had a good eye and continued to learn heaps. Surfing was my life’s obsession, and the feel of different boards is a big part of that.
I worked at Byrne for quite a few years, then I moved to Quiksilver, where I ended up learning how to make wetsuits, as well as the whole warehouse system, and I managed a few areas. Quiksilver was also in Wollongong, so I moved up there for a bit and lived with a girl and another guy, just having fun. It was my party stage, but I still loved Kiama, and I knew I would eventually move back.
My next change came when I accepted a job at a local surf shop in Warilla, a bit further south, doing all the buying and managing their stores. Then I moved to Billabong, where I spent six or seven years running sales and marketing for the whole South Coast. By this time I was back in Kiama. Dyl was based more in Queensland, but he was still travelling the world, and occasionally he’d come down to Kiama for a visit, especially when the surf was pumping.
Even though I wasn’t going to be a pro surfer, I still wanted to be involved in the industry. Now that I’ve got a couple of shops, it’s funny looking back, seeing how I made all these steps along the path – making boards, making wetsuits, moving into sales and marketing, listening and soaking up all the information and making great friends along the way. The final, natural step was obviously to have my own shop.
Throughout my time learning the surf industry, I was still playing soccer for the senior team at Lysaghts. I broke my ankle one year and put on heaps of weight. The doc said, ‘It’s come at a really bad time, when the male body stops growing.’ I kept on eating without being able to move, and the kilos piled on.
Eventually I came back to soccer, but only in the reserves because I wasn’t as sharp and quick as I used to be. But I was still playing with all my mates and enjoying it; I loved the club and lasted another year before realising my ankle just wasn’t cutting it.
5
Is this the cavalry?
Sparkes: We made our way in the boat to Sikakap, a small village we had visited the night before, because there was nowhere else nearby to land a helicopter. We cruised back there and waited a couple of hours before the helicopter turned up. It took a long time to organise what we were going to do and how to do it, but the day went so fast it felt like minutes. It was about 3.30 by the time the pilot, Michael, landed and when he did he was like, ‘What is this?’
The landing site was the village square, a scrubby patch of grass surrounded by a big mosque and small tin-roofed houses. Hundreds of people emerged as the sound of the h
elicopter grew louder. Everyone was expecting a big rescue helicopter, and instead there was this little M*A*S*H-style thing with two seats under a glass bubble. We were in shock looking at it, but the feeling soon turned to anger.
The doctor on the satellite phone from Australia had said, ‘Do NOT give him any medication. Even if he’s screaming in pain, don’t give him anything until we can get him the attention that he needs.’
Michael climbed onto the boat, came straight up to me and said, ‘Have you got any valium?’
I was confused. ‘No … What do you want valium for?’
‘I want to give it to Darren.’
‘But we’ve been told not to give him anything.’
‘It’s okay,’ Michael said. ‘I want to knock him out a little bit because I want to tie him underneath the helicopter.’
I told Prezzo and Nathe, and we all had to hold Nathe back. Everyone was confused and angry. All the stuff that had been bottled up for the last few hours came out, and we were thinking, Well, what do we do now?
By this point, it was nearly four o’clock.
I was getting really frustrated because I’d been lying on my back for hours – I just wanted to get out of there and get some kind of help. I was trying to hear everyone, but at the same time I was trying to focus in on myself and keep calm. I couldn’t really do anything else. So when the helicopter arrived, four or five hours after the accident – not the one hour Michael had said when he was first contacted – Crusty came to me and said, ‘It’s a tiny helicopter. We can’t get you in there; the only option is to tie you underneath and let you swing.’
‘Just do it,’ I said. ‘Get me out of here. We’re nowhere near that at the moment, and if it’s the only option, then let’s just freakin’ do it. I’m willing to risk that to get to some help.’
Owen and Eleanor Make Things Up Page 3