It’s all about timing and decision making this surfing game. Even before you enter the water you’ve got decisions to make: what board, which fins, where to go, what to tell your boss when you return sun-fried and barrel-lit three hours late. Timing must be spot on.

You’ve got to sync with tides, offshores, banks, swell directions, moon phases and absent crowds. On the wave itself, timing and decision-making are everything. Get them wrong and you might as well take up knitting.         

Aspiring pros seem to absorb all this stuff instinctively. But while they fine-tune their wave-riding skills they’ve got many other career-altering decisions to make – often on the fly. Boomerang Beach junior, Oscar Salt, is accustomed to the up and downs of surf career pursuit. He’s been at it since he pulled on an oversize rashie and started winning micro grom heats by a lunar distance in the BBB boardriders. 

Back then, he had a dream shared with hundreds of groms around the country. “Making the world tour and winning a World Title that’s what everyone aims for when they start out. That’s the dream life,” reflects Oscar today. The polished natural-footer finished high school last year and, like all school leavers, has been weighing up his future options. 

There’s been plenty of surfing high points along the way for the teenager. Stints in Hawaii. Trips to Northern Indo. Countless missions interstate and up and down the east coast. There’s been free boards, mini-movies, sponsorship deals. On the comp scene, he’s won multiple regional and national Grom Comp Titles, been a state and national finalist, and claimed a Rip Curl Grom Search at pumping six-foot Merewether.  

But just as young Salty has started to gain some down-the-line momentum there’s been injuries and setbacks. His back has been a …