Soli Bailey admits he has developed a penchant for surf trips to the less frequently visited corners of the world. “Ever since I did ‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Maps to Nowhere’ I’ve kind of been moving in that direction,” he explains over the phone, after returning from a South Pacific sojourn. “I like the idea of surfing waves that are rare or have maybe never been surfed before.”

It’s not the first time a surfer has ripped fins through the translucent waters of the wave featured on the following pages but to score it like this is a genuine treat. The swell fetch and direction have to be spot on and the wind no more than a tickle for it to really turn on. “Ten knots feel like thirty knots out here,” insists photographer, Andrew Shield.   

Last time Soli ventured here on a promising forecast he was totally skunked; the failed mission perhaps making this trip all the sweeter. “We were told by a few locals, who we shared the lineup with, that it hasn’t broken like this in around five years.”

Racing the folding crystal.

Adventures to the isolated wilds do however have their occupational hazards. While waiting around for the winds to switch, Soli and Sheldon Simkus spent a day on a boat in the blazing sun with nought but a bit of Jerry-rigged tarp to provide protection from the UV assault. Sheldon ended up with sun stroke, while Soli was still licking his wounds after a few intimate encounters with the coral.

“I’m beaten up and bruised,” admits Soli. “I’m not feeling great and I’m starting to wonder if this cut on my arm might be developing some kind of infection…. maybe I’ll have to go and see someone.”

The remoteness of the location and the challenges associated …

Between 2013 and 2022, Australian lensman, Andrew Quilty, lived in Afghanistan, covering the war as a freelance photographer. During that time, the young surfer from Sydney’s Northern Beaches dodged bullets, pulled bodies from bombsites, rubbed shoulders with cigar-puffing generals, and was briefly held by the Taliban.

While he made frequent visits outside of Kabul and to the frontline on assignments, Andrew also spent time roaming the city with his camera. As war raged beyond Kabul’s perimeters, within them, there was a delicate balance between foreign troops, the Afghan military and people trying to get on with their lives –all of them dealing with the omni-present threat of Taliban suicide bombers [and American and Afghan government airstrikes]

It was all a long way from the sheltered reality of Andrew’s upbringing on Sydney’s leafy North Shore. However, despite his genteel youth, Andrew admits he found himself irreversibly drawn to the adrenalised atmosphere of a conflict zone; wrangling with a compulsion that often drove him to be as near to the action as possible without getting killed.

We caught up in Sydney to discuss his curious trajectory as a person and a photographer.

Andrew in a shot taken on a pinhole camera by an ageing Afghan local.

Surfing and photography came a little later for Andrew Quilty. As a Mosman teenager he’d dipped a fin in the Northern Beaches bodyboarding scene, but when he dropped out of Uni and decided to drive around Australia with two mates, he figured it was time to learn to surf. He bought a second-hand Nirvana from the Aloha shop at Manly and slipped into an easy routine for the next six months – half a day chasing waves, half a day slinging grog at a Balmoral bottle-shop. 

When the trio pointed their Toyota Hi-Ace north in 2001, …

The texts started like they usually do – a handful of crew tapping their thumbs; eliciting cryptic messages without much unison, trying to find the balance between ‘let’s go’ and ‘low key’ , not telling too many people and playing it mysto – unwritten codes of communication. 

Fortunately, this one came together organically. I’m working on a feature film project with the Walters brothers – Dakoda and Harley – which we’ve been chipping away at between their comp commitments; trying to tap any windows we can while zig-zagging around the ‘Changa’ (Challenger Series) and ‘Queys’ (QS) .

Spying an auspicious forecast for King Island that coincided with a contest gap, Kodes hit me with a text: ‘I think it’s gonna be fun – you keen?’  We linked in with Soli Bailey and Zac Skyring, who were eager to get waves whether they were filmed or not. Soli had just returned to the brine post-injury and was desperate for some water time and rehab away from the crowds on the north coast.

Harley Walters under the hood.

The typical strike mission juggle ensued – lining up flights that had no available seats and making sure we could land before the notorious KI storms swept in.

There was one other minor logistical issue – Harley was a few hours down the coast camping with mates in a national park and had no reception, so we were just winging it, booking his tickets and hoping for the best.

We eventually managed to get hold of him through a mate’s Snapchat; safe to say he’d had a few, but he was like, ‘Yeah I’ll make it work, let’s go!’ This correspondence arrived about 6pm and we were leaving around 7am the next day. Harley ultimately convinced his parents to come find him in a …

Pulling our surfboard along 8,000km of the Atlantic coastline wasn’t part of our original plans. But at a time when global events felt a little overwhelming and deflating, this seemed like a refreshing and entertaining way to live, to move with intention and to embrace everything around us as we travelled through France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, the Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and The Gambia.

We love surfing, and we both own a pushy, so why not. Crossing France from the Alps to Les Landes with surfboards in tow generated weird glances our way on a daily basis – imagine someone pulling skis around Coolangatta!

Boulangeries (that’s bakeries for us Aussies) made up for the lack of waves, until we reached the towns (and crowds) of Hossegor and Biarritz. The north coast of Spain quickly reminded us that it isn’t all sunshine and tailwind when on a pushbike, and that the Atlantic can fall asleep for weeks at a time! It rained for six weeks straight through the Basque country, Asturias, Cantabria and Galicia, and all the way to the middle of Portugal. We gave up on trying to dry our shoes and shorts at night: Ben bought cheap thongs and wore boardshorts thereafter for efficient drying time! The surf conditions were very poor at best and wild camping became the #1 challenge. We learned that these coastlines are muddy, never flat, and mostly fenced-off – basically not ideal for bike-packers on a budget who spend all their money on croissants and refuse to pay 30 euros at a campground.

Portugal treated us better, and reminded us of home, our beloved Victorian Surf Coast in Australia: Ericeira gifted us with sunshine and five-foot offshore goodness, and Nazare was big enough to dismiss any pretence of paddling out! Justine Dupont and Nic Von …

The late 80s and early 90s were heady times for Australian surfwear. Brands like Quiksilver, Billabong and Rip Curl were household names and a host of other companies, now relegated to the archives of history, were enjoying their time in the sun. All up, Australian surfwear labels were pumping out t-shirts in their millions with artworks ranging from pure logo designs to detailed cartoon masterpieces. Mambo had become famous for its investment in contemporary artists and applying their designs to fashion and many of the other surf brands were doing the same.

I fancied myself as a commercial artist and wanted in on the surf fashion scene, but after a failed attempt to get into design school, I was working long hours for a small salary, and I was bored out of my mind. I started drawing again and after practising for several months I was ready to begin sending off designs to the big surf brands in the hope that somebody, anybody, would take me on as a graphic designer or artist.

My opportunity came with an unexpected phone call from the owner of Hot Tuna, whose offices were located on the NSW, Mid North Coast. He liked some drawings I had sent him and wanted someone to come up and organise his art room. I’d grown up in the Sydney suburbs, mostly dreaming about riding waves, binging on surf time in summer holidays, but never matching the coastal kid who was honing his snap before and after school. This job was my big chance at not only doing something creatively satisfying but pursuing a lifestyle I’d fantasised about.

I arrived for my first interview and immediately joined the long list of male employees with a crush on the receptionist. She smiled politely and called down the brand owner …

They landed in Chile with an idea, not a plan.

For Jed Fasso, that wasn’t a mistake, it was kind of the point. “We literally got there and thought, ‘How are we going to do this now?’” he says. No fixed route, no proper logistics, just a hunch that somewhere deep in Patagonia there was an undiscovered wave worth the effort.

It’s a familiar way to start a surf trip. You back yourself, assume you’ll figure it out on the fly and navigate your way to a dreamy set-up. But Chile isn’t any ordinary country. The place just keeps stretching – desert, points and then further south it breaks apart into fjords, islands and weather systems that you’ll be at the very mercy of. For Jed and his crew, this wasn’t your usual strike mission, it was a full-blown expedition.

Three and a half months of searching – chasing locals for help, snowboarding in the Andes, a failed two-day hike and a two-week sailing trip that nearly ran aground and ended in a bargaining arrangement with local fishermen after the captain refused to go further – and then finally, Jed found his new wave.

A leap of faith into the frigid waters of Patagonia.

The result is a full feature length film titled ‘Beyond Borders Patagonia’, which is currently touring across Australia.

While Jed, a surfer and creative, has worked on multiple video projects before, ‘Beyond Borders’ is his first full feature film. The 25-year-old grew up in Byron and spent most of his junior career competing on the QS. In the last few years, he’s shifted towards freesurfing and doing whatever he can to continue pursuing his creative vision full time.

Jed joined forces with Noosa based filmmaker, Sam Levings, avid surfer and traveller, Bodhi Genis (who is also …

Tya Zebrowski’s childhood was anything but ordinary. The daughter of professional snowboarders turned surf and yoga instructors, Zebrowski spent her early years travelling the world, following her parents’ surf and yoga camps. When Zebrowski was seven, the family began splitting their time between France and Tahiti, which she credits for her success as a surfer.

“Tya grew up discovering surf spots all around the world,” says Gary Zebrowski, Tya’s dad. “From a very young age, she travelled with us and spent her time between the beach, ocean, and meeting people from different cultures. She learned how to read different kinds of waves, adjust to changing conditions, and respect the places and people she encountered.”

At just 14 years old, Zebrowski has accomplished more than most surfers do in their lifetime. In 2025, at age 13, Zebrowski became the WSL Europe QS Champion after winning three consecutive events, making her the youngest person ever to do so.

“Beyond [Tya’s] work ethic and determination, there has always been something special in her surfing, something innate,” says Gary. “A natural reading of the wave, a sense of timing, a fluidity that can’t really be taught.”

In 2025, she began competing on the Challenger Series, winning the EDP Ericeira Pro, becoming the youngest person ever to win a CS event. Her debut season on the CS was so successful that she earned herself a spot on the 2026 Championship Tour – the youngest person to ever qualify for the Dream Tour.

“I’m a huge fan of Tya’s surfing and have been super impressed with how mature and well-rounded her style and approach are for such a young age,” says five-time World Champ Carissa Moore. “I really love her clean lines, power wraps, and flair on her top turns. It will be fun to see …

Sala resembles a yogi from central casting. Long waves of dark hair, a single braid that extends to his lower back, thick salt and pepper beard, deep, gentle eyes that see to your soul.

It’s day one of a much-anticipated father/son trip to a friends’ surf resort in Sri Lanka, that specialises in healthy food, yoga and massage. It’s an optimistic choice. He’s here to surf, not seek enlightenment. If I was giving odds on the chances of getting my hyper-active 19-year-old son to a yoga class, I would’ve said 100 to one.

I get it. Young men in their late teens tend not to listen to their fathers. It’s evolutionary – the need to distance, step into independence, become their own men. Still, we fathers worry about our young men and the challenging world they are growing up in – the scourge of social media, appalling self-appointed ‘alpha male’ influencers, pervasive messaging that masculinity is inherently ‘toxic’. 

In our case, these vexed times have been exacerbated by my cancer diagnosis 10 years ago and its debilitating treatments, which eroded my capacity to be the kind of father I aspire to be. The frontline treatment for prostate cancer, hormone therapy, can cause mood swings and difficulty regulating emotions. There’ve been fraught moments we resemble two teenagers – our prefrontal cortexes yet to fully develop.

My son and I love each other fiercely. We hug firmly and frequently, declare this love openly and often. But we are perhaps too similar – both sensitive, passionate, fiery, stubborn. We share a love of surfing and guitar yet have clashed wildly while navigating those volatile teenage years – pitched battles over mobile phone and Internet use, gaming, school, the inevitable temptations as a teenage surfer on the Gold Coast.

This father/son surf trip offers …

When the harbour slips into darkness and the chaos fades away, it isn’t much of a place to hang out. Dead quiet. It’s the kind of silence that gets inside your head. Makes you wonder if you’ve got it wrong, tide, timing, spot. Slabs of freshwater eel the size of your arm hang somewhere below, deep and out of sight. Above them, two game rods sit poised in the rod holders ready to buckle at any moment, the giant reels just begging to tick. While most of Sydney are avoiding the water, lineups empty, boards stashed, Ethan was waiting at the beast’s house and ringing the dinner bell.

Ethan isn’t the kind of guy who sticks to the norm. His year shifts with the seasons. Flyfishing for trout in winter. Hunting for deer in autumn. Paddling bass and cod rivers in the warmer months. It’s safe to say that his weekends stray slightly further afield than a lap of the same three local pubs. In fact he’d admit to feeling more at ease out in the bush than in a pub anyway. For Ethan, there’s always a new environment, a new approach or another skillset to chip away at. The quest of what’s next leaves little time for boredom.

And that next thing was sharks. Not for ego or headlines. Just curiosity taken a little further than most go. By the time the attacks hit the news, the idea had already been forming. Heavy gear had been bought and a plan loosely sketched. But the sudden spike in encounters sharpened everything, made it seem more real. If they were there, and they clearly were, then why not find out for themselves.

But at that point Ethan had never targeted a shark. Ryan Doyle had. Offshore makos, a handful of harbour …

In the wake of four shark attacks over a 48-hour period in late January, the NSW coast became a kingdom of fear. The attack on 12-year-old, Nico, in Sydney Harbour ultimately proved fatal, a second incident at Manly involving surfer, Andre de Ruyter, resulted in serious injury and two others were described as lucky escapes. It was generally agreed that bull sharks were responsible for each of the incidents. As the public sought explanations, experts suggested that the coalescence of warm water, heavy rain, nutrients, fish and seasonal migration had created a kind of perfect soup for bull sharks. “When I saw how much rainfall was predicted for that weekend, I was like, the bull sharks will be loving that,” explains Dr Yuri Niella, a scientist from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, who specialises in studying the movement patterns of sharks, particularly bull, tiger, and white sharks around Australia.

While there were no more reported attacks, sightings were frequent on Sydney’s beaches. The shark soup seemed particularly thick on Sydney’s north side where many were still getting over the fatal attack on Mercury Psillakis at Dee Why in September of 2025. On social media we were served up imagery of dolphins plucked clean by sharks at Bungan, signs showing ‘21 sharks counted at Bilgola’ on a single day and (at time of print) two months straight of sightings at Dee Why.  East coast surfers were spooked; many elected not to surf, while those who did were selective about when and where they paddled out. Surfers ignored emptier peaks, huddled in packs and openly discussed their concerns – this in a culture where mentioning the ‘S’ word has historically been taboo. Meanwhile, the excitement of each ride was tempered by a distinct sense of unease, particularly if it meant a …