As the Florence brothers continue to pop up in every corner of the surfing world chasing the best waves, the gnarliest ones and the setups that no one else wants to have a crack at, we thought it’d be a good opportunity to take a deeper dive into the diary of Nathan Florence.

Nathan is consistently on the road, travelling every part of the globe chasing XL swells. This often involves living out of a board bag, making last minute dashes to the airport and clocking up plenty of air miles. During 2022 when he had standouts sessions in the Ments and in Ireland, as well as a host of other XL scores, he spoke to Ben Mondy about his travel diary.

The article featured in Issue 590 of our mag, but you can now read it for free below.

Nathan Florence’s 2022 travel diary as told to Ben Mondy

“At the start of 2022, I was so burnt out on surfing pipe. Pipeline had been so crazy, but I was just fucking done surfing the same wave over and over again. And I was just so excited to travel. I was like, okay, I am going to chase swells, but I was less strict on how gnarly the swells would have to be. I wanted to be in Australia for march and april and catch up with john. And, I wanted to do Indo and also two months in Europe. So those trips were locked from the beginning, but I had no idea really how it would pan out. I didn’t plan to have the best surfing year of my life.”

Stepping into Oz

I made it to Oz and this Shipsterns swell popped up almost immediately. I was talking to my buddy Kipp Caddy, and he said, ‘Dude, it looks pretty sick, a paddle day, could be fun, maybe not the best ever, but worth a look.’

We show up and we have fucking the most epic day. It wasn’t 100-foot or anything like that, but it was insane paddle conditions. Everyone was going over the step getting 10 to 12-foot barrels, the bodyboarders were paddling 15-footers. It was fucked up. We all scored.

Then I went to Western Australia and met up with John. During the Finals Day of the Margies CT, I had two sessions at the Box. In the morning I surfed with just two guys. Then I watched John’s heats and went back out and this time it was with Kelly and one other guy. Unbelievable. The dudes at the comp were saying the winds were weird. I was like, “I just saw a 10-foot wave blow its guts out. Like, what are you talking about?” It was epic.

A Tahiti Diversion

“There was this group of guys out that were just so willing to push that the session turned into something special, actually historic.”

The plan from Oz was to head straight to Indo, but I needed to go home, reset and grab some new boards. As soon as I got A 60-day Score in Indo. back though, this insane Chopes swell pops up, so it was a case of giddy-up. Now, I’ve been travelling to Tahiti for almost 20 years and have been pushing hard on those paddle days the last few years, but this first session with a big, west and rising swell was gnarly. It was so mean.

However, there was this group of guys out that were just so willing to push it that it turned into something special, actually historic. You knew that the buddy next to you was going to go if you didn’t, on anything that came in. And there were a dozen guys all doing that. Balaram paddled one of the craziest waves I have ever seen. And Matahi did it like 10 times in a row. Eimeo, Kauli, Lucas Chumbo; all the guys were just fucking sending it so hard.

And you can score, but, dude, this was just different. This was a historical session because new elite levels got pushed. The goofy-footers started tapping into this new technique that instead of trying to knife drop, they were air-dropping to the bottom and they started pulling it consistently. It was a new way to paddle it for the frontside surfers. And now you’re like, fuck, maybe it isn’t a backsider who’s going to paddle the biggest one ever. It’s going to be a frontsider because they can do that heel-top, tail-tap air-drop and hook in. It was just insane. And that trip was a bonus because I wasn’t even supposed to be there. And then, bam, we checked the forecast for Indonesia, and it was lighting up.

A 60 day score in Indo

I got home, repacked for one day, and flew to Bali the next day. As soon as I get there, I scored two days at Ulus, and then bailed to the Mentawais. We stayed at Bilou Surf Villas. This wave outside the camp was a 10-second barrel and just a few people were surfing down the bottom of the point. I just surfed it with the camp owner and me for hours by ourselves. And I was, like, well that was fun. Then the swell picks up and all of a sudden, we are way out the back surfing the psycho slab version of a part of the reef. It was a solid 10-foot. To find that kind of heavy water in Indo was incredibly rare. We bailed to Bali, and the surf kept pumping. But I wanted to get Lance’s Right really big. Sure enough, another big swell pops up so we shoot back. Lances was so big, heavy, and perfect. Often it was just me and my brother Ivan out, and we’d surf for three hours. Or we’d be joined by a couple of the older Australians that have been down there for 300 years, full Dawn of the Dead dudes coming out of the jungle. And we just scored that for a week. Later my mum came out to Bali, and my wife was there. We had nowhere we had to be. We were loving life. We ended up staying for two months.

Old Dogs and New Tricks

At this stage I was surfing as good as I ever have because of the sheer variety of waves. I also found that, and this would come into play later in Europe, I was able to learn new waves really quickly. Whereas normally you get this kind of shock that happens when you surf a new wave, especially a new heavy wave, and you’re hesitant. However, as I became exposed to surfing new waves so often, I started to learn them way faster. The old mangy dog was learning a few new tricks.

Brothers on Boats

We went from Bali to home. I immediately went to Mexico and scored solid Puerto Escondido and perfect Barra and came home. Europe was looming in those months, but then John said. “Hey, I’m sailing my boat in Fiji.” I was like, fuck, I can’t pass this up. I jumped on a plane and headed straight to Fiji and sailed to the far far, South Pacific. It was me, John, and Ivan, just us on the boat, so it was just a beautiful trip.

Portugal Part 1: Cave Dwelling

The plan was to be based in Portugal and do strikes from there. But for the first few weeks, I didn’t have to go anywhere. I checked the Cave, which looked like Backdoor on steroids, and nobody was surfing!

Torrey Meister and Zeke Lau were there for the Challenger Series, and we just kept on it every day for five days in a row. Eventually, we decided to quit while we were ahead, but it was a crazy slab of a week.

A Highland Fling

My wife, Mahina, was travelling with me through Europe, and we were just dying to go to Scotland and go full tourist mode. But there was also some swell coming. A friend mentioned there was a grom called Ben Largs who had been surfing those waves, so I hit him up on Insta.

Mahina and I rented a little cabin up there and got over there just in time to show up to this slab that was just going so psychotic. It was so much heavier, bigger, and gnarlier than I thought. It was so sketchy, but there were the odd, really perfect-looking waves breaking. It was my first day, but I was like, ‘We gotta go out there.’ The grom wasn’t so sure, he’d never seen it so big and wild. But when I saw a wave spit, I kind of forced the session.

Man, the paddle out was so gnarly. The keyhole was 10-foot-wide, and 15-footers were breaking on dry reef on either side of it. As a result, the keyhole was full of metre-thick foam. The paddle out was a full survival experience. I was just happy to get out alive, let alone catch waves, which we ended up doing. However, we didn’t paddle anything close to what was possible out there.

The Dynamic Duo

I gotta give a shoutout to Mahina at this stage. I didn’t bring a filmer to Europe and so she was on the freakin’ sick handy- cam with the power zoom. It was such a loose program, but she was the most dedicated filmer I’ve ever had. She never let me leave the frame and she kept it rolling, nailing clips. I wanted this part of the trip to be half surf and a half just me and my wife touring Europe; just two random tourists on the road in the Highlands of Scotland. And then when the waves were good, she was posting up trooper-style filming everything perfectly. We were the ultra, dynamic duo. We stayed for almost three weeks.

It was my first day, but I was like, ‘We gotta go out there.’ The grom wasn’t so sure, he’d never seen it so big and wild. But when I saw a wave spit, I kind of forced the session. Man, the paddle out was so gnarly. The keyhole was 10-foot-wide, and 15-footers were breaking on dry reef on either side of it. As a result, the keyhole was full of metre-thick foam. The paddle out was a full survival experience. I was just happy to get out alive, let alone catch waves.

To Nazare or not to Nazare

We bailed back to Portugal and just straight into The Cave firing again. Torrey and I surfed it on our own for another week. We had two more weeks in Portugal and then my wife had to go home for a job. I’d been hanging with Tom Lowe, and he bailed to Ireland to chase a swell at Mully.

And I was, like, “Mully? That big, tow, windy, fucking scary thing?” And he’s like, “Yeah, exactly.” So, I had this crazy decision that I was stressing on. I could stay and do the whole Nazare thing, but that didn’t really excite me. I wanted to get barrelled and do something gnarly.

Anyway, I needed some gas canisters and Garrett Mac told me to ask Cotty, who’d I never met. And he was such a good dude. We ended up hanging out watching Nazare, and I asked him about Ireland and whether I should go. He said, “Are you tripping? You got to go to Ireland. Everyone’s so cool and they are all like-minded, core big waves, guys.” I bought a ticket the next morning and I flew my filmer, Zoard, in from Hawaii.

Mullaghmore Madness

We both got into Bundoran around 10pm, and the next morning we showed up at Mullaghmore at first light. I’d been in contact with a local surfer Ollie O’Flaherty, though we’d never met. He saw me and said, “What the hell, you’re here? Get your shit on right now, it’s on.” I saw a big reeling left come through and just drain super hard. It was clean with light winds and blue skies. Ollie said, “You’re fucking scoring dude. This is unheard of.” I paddled out with Ollie and in the line-up introduced myself and sat on the inside. I always sit and wait my turn and know that I’m bottom priority when I travel. I always pay respect to the locals and the time they have put in.

So, I sit on the inside and caught a few inside double-ups but I had seen a couple of bigger ones roll through, some ridden and some unridden. I paddled more into the bowl and this bomb comes. There was one other guy paddling for it, but I could tell that it was going to double up under him.

A few guys were screaming, “Go Nathan”, so I swung. I was on an 8’6″ and I was in a near-perfect position, somehow proper right place, right time. I got in under the lip and did this little air-drop and then looked up and saw this freaky bending wall. I had so much speed from that drop, and it looked insane but doable. I faded and then turned again, and I was like, “Oh fuck, what have I done?”

In big waves, it’s hard to tell what’s behind you until you see the lip land. In the tube, I saw this lip land and knew this thing was fucking huge! And then I was on the foam ball. I started to slide a little bit until my fins just caught. Suddenly, I had some speed and control and as it spat, I was like, “Oh, shit, I’m making it.”

I was kind of just tripping. That was my first ever surf in Ireland. That doesn’t happen, you don’t get the wave of your life on your first session. And it was cool too, cause Russel Bierke was there. He had been at the Shipsterns session at the start of the trip. We spent the next three weeks hanging and travelling in Ireland.

Postscript

Because I had enough time in Ireland, I made some really good friends. And that was the best part about the year. By spending chunks of time in places I was able to build lasting relationships. Now I have all these new friends all over the world, who surf waves that I like to surf. That was the biggest win of the trip. It also confirmed the direction I wanted to take with my life. The joy I got from surfing new waves and new places to me was huge. To get that same sense of satisfaction at Pipe, you need to get the gnarliest wave ever. So, my program will be aimed at getting joy in new places and new countries I want to do South Africa, and Chile and go explore and meet new people and surf new waves.