I first became aware of Daniel Ryan when I was shooting water footage one day about 15 years ago at big, really clean Spookies. The lineup was full of locals who were all getting pitted beyond belief, but no one was letting Dan get a wave. I suppose this is because he was a bodyboarder. Some of the more ruthless locals even dropped in on him, fading him mercilessly into catastrophic wipeouts as he struggled to navigate deep, heaving tubes. He got smashed, even washed onto the rocks, time after time. Then a majestic set came in from the north and I saw he was in pole position … and I was way out of position. Dan being the furthest guy out the back meant nothing to the guy who decided to take the wave from him. From where I was – deep on the inside – I was amazed to see Dan take the steep drop and swing left on the right-hander and pull into a gaping, wrong-way, suicidal barrel, which could only ever closeout and push him up onto the rocky platform. Needless to say we both got worked, in my case it was because I couldn’t resist watching what he was doing and invariably left my duck dive way too late. Dan because no one goes left at Spookies for a good reason. I didn’t even roll camera it was such a shock. It reminded me of an epic shot of Michael Peterson surfing Backdoor in the early 70s. When MP was asked why he had gone right (which hardly anyone did at Pipe back then, especially at that size) he had responded, “They wouldn’t let me go left”. Over the years I saw some amazing body boarding shots of Dan on Facebook, but after he shared a photo of himself standing up on monster waves and I heard he was paddling in with Camel, I knew we had to talk. Where were you born and how did you end up in the surf? Canberra, but when I was about three my mum moved us to Grafton and then Yamba. When we went to the beach back then I was really scared of the ocean but at about eight I started doing nippers, paddle boarding, which I loved, and getting out the back and that and I’ll never forget getting a bodyboard and pulling into my first … Read more