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After finishing rehab ‘Nathan heeded the advice not to make a hasty leap back into any major commitments prematurely, “Just to get my foundations solid,” he explains. However, after six months reality started to bite. “I had to sort of start thinking about how am I going to earn a living to put food on the table… after I put all my eggs into the surfing basket.” As a successful pro-surfer you have status and money and a lifestyle that is the envy of every surfer who shows up for work each day. However, in the employment market, Nathan was a 33-year-old male with no formal training, tertiary education or work experience.
Nathan eventually secured a gig on the Port Kembla wharves on the south coast of NSW. The first job for the surfer who once cruised the Northern Beaches in his beloved, top of the line BMW was ironically driving new cars off the ships. It also meant leaving Narrabeen and moving down south to live with another former pro-surfer, Mick Lowe. At the time Nathan’s former partner was also expecting their first child. “He was just trying to find his feet and I was more than happy to take him in… we’ve known each other for over 30 years,” explains Mick Lowe. “He still had that drive and that passion for surfing and for life in general… In my eyes he was still the same old Hedgey just without the odd bender.”
According to Lowe, Nathan quickly earned the respect of the region’s surf community. “ He was doing a fair bit of coaching; he’s a very good coach and everyone loved him… he’s the Hog he’s the most loveable character in the world.”
Despite forming new connections, the work on the wharves was inconsistent and once he earned his maritime ticket, Nathan moved back to Sydney for a better paying and more consistent stevedore job with a logistics company at Port Botany. By this stage he was a young father, intent on making decisions in the best interest of his family. “I was in my late 30s… it was a career I could stay in for a while, the shift work’s hard, but the money’s good, you could select some days off and go surf….”
After years in a sport where so much depends on individual performance, Nathan admits he relished the camaraderie on the docks. “It was good to be part of a team and make decisions together and when you leave, you sort of wipe your hands clean and don’t have to worry about anything.” However, there were also times when the stark contrast between his present circumstances and the glory days of his past played on his mind. “At three in the morning you’d be there with the semi-trailer coming alongside the ship and you’re lining up the lasers to drop a 40-foot box on the back and you’re just sort of like, ‘how the fuck did I end up here?’”
Overall, Nathan saw it as a growing experience.“… I was proud of myself because it turns out I do have transferable skills and I can do other things. And it was kind of motivating that there is more to me than just surfing and I can get through this.” Meanwhile, in terms of re-framing how surfing factored into his life, it became in his own words, “Nathan that likes to surf or not Nathan the pro- surfer.”
When Nathan split with his partner it prompted another move north to Pottsville, a quiet town on the north coast of NSW. He was a single dad, sharing custody of his daughter and needed work, so he didn’t baulk when David Gyngel, offered him a gig working at the Brunswick Hotel. Gyngel, a lifelong surfer, had acquired the establishment after leaving his job as boss of channel nine. Nathan admits that he feared that working in a pub might tempt him to embrace old vices. “I wondered how I would go pouring beers and tapping kegs and being around alcohol, but it wasn’t an issue, it was fine.” Asked if it was confronting to be recognised as a former pro-surfer as he shouldered kegs and collected glasses he responds honestly. “You would see some people come in and sort of second guess and go ‘Is that you Hog?’ and there was that slight part of me that was like ‘now you’re working in the pub’ but I soon got through that negative talk and I focused on the reasons why I was there and the positives in it. And hey, you know, it’s a stepping stone, ‘I’m doing it for my daughter’.
For the former, high paid surfer it was also a hard lesson in the real value of a dollar. “It was humbling… we’d walk 40-50 km’s on the floor because the guys had the watches, you could tell how many steps you did and some shifts over summer were crazy. But that was good for me to work out what 120 bucks looks like and how you earn it. I think I made eight or nine grand for that summertime.”
On the north coast Nathan also forged relationships that enabled him to utilise his surfing skills. He worked with elite, young surfers at the High-Performance Centre at Casuarina, whilst also establishing his own private coaching venture The Surf Lab. Straddling a Jet Ski,Nathan spends a session with surfers from all walks of life who want to accelerate the learning curve in their quest to become better surfers. “It’s a connection thing,” explains Nathan.“When you help someone get onto the wave of their life it does make you feel so good.”
Nathan’s gregarious nature, infectious enthusiasm and wealth of experience also made him a sought after coach for the high-end crowd..The affluent nature of some of his clientele means they are willing to fly him into whichever location is on their wish list. So far he’s been to Cost Rica, Fiji, Indonesia, Mexico, The Surf Ranch and Hawaii as a coach. While not predisposed to say exactly whose cutback he has been entrusted with improving, Nathan makes a point of closely observing the high-flying people he works with. “I’m just trying to learn bits and pieces from different people who have been really successful in their own right.”
The elimination of alcohol-fuelled benders from his life also meant Nathan had more time to invest in his training and personal development. He formed a bond with Duncan Peak, a former soldier turned yoga fanatic who had established a chain of yoga studios. “Some of the stuff that he’d been through in his life I really connected with and he was just a real straight up awesome guy,” explains Nathan. Nathan went on back-to-back yoga training retreats in Bondi and is confident he could instruct a class if called upon. These days his morning routine still begins ‘on the mat’ as the yoga devotees like to say. “It’s kept me fit and injury free. I’m 40 now so I sort of need to do other things rather than the gym and just surfing.”
However, in the midst of all this reinvention Nathan claims he still felt something was missing. “… I need goals to aspire to and things to work towards and the competitive side of surfing really gave me that…I just ripped right in and got training and, you know, just applied my focus and dedication to where I wanted to be.” COVID proved to be the unlikely catalyst for Nathan’s competitive return. The pandemic prompted the WSL to introduce a regional qualifying series, which meant Nathan could compete in a number of domestically-based events over a short, six-week window without spending too much money, or time away.
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