“You get excited in the lead-up to it. It’s definitely a journey from when you first see the system coming to when you commit to going. It’s always a bit of a gamble on a big-wave eventuating. Anything can happen. Although, with the websites and the forecasts, things have gotten pretty accurate. It’s rare for us to go somewhere after the forecast has been really good, only for nothing to eventuate.”

FIT AND WELL

“Once a week I’ll have a deep-water breathing training session. I try to keep my cardio up there as much as I can with two or three sessions of that a week, too. Obviously strength is vitally important, as it helps eliminate potential injury. I usually try to do two strength sessions at a gym ... and surfing in between all that.

“My breathing exercises are called Breath Enhancement Training – really important for big-wave surfers. I’ll do a lot of ‘negative’ holds, which is inhaling through the nose, exhaling slowly through the mouth. This is different from your average ‘positive’ hold, which might just be a deep, lung-filling breath. If I’m out of breath or wounded, I can cope with not having air in my lungs. It teaches me to stay calm in bad situations.