“Usually if I’m in a bad frame of mind, it’s because I’m not organised or not ready. Just before the day I try to envisage what it’s going to be like and how and what I’m going to do. I’ll ask myself, ‘If something went wrong, what would I do there?’

“I might have 20-minute or half-hour breaks here and there, but if the waves are good, and it’s big, I’ll stay out on the water all day. That’s quite dangerous to do, but if you’re in good shape and you’re feeling good mentally, you should be able to surf all day.”

SCARY SHIT

“I’ve definitely had my fair share of really scary moments. One that stands out was a wave in Western Australia. It’s not a paddle wave, it’s like a really thick, short wave that you need to get towed in on by a jet ski. It’s one of the heaviest waves in the world. I came off there a couple of years ago and was really lucky to come up. I had

a flotation device on, but the wave is really powerful. It has a lot of energy and hits a shallow reef, then it drops off into really deep ocean water. It has a lot of deep-water currents which push you deeper if you get stuck in the wrong sort of draft. I got caught in a really bad down draft. It ended up pushing me that far down that my ear drums burst and then I got held down for almost a minute, which is a pretty long time to be underwater.

“When it first happened I didn’t know which way was up because I was being pushed so fast. My sense of direction was all over the place. In the end I was swimming up to the surface, but I wasn’t swimming straight, a bit sideways. I was close to blacking-out.”