There is a beautiful home in Australia that is now inhabited by us. Nine of us. It has several bedrooms. A beautiful deck. A gas Weber barbecue. Kitschy photos of Waikiki, Santa Monica, Tahiti and other surfing “meccas.” We are here surfing, drinking, skating, talking, grilling, and reading poetry together because we saw a film called Shelter that was based on a similar premise: a house of dudes surfing and hanging out…only we wanted to fuck it up a bit. So we brought a few new characters to our version. One chain-smokes and doesn’t have a clue how actually bad ass he is. One is freshly inked with a new sponsor, a fuck-ton of tattoos and the most technically perfect approaches in surfing. Another has a backhand whip that is so committed he makes you want to be better at whatever it is you do. And the other is Dillon.

During our first surf together as a trip, we found an anomaly of a sandbar, something that never breaks and isn’t even really a wave, but because of the 50 year storm (that finally fucked off), it has become a wedgy, driving right hand point that begs. It was a bit of a riddle to figure out at first, but offered plenty of clues and it was the perfect first surf for the trip. Dillon started his surf a happy camper. “I almost got barreled on my first one!” he said of his first wave. “I didn’t even know what to do it was such a good wave.” It was then we realized we had just stumbled on something rad, with no one else out.

Unfortunately, the riddle of a wave was dueling with Dillon’s brain, which happened to be littered with the musings of Henry Miller, an American writer who wrote Tropic of Capricorn, the book Dillon is currently reading. “I cant read all this stuff and then be normal and focus and surf,” he said of his reading (which he does every morning on the deck alone). After one wave in particular, one that really chapped his ass he shouted, “Fuck Henry Miller!” Which is of course something Henry himself would have absolutely loved: a surfer so befuddled by his writing that he couldn’t surf. Imagine if he knew!

None of the above really matters yet, it’s early days. But what does matter is that we’ve just put together one of the most fascinating casts of characters (as is our number one goal always) into some extremely rad waves. We’ve got a few cars, some loud music that never stops, a skateboarding infatuation, and a Weber grill that won’t stop. All here 20 yards from the pure and thin white Australian sand. It is just the beginning of what may well be the end. Until then, Fuck Henry Miller! #Webackatit —Travis