Surf Life by Gill Hutchinson & Willem-Dirk du Toit
Filled with narratives across Australia's far-reaching coastline, Surf Life connects inspiring stories of women surfers with a life filled with creativity.
Photography: Willem-Dirk du Toit
‘My ego is not there as much as it was when I was younger. I’m not embarrassed to do things anymore and I’m not worried what people will think when I fall off my board, or what a wetsuit looks like on me.’ Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
‘Leo likes everything to be precise and beautiful inside and I enjoy being outside, it’s a happy juxtaposition as a couple. It’s honestly a fairy tale house to live in’. Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
Written by Gill Hutchinson and photography by Willem-Dirk du Toit, Surf Life is centred on the experiences of women surfers, taking us into their homes, vans, and cabins to the backdrop of the ocean. Each story reveals a sense of overcoming, achieving, and resilience, even if it is to hold their place, changing the scope of the lineup.
As Gill’s first bit of advice shares, ‘Don't think you're too old, the wrong body shape or not fit enough. The ocean is for everyone.’ Surf Life unveils that whether you start surfing at two, pulled onto your dad’s board, or in your 50s, with a keenness to learn something new, surfing, the ocean, and life has a place for you.
JESS
Lives: Bells Beach/Wadawurrung Country
Age started surfing: 26
Dream Surf ~
Break: An island in Indonesia
Board: Longboard
Wave size: Shoulder high
Sometimes with surfing it feels like you can learn by osmosis. Surely if you watch your boyfriend surf for hours on end this will translate into also surfing with ease? Jess and Leo were madly in love on an east coast road trip when Jess decided to give surfing a go.
‘I was very excited when I caught a wave and I looked around to see if Leo had seen it as I jumped off the board. The board kept going with my leg rope attached then flew up in the air and smashed me in the forehead with the fin centimetres from slicing my face in half.’ Nursing a concussion and a huge lump on her forehead meant Jess took a break from surfing for a while. ‘I was terrified.’
It’s been a few years and now Jess is back in the water. ‘My ego is not there as much as it was when I was younger. I’m not embarrassed to do things anymore and I’m not worried what people will think when I fall off my board, or what a wetsuit looks like on me. So I think the level of confidence that comes with age is really helpful to go out and try new things. What is really cool is the new challenge because surfing is not easy. Every sport has always been really easy for me so it’s put me in my place. I like that because I just have to try harder and get better. I know I will.’
She is really enjoying her time in the ocean, whether it is in the whitewash or out the back, and learning at her own pace.
Jess doesn’t mind being a surf widow when the swell hits Bells Beach. ‘You can’t say anything bad about something that brings someone so much joy. It just makes me happy to see Leo come home beaming, dripping saltwater on the floor.’
Jess and Leo struck rental gold with their 1970s architecturally designed house minutes from the beach. ‘There’s no insulation, so it’s really cold but the shape of the house is just so weird and wonderful.’
Jess spends much of her time outside on the 10-acre property using her machete and chainsaw, clearing old vegetation, growing plants in the greenhouse and sometimes crafting organic sculptures from small branches.
As an interior designer, ‘Leo likes everything to be precise and beautiful inside and I enjoy being outside, it’s a happy juxtaposition as a couple. It’s honestly a fairy tale house to live in’.
‘There’s no insulation, so it’s really cold but the shape of the house is just so weird and wonderful.’ Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
‘You can’t say anything bad about something that brings someone so much joy. It just makes me happy to see Leo come home beaming, dripping saltwater on the floor.’ Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
“You can’t say anything bad about something that brings someone so much joy. It just makes me happy to see Leo come home beaming, dripping saltwater on the floor.”
‘I’ve got Tassie blood, but I get cold really easily. In winter you can come out after a surf with your hair still dry and it doesn’t feel super refreshing. You can feel like you’ve barely even touched the water because you just try to remove yourself from coming into contact with it wearing multiple layers of rubber.’ Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
Surf Life is centred on the experiences of women surfers, taking us into their homes, vans, and cabins to the backdrop of the ocean. Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
‘There’s nothing nice about it, it’s just freezing cold, and your brain freezes and it’s painful. And you get stiff… I say it’s not very nice, but also surf as much as I can!’ Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
Zoe moved to Hobart a few years ago, but returns to Marrawah every summer to paint. She uses a shack right near the ocean and not too far from the family home as a makeshift studio. Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
‘The way of viewing the land from the ocean disrupts the traditional sense of landscape painting. The perspective, when you’re sitting on your board in the water, looking back at the land, is really unique.’
ZOE
Lives: Hobart/Nipaluna
Age started surfing: 7
Dream Surf ~
Break: Greens Beach Right Hander
Board: 5’9’’ Hayden Shapes Thruster
Wave size: Head high
Marrawah is a tiny town on Peerapper Country in remote north-western Tasmania. Zoe’s father inherited his parents’ farm years ago and, with an eye on a right hand reef point, built a family home a short walk to the surf. Growing up, Zoe remembers the tight-knit surfing family having the break mostly to themselves, hooting each other into waves even in the depths of a southern winter. This sense of isolation has filtered into much of Zoe’s life. She favours solitude over socialising, preferring to surf and paint alone.
Through her paintings, Zoe is trying to unpack her visceral reaction to the landscape of home, stopping herself when she begins to romanticise the windswept hills and rugged coastline. ‘I am forever trying to catch myself and wanting to remain quite raw and honest in the way I paint home. It actually can be really bloody difficult living there and really isolating.’
Surfing in winter requires tenacity and grit. ‘There’s nothing nice about it, it’s just freezing cold, and your brain freezes and it’s painful. And you get stiff. I’ve got Tassie blood, but I get cold really easily. In winter you can come out after a surf with your hair still dry and it doesn’t feel super refreshing. You can feel like you’ve barely even touched the water because you just try to remove yourself from coming into contact with it wearing multiple layers of rubber. I say it’s not very nice, but also surf as much as I can!’
As a teenager, Zoe began competing in board riders’ events and soon became one of the top surfers in Tasmania in her age group. As Marrawah was so remote Zoe had to move away to complete her last two years of high school and for a while contemplated moving to the Gold Coast and engaging a surf coach to take her competing to the next level. Instead she chose to study locally and her quest to find people with who she could align landed her in the art department at her new school where she started to paint. Zoe is one of the rare art school graduates who immediately transitioned into being a self-funded, full-time artist with regular sell-out solo shows.
Zoe moved to Hobart a few years ago, but returns to Marrawah every summer to paint. She uses a shack right near the ocean and not too far from the family home as a makeshift studio. There’s a space to paint, a couch, some beds and no running water in the bathroom. In between chasing waves with her brother or father Zoe will spend a few hours at the shack every day, sketching and painting. She’ll then return to her Hobart studio to deep dive into painting, trying to make sense of the land she finds ‘endlessly interesting’. She has a strong desire to connect to home and feel grounded, particularly when she’s not there.
When Zoe surfs alone at the breaks around Marrawah, she’s aware she is the only surfer in the water for miles yet she feels comfortable in the ocean. When she’s out surfing, she’s connecting to the place in a very special way. ‘The way of viewing the land from the ocean disrupts the traditional sense of landscape painting. The perspective, when you’re sitting on your board in the water, looking back at the land, is really unique.’
