Episode Details

Dave Rastovich has spent more time in the ocean than most people spend indoors. A lifetime of surfing remote coastlines, alone, in all conditions, has given him a way of reading the water that is intuitive and deliberate. He has had to reckon with his own fear, now watching his son find his feet at the same breaks where he found his.

This conversation goes to places I didn't expect. We talk about the tension between seeking solitude in the water and the vulnerability that comes with it. How Dave navigates fear and scenario building in his head when he's out there alone. The difference between a gut feeling and a spiral. And how reading the ocean, dolphins, fish activity, the mood of the water, becomes its own form of risk assessment.

Dave also shares a couple of wild shark encounters of his own, including a close pass from a very large Great White at Broken Head that's hard to forget once you hear it.

This one's about what it means to stay present in an environment that will always have the upper hand.