This is one of my favourite memories of Finn. Since the age of 9, Finn already an avid surfer, had dreamed of one day going to the Mentawi islands in Indonesia. Financially, this had always been a stretch, but but the summer of 2022, my business was doing pretty well and we decided it was time to make that dream a reality.
The second day we arrived, the biggest swell to hit Indo of that surf season and starts slamming the outer atolls of the island chain, the waves were firing. Finn and I were the only two in our family to surf them and I was feeling particularly banged up by the third day as I had hit the reef a few times. Not fun. We pulled up to a break called Telescopes and it was looking like something out of the movies. Really big, barrelling and to me looking like another rough day bouncing off the reef. I was hesitant to paddle out. I shly kept my eye on Finn to see if he was going out, even he was a bit reluctant because the guys that were out looked like Pros. Sure, enough, he paddles out and proceeds to get barrel after barrel. This is one of the few that we caught that day, a smaller wave of the day, he caught bigger ones. There was no way I could let him claim the day, so after a few of the bigger sets went through and I saw that he had stayed out, I decided to paddle out. It was another epic day that I won’t ever forget surfing with Finn. I will always cherish this day and memory, and I use it every day to inspire me.
What would Finn to today? Would he paddle out when the waves were huge and scary? Would be be the one leading the charge? Yes, and I follow that inspiration.