VISION KINGS

MARTI PARADISIS, THE BLUFF

Great Australian tube pigs don’t come more unlikely than Marti Paradisis. The son of a Greek fisherman, who escaped poverty after stowing away on a cargo ship to Australia, Marti spent his first 12 years in landlocked Hobart dreaming of becoming a professional soccer player. When the call of the ocean proved too much for his father, the family moved to Clifton Beach, on the outskirts of Hobart, where Marti’s surfing career took shape.

Tasmanian surfing might be defined by cartoonish death slabs like Shipstern Bluff, but it is amidst the icy, windblown rip bowls of Clifton Beach you’ll find the beating heart of Tasmanian surfing. Marti’s next-door neighbour at Clifton was none other than local big wave legend, James ‘Polly’ Pollanowski. As a teenager, Marti mowed Polly’s lawn for handfuls of marijuana and after finishing the job one day, went to collect only to walk in on a secret viewing session of some of the first ever footage of Shipsterns.

Marti recalls, “They were all sitting around watching footage of this 15-foot slab and they all looked at me and said, ‘Shut the door and don’t say