“Putting yourself out there
Kicking over a can of worms; as a journalist sometimes you do it on purpose but other times you just stop and go ‘whoa, I didn’t expect that.’
After I put down the phone for the fifth time, listening to someone from the surf industry nervously want to know more details about this story, I went ‘whoa, I didn’t expect that.’
About 12 years ago I met Ellie-Jean Coffey when she was about fourteen; she was fresh faced and lived in a bus with her sisters and parents. Her mother had had a skateboarding accident and needed care, so her father gave up his job as a builder, sold the house, bought a bus and the family travelled around Australia fishing and surfing. A somewhat idyllic lifestyle and the perfect breeding ground for a young girl wanting to become a good surfer, which she did.
She started to compete at the age of ten and was soon picked by Billabong and sponsored onto the world surfing stage. She got to travel and surf some
