LIVE AND LETTY LIVE
It’s October 1996. Kelly Slater and Lisa Andersen are dominating surfing’s Championship Tour. Newcastle has edged out Manly in a battle-of-the-coastal-clubs NRL Premiership thriller. In Sydney’s Northern Beaches, a bub named Lliam Mortensen takes his first breaths of ocean air after birthing into a blow-up pool in the backyard of his parent’s home in Avalon.
It explains a lot that the boy they later called Letty—a name adopted by his four-years-older brother who could not pronounce Lliam as a toddler—entered this world via water. Letty probably swam before he opened his eyes. It also seems likely he rode the waves created by his mother sloshing around in the paddling pool that day, so in-tune is Letty with surfing beach breaks around his hometown bubble.
“Growing up in Avalon, you either surf or you play footy,” says Letty, now 25. “I surfed.”
Those who haven’t witnessed Letty in his natural ocean habitat should probably search YouTube for Rusty surf clips, or join his growing fanbase on Instagram.
Lanky, laidback, funky with a cruisy, swerving style that tricks us into thinking he might just ride this one out easy. But don’t look away. He’ll whip out a straight-legged, rail-biting half-moon through a vertical face,
