Ocean earth: Owen Wright what I know (as told by owen wright to chris binn)

I was five when I started, apparently, but I would've been surfing before that I reckon. I remember watching Dad surf at Aussie Pipe when I was really young, and it just looked like the biggest, best thing in the world.
I can't remember my first wave, it's weird. I remember my first air better than my first wave. I was eight and I remember just racing down the line and I was going really fast. I was coming up for a normal turn, but I pushed it
really hard and I popped out into the air and landed!
None of my mates were there but Mum was on the beach filming. I pulled off and I was looking at her to see if she got it and she just told me that she'd missed it, and laughed when I got pissed off. "Oh Mum!"
It was funny being part of such a crazy surfing family. We would turn up and people would be like "oh shit".
In about three streets there were probably about 15 kids who surfed. There was the Tuckers, Mikey's mates, my mates and Shano's.
When there was a little bank out the front before school it was always the biggest fight to get a wave.
We always had our borders. It was our beach track and then it was the Cheadles' beach track, and someone else's beach track and we'd always be like, "This is out the front of ours, you're a bit to the left, this is our territory".
My old man's a plumber. He's always been pretty flexible with work. He would always travel for work. If it came up down the South Coast, like down Narooma way, we'd go down there for three or four days and he'd take us with him and we'd help him out on the job site.
I don't know if we were allowed, but I reckon I would've had my trade by the time I was 12.
Dad's a bit of a hard taskmaster with everything; working hard,
training hard. He was doing martial arts and things like that. And then
Mum was all about love, so we had a good balance.
I reckon I could've been a tradie, easy. Sometimes I look at
(brother/plumber) Tim's job and I'm like "Fuck, he must be love it,
'cos surfing's that hard!" He's good at what he does, but I'm definitely
stoked to be surfing. I used to do a bit of plumbing, and I used to hate
digging trenches.
I won 25 grand in an air show on the Gold Coast when I was 17. It was crazy. I didn't know what 25 grand was, I didn't have a clue. I won a sweet jacket too, though! I was in Surfers and somehow went out that night. Dunno how, it was so fun.
I like good-looking girls, but if they're stuck-up then I've got no time for them. If they're cool, cruisey, funny, canhang out, I like chicks like that. If there's a girl that's super hot but she's not cool I won't even bother. If she's too good, I'll let her be too good.
Six two and a half, 18 and five eighths, two and three eighths. All day, every day.
Travel's a huge eye-opener. You get a whole lot more experience than just staying at home, it throws so many challenges at you. You feel like you get more mature travelling, even, but it's pretty fun at the same time.
I like looking at property. It's interesting to see what places were put on the market for and what they actually sold for, what's going on with these economic times. I've never really had too many concerns about money though. Dad's
always said, "If you can spend money on anything, spend it on good food," so I've always done that.
I sit in economy. I normally try and look at the other time zone and what they're about to go into, then work it out from that. Most places you go to you land in the morning so I'll train hard, I'll surf as much as I can, I'll have a night out, then I get on the plane and all I want to do is sleep. I've never been into sleeping tablets.
Clean your cuts. I surfed Desert Point for five days. Came back to
Bali, surfed Ulus, then went back to Deserts and thought "I'll push it a
bit harder this time and see how I go". Head first in the reef on a small
onshore day before a 10-foot swell. Got smoked.
The first hospital we went to there's blood on the bed and the liquid
in the needle was brown, so we got straight out of there. Another place didn't have fresh syringes so we bought some, but we didn't clean the wound out properly and it got infected and I had to fly home. In France, I woke up with a cracking headache one morning and looked at my head and it was all red and swollen again. I got out a needle and tweezers and picked it open and a piece of coral came out after, I dunno, two months or something ridiculous. I'd had a week at home,
then Tahiti, New York and Trestles.
I won New York with coral in my head.
Getting chaired up the beach is great. Loved it. Out the back when
I won New York was the best moment, then being on the stage with
Kelly was pretty sick. I remember asking, "You've done this a lot, what
do we do now?" And he's gone, "Just stand here and smile awkwardly
for a bit longer, then they'll come and get you for an interview".
Kelly's success is what happens when you get really good at something you love. I don't think it's that he loves getting chaired up, or the money, or anything like that. It's just that he loves competing. He's better than everyone else, and then it's like, "Oh look, I won," because that's what he loves doing.
No tatts. No blog. I just got a Facebook and Twitter though, I guess that's a start?
I haven't said "one heat at a time" for ages. How many people use that? I don't understand. I'm never thinking like that. Like, you're trying to convince yourself to think that way, but really you're just trying to stop yourself from thinking that all you want to do is win.

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