Blind Surfer Anointed By Youtube God Casey Neistat

From 1990 to 2005, more than 2,200 climbers summited Mount Everest for the first time. But Erik Weihenmayer was the only man who didn’t see a thing on his way up. 

Like mountaineering, you’d think sight would be as vital to surfing as tires are to cars. But Pete Gustin has shown us that seeing is not a precursor to believing. Pete was born with a degenerative eyesight disorder, meaning he slowly lost his vision as he aged. Now he only sees light and dark shades, but that hasn’t stopped him from surfing. 

So how the hell does he do it? Serial vlogger, YouTube powerhouse and one of Stab’s first premium members Casey Neistat met up with Pete in his Southern California home to answer that question. 

Pete’s response: “In essence, surfing is all about feel. It would make it a million times easier if I could look forward and anticipate. That’s the hardest part. I don’t know what the wave is going to do. I’m just reacting. But if all my reactions are fast enough and I feel good, then I rode a good wave.”

Pete’s main hustle is doing award-winning voice-overs for movie trailers and commercials. He’s damn good at it, and as you’ll see in the clip, he edits them by himself and can do it without looking at the screen. In fact, he’s so good he’ll be doing the voiceover work for some of Stab’s content in the upcoming Vans Pipe Masters in December. 

You can catch more behind the scenes of Pete and Casey’s discussion and session below. If you didn’t catch it, Pete writes, shoots, and edits most of his content. Wild. 

“The ocean talks,” Pete says. “It’s pretty loud today. I just gotta learn how to listen.”

We could all take a page out of Pete’s playbook.