This 23-Year-Old Is In The Top Decile Of Stab’s Most Barreled Members

In our interview with San Diego entrepreneur/tradie/semi-pro Skip McCullough, Skip extolled the underrated virtues of a 4-day surf trip.

Cheaper, quick, and easy(ish) to explain to partners and bosses, the 4-day surf trip might just be the key to maintaining a healthy surfing life for those of us in our cash-poor, time-constricted, K-shaped-economy.

The only catch? It’s gotta be somewhere close. For Californians, that usually means Mexico. For Floridians, the Caribbean. For Australians, however, that means the enviable six-hour (three from Perth) flight to Indo.

That’s where 23-year-old professional lifeguard (and fellow Stab Premium member) Arch Whiteman comes in.

“I had limited days left of the lifeguard off-season and barely any cash left in my pocket when I saw a swell and pulled the trigger the night before,” Arch said. “I asked a few mates and ChatGPT and somehow found myself at the most perfect reef in the world.

“I spent most of my time down at the bottom of the point, doing my best to dodge the crowd,” Arch continued. “The best memory of the trip was being down at the Grower section, looking up the point and watching four perfect sets drain along the dry reef with nobody on them, knowing that in 30 seconds they were going to double in size and I’d get a crack at weaving through one.”

Arch got lucky here. The other catch of a 4-day surf trip is that if you’re truly on a budget, you likely won’t be able to strike mission — one of surfing’s greatest pay-to-play privileges. This con is doubly dangerous at Desert Point, because Deserts if notoriously fickle.

However, Arch lucked out, and the result was rather spectacular.

The name of the edit? “4 Days at Desert Point”.

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