Dion Agius, Northern New South Wales, Australia

How’s the water colour? Dion Agius, pictured here, is currently in the process of acquiring a new home in Byron Bay, Australia, after bouncing around abroad for quite a long stint. He’d heard about a protected little corner near his new home, so he and filmer-turned-photog pal Beren Hall went to check it out. It’s near an area where there’s been a handful of shark attacks and he was the only guy out along the whole beach.

“I’d been thinking about surfing it for a while. So I headed out and it was crazy… the water was dark brown and full of seaweed. You couldn’t even see your hand when you were paddling. It was a weird little back beach with no one surfing the whole thing and I’m on my own up in this little rocky corner where sharks probably fucking breed. The sun was kinda coming in and out from behind the clouds and every time it went dark, I felt like I was gonna be attacked by a shark, for sure. I think that was actually one of the scariest surfs I’ve ever had. I was convinced I was going to get eaten. I seriously surfed for probably 25 minutes, got out and said “Beren, fuck you man, I’m not doing this!”, haha. There were some really fun little ones, but it just felt too sharky. It had that crazy vibe about it, where you just feel like you’re going to get eaten at any second.”  

Worth the risk? Probably not, but how sweet is the sequence?