Eli Criaco, First Bay, Coolum

This is Eli Criaco. Eli’s 18, lives in Coolum, and surfs the three bays surrounding his home. Eli’s also an entrepreneur.

Since graduating from high school last year, Eli’s carved out a tasty little niche for himself. See, Eli needed a job that’d allow him to surf all day. So he started a cleaning business called E-Sly’s Cleaning, and now spends five days a week scrubbing windows, toilets and carpets from 3.30 am to 8 am at the Tewantin Bowls Club near his home.

He gets home at eight, chows some breaky and hits the waves (if there is any). This lil flyaway is at the first of the three bays of Coolum. There’d been no waves for quite a while, but on this day everything came together. Photog Jack Dekort was thrilled: “We hadn’t had anything resembling a wave on the Sunny Coast for a while, so a few ramps were more then welcome by all that day.” – Elliot Struck