Free For All: Resurfacing Koa Smith

You may or may not know a ton about Koa Smith.

Maybe you’ve been following his career closely for years. Maybe you’ve never heard of him. Maybe you simply think of him as the vlogger with an XXL smile who deals acai bowls on the North Shore and is particularly good at threading tubes.

In any case, it’s likely that you’ll enjoy spending the next 12 minutes with him.

In a recent interview with Stab, Koa told us why he started wearing a helmet while surfing. The short of it: “I was out of the water for a year and thought I was never going to be able to surf again.” Here, he elaborates on that in a deep way — breaking down his journey from injury to suicide contemplation to psychedelic trip to new life.

Enjoy, then think of him a little differently next time you see him getting barreled for 43 seconds in Namibia.