This 5’2 Brazilian-Australian Has Very Few Qualms About Toying With Bathymetrical Death

Of all the profiles we filmed this year for the upcoming Vans Pipe Masters, Annie dos Santos was the surfer I knew the least about.

The first and only time I’d heard of the 22-year old Brazilian-Australian was when she wrangled a particularly hectic double-up on her backhand during a recent ‘Maps To Nowhere’ clip.

The wave was incredible, but it was Annie’s tears of happiness in the channel afterwards that really resonated with me. The willingness of such a young surfer to be immensely vulnerable under the gaze of multiple cameras and a few of her idols was surprisingly potent.

Upon visiting her (somewhat temporary) Sunny Coast home, Annie (who shares her initials with a certain 2015 World Champ) welcomed us openly, made some acai bowls, and carried an ease about her which suggested she’s far wiser than most 22-year-olds. 

She’d just finished a road-trip of the East Coast with her partner (and well-known musician) Ben Morgan, and told me it was the first time in years she hadn’t really looked at the surf forecast.

“It feels really good to just relax,” she laughed. “A bunch of people were chasing a swell to this hectic left slab down south, and for once I’m glad I didn’t go.”

Though she’s garnered a bit of recognition for letting go of the rope at mutated orbs like Shipsterns Bluff and Teahupo’o, Annie says she still views paddling as the pinnacle (amen) and has backed that claim with a few heavy arms-only sessions at Jaws, Deadmans, and that same South Coast bombie Russell Bierke is notorious at.

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Above, she talks us through her journey into big-wave surfing, growing up with a transient family, and why Jamie O’Brien told her to get a bigger board.

And no, she doesn’t know how she ended up with an American accent either.