FIRSTS WITH CREED

Posted by Duncan Macfarlane on 1 November 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: Surfing, Photography

Creed, It's been a year of firsts for you.  First board shape, first video section.  First ...

You shaped your first board in Bali, what drove you to make it there and then? 

Well, I was on a boat trip with Dane Peterson last month and he brought over a couple of Neal Purchase single fins. I'd never ridden one before and I had a go of his out at HT's and Macaronis and yeah, I had heaps of fun on it. And from there I decided I really wanted to shape one. The when I got back to Bali I was just cruising around and talked to Dylan Longbottom (who shapes over I Bali) and he was keen to help me out. 

Tell me about her and how she rode? 

Yeah I was stoked. I only had a small blank. It was only like a 5'5 blank, but it was pretty thick. So it ended up still being pretty floaty. Then I gave a little diamond tail and painted it red and got a fin from Deus and put it all together. The thing flies though, it goes so fast, and is so whippy in fast running waves. It was so fun I was stoked with it.When I got home I talked to one of the guys who shapes boards in WA and I ordered in a 5'11 blank so I'm going to shape a 5'11 single fin when I get back from Europe. 

Your maiden video part was in 'Blow up', what was it like putting that together?

It was filmed over about 3 weeks at home. I had other footage, but we thought it would be cool to just have, you know, a section just at home. We ended up getting pumping waves over those 3 weeks so we got to make the whole section out of that time frame which was pretty sick. But yeah, I thought it was especially good having my first section based at home made in good waves that I was bought up in.   

Then you went straight into making an Innersection section after that. It's been a full on couple of months for you, but on top of that you were diagnosed with Glandular fever. Talk me through the process of trying to do well as a surfer while battling with this illness. 

Its weird with glandular fever you know, it comes and goes. I find that I get tired way easier than I used to. I used to like surf for way longer and now, I surf for like 2 hours and I have to come in and cruise for a bit and then maybe surf later. And then if you surf too much your immune system just goes straight down. The other week when I got home from Bali and I surfed heaps the I woke up one morning and I had a cold sore, ulcers in my mouth, rash on my back, headaches and coughing up blood and stuff. Just feeling really sick, just like anything could creep onto you. I was like "fuck I thought I was over this" but it was as bad as ever.And so its been kind of tricky and frustrating getting sick all the time, but in between those spurts when you flare up you feel pretty good. 

So you just surf as hard as you can until you get sick again. I've been on a vitamin schedule kind of thing every day so it should be conquering it, hopefully. 

What have you got coming up? Well, right now I'm just getting over a cold. But I was actually just about to book some tickets for Europe for another bloodlines trip and then I think I'm going to head to Hawaii for the early season.

Interview and photography by Duncan Macfarlane.

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