All images – D. Macfarlane
Vision by Toby Cregan :
Welcome back to Real Axe! It’s been too long, and the return is pure flavour. RA Europe sees a more diverse dynamic than previous eps: Creed McTaggart, filmmaker Toby Cregan and photographer Dunc Macfarlane roll through France and Portugal with Noa Deane, Dion Agius, Shaun Manners, and Dave Rastovich.
And it’s Rasta who “we were all most tripping on,” says Tobes. I could talk about Rasta all day. He’s the sickest. He’s just got all these little insights into surfing. He cares so much about surfing, as much as he cares about environmental things. There’s one bit in the clip where Rasta’s talking, it’s just drunk-guy-rambling, talking about how cool surfing could be if everyone got along, but I wanted to show that Rasta’s just a normal guy. I didn’t want to have him riding dolphins and stuff. That’s why I put him in the trailer eating a packet of crisps. He’s a human dude that swears and is just normal. But he’s really cool.”
It’s also a welcome snapshot of Rasta’s surfing, which has been too rare of late. “Rasta surfed The Cave on one of Noa’s 5’4”s with one of the fins snapped out,” says Duncan. “That was psycho.”
“The trip was awesome because there was Creed, Noa, Dion and Dave, they’re like three different generations of freesurfer guys,” says Toby. “And then Shaunny’s the grom trying to figure out what he’s doing. There’s a bit in the vid where Noa’s like, ‘thanks Rasta for pretty much making up freesurfing’… because he did.”
So, what was the overarching theme of the trip (as they all tend to develop one)? “Everything was so hard to make work in France, we kept getting our cars towed, missing flights, all sorts of shit. But it was still fun as I’d never been to Europe, and I was hanging out with Occy and stuff, just tripping (laughs). But it was hard getting clips in France too because the pro surf comp was on. But then the vibe changed when we got to Portugal. I wanted to change the name of Real Axe to Holiday, ‘cause it doesn’t even feel like work when I’m doing them. But we just got in a good routine of surfing heaps, then coming home and playing pingpong and drinking wine.”
