Stu Nettle: Voice & Vertigo

Stu Nettle: Voice & Vertigo

Author: Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich - surf stories & ocean adventures December 28, 2023 Duration: 1:13:30

Injuries are mostly out of our control. But recovery offers many choices. Will we allow the scar tissue to stiffen or soften us?

Stu Nettle is the editor of Swellnet, one of Australia's leading independent surf media and forecasting sites, where he has written about board design, surf industry happenings, surf science, and coastal geology since 2008. 

Stu is a lifelong surfer but late-comer to surf media. He “had many unrelated life chapters, business failures, social experiments, and surf adventures before he ever got a word published.” 

We first encountered Stu’s work amongst the lively pages of Kurangabaa, an academic – leaning surf journal he helped to found and run in the early 2000s. It was a trove of thoughtful essays, along with poetry, fiction and interviews – and part of a larger, exciting, indepedent DIY surf culture of that time. 

We wanted to know: what kind of life has shaped the voice and perspective of one of Australia's most prolific surf journalists?  

Stu talks us through the Sunset Beach hold down that changed him, the value of knowing our history,  gender politics at Swellnet and the the future(s) of surf media.


Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

Sound Engineer: Ben Alexander

Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

Additional music by Dave & Ben

Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast 


Send us Fan Mail

...

Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander

Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray   + Ben J Alexander

Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast 

...

Thanks to our generous sponsors this season:

Patagonia Australia 

Alkaway

The Sunglass Fix

...

Get monthly musings and behind the scenes content from the podcast by subscribing to our newsletter.

You'll get water-centric reading and listening recommendations, questions worth asking, and ways to take action for the wellbeing of Planet Ocean delivered straight to your inbox.

You can stream every Waterpeople episode from your desk.


There’s a particular kind of life shaped by time spent in and around the ocean, one that blends saltwater with a deeper perspective. Hosted by lifelong surfers and storytellers Lauren L. Hill and Dave Rastovich, the Waterpeople Podcast explores exactly that. Each conversation is less an interview and more a shared dive with guides who know the water intimately-from scientists and activists to adventurers and artists. You’ll hear firsthand accounts that stretch beyond simple adventure tales, touching on how a connection to the sea informs everything from ecological stewardship and community building to the pure, playful joy of a wave. This podcast serves as a meeting point for a far-flung tribe, weaving together themes of inclusivity, humour, and what it means to live thoughtfully along the coast. It’s about the stories that emerge when people are truly at home in the aquatic world, offering listeners a sense of place and connection within a global ocean community. Tune in for genuine, meandering talks that feel like sitting around after a long day in the swell, where the topics are as vast and shifting as the sea itself.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 133

Waterpeople Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Surfers for Climate Action Now with Belinda Baggs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:27
Co-founder of Surfers for Climate and iconic waterwoman Belinda Baggs shares her story of taking action on what she sees as the greatest threat to her son's health and wellbeing: climate change. Belinda shares a cornucop…
Taki Gold: Scar Gazing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:02
He fled from civil war on foot as a six year old, physically unscathed, but forever changed by the unthinkable violence, rhythms, and energy of Liberia's internal conflict. After making his home in California, Taki Gold…
Nature as the Third Parent with psychologist Robin Grille [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:32:55
What does the way we treat children say about who we are as individuals, and as a culture? Our guest, psychologist and father Robin Grille, believes that parents and teachers are amongst the most powerful agents for soci…
Jack McCoy: Life & Breath [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:03
Seven years ago, an episode of breathlessness after bodysurfing -- and subsequent health challenges (including a 15% chance of survival) -- shook up Jack McCoy's single-minded focus on filmmaking. Jack has crafted 25 fea…
Changing the Visuals with RHONDA HARPER [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:13:33
Rhonda Harper is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, and founder of the NGO Black Girls Surf, which creates access opportunities for black and brown women and girls to experience surfing. Black Girls Surf is fostering a new gene…
Taylor Steele: The Observer Effect [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:20:04
If the act of looking at something changes it – an effect that holds true for people, animals, even atoms -- then what further impact does documenting have? Over the course of the last 30 years, Taylor Steele's observati…
Valerie Taylor: Sixty Years with Sharks [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:24
Do you have a memory about the movie JAWS? Australian icon Valerie Taylor was commissioned by Steven Spielberg, along with her partner Ron Taylor, to shoot the live action scenes for his unforgettable classic -- a film t…
Lynne Boyer: All These Secrets [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:26:27
Our cultural heros, and especially our sheros, seem to always glimmer with a steely façade of smiling heteronormative perfection. The soft underbelly of this manufactured reality is often left unspoken. Parallel to her t…
Isaiah Helekunihi Walker: Claiming Kuleana [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:41
How far are you willing to go to protect the place where you live, love and belong? Native Hawaiians have had to face this question regularly over the last century or so, as colonialism threatened, and continues to threa…
Susan Casey: Fathoming [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:01
What do you do with sparks of curiosity? Susan Casey follows many of them into full immersion: jet skiing down the face of a Pe'ahi set wave with Laird Hamilton, into the lightless innerspace of the deep marine biosphere…