When Dan Johnson’s mum moved to Crescent Head from Sydney, a place they visited often on family holidays, he couldn’t believe his good fortune. The classic point was now, his front yard and the with no holiday crowds he had the place to himself. Perfect!
But what he didn’t know was that in the down season, when the surf went flat and the holiday crew went home, there was not that much to keep his vibrant, tireless mind occupied. So, he did the only thing that seemed logical. He built a shaping bay under his Mum’s house and started hacking away at chunks of foam.
That was four years ago, and since then Dan has become the good time pilot of the point, out there on any given days riding all manner of designs on his self-shaped Snarly Surfboards (They’re sick, they’re gnarly, they’re snarly!) He studies design at Uni and doesn’t care about being the best guy in the water, just the bloke with the biggest smile.
“Dan Johnson represents the O’riginal mind of the next generation,” explains Blakey. “Kids who surf for the pure stoke of it, who want different sensations, and who don’t understand why you’d restrict anything as fun as surfing. I’ve never seen him not having a ball in the water and it gets everyone else in the line-up so stoked.”
