Four years later. July 16,2005, Bendalong Beach, South Coast NSW.
Shards of blond hair sweep about Owen Wright's face with a sudden gust of westerly then rest back in the unused hood of his black jumper. He gives an exaggerated shiver. It's a mostly clear day, the only white in the blue above is a thin strip which extends toward the horizon as if painted on with a roller just the one coat. This time of year in the south though, the cold always bites harder than the sun and Owen didn't put his suit out to dry last night.The kid is strikingly healthy, obvious even though his reputation has preceded him. Teeth and eye-whites punch from sunned skin which is faultless and hugs tightly to his cheekbones. He's tiny, not so much in height (marked on the Wright's kitchen door just last week, Owen stands 174cm) as he is in thickness. The hoodie he wears could swallow him two times and his pants search for flesh to grab at his waistline. His feet are magnified by brown suede sneakers that could just as well be snow-boots. This is one kid who ain't contributing to this country's child obesity problem, that's for sure. Owen's lips have never tasted meat. The Wright family are dedicated vegetarians. I knew this before I met them because my girl's younger sister teams with Owen's eldest in the local basketball circuit and had told me about "their funny food." Junk food be blasphemy in the household, not that the kids mind. He swears he can feel it when he breaks from Mum's wholesome grits. Feels tired, he says. It's what he's used to. And it works for him. He can't remember the last time he was sick.
Rob Wright is already suited up by the time we get back to the carpark. Two more vehicles have rolled up. Owen's pace quickens to catch up with his old boy. Today they're in the family's silver Tarago. A swathe of stickers, representing the industry's big players and then some, fight for the rear windscreen. Rob would later list to which each of his five children belong: Mikey, eight, rides Quik; Tyler, 11, one of two girls, is with Rip Curl; her sister Kirby, 13, Billabong; Owen rides alongside Tyler at RC; and 18-year-old Timmy has his hooks with Ocean and Earth.
Today, just Owen and Rob are surfing - the rest are at soccer with their mother, Fiona. Owen feels out one of two brand-new Byrne crafts with identical sprays. He swaps it with the other and reaches for the cold suit in a yellow bucket. As he pulls it out a leg empties on his shoes. Owen laughs, Pulling it on will be a grisly task. But back inside the van he finds a vest, still-tagged, and pulls it over his fatless upper for extra cover. The waves are pretty sweet. Water's the colour of indigo denim and cold enough to have Rob tell me he's "he's too old for this." Sets are head-high on young Wright, who steams straight into one, his spindly wings deceptively effective in the paddle. Rob watches the left roll the bank's course. Fins lift from the lip three times before Owen kicks out and Rob swivels back out to sea.
Like the five fruits of his loins, Rob's body-to-fat index is what Hollywood dreams are made of. Still ripped into six at the stomach and he's got to be mid-forties (surprisingly he won't respond to my request for his age), he runs a plumbing business that employs 10 full time, including Timmy, and affords the whole family a two-week trip to Ball every year as well as himself a ticket on most flights Owen makes. He did a boat trip to Indo's precious gems Scar Reef and Supersuck with Owen when he was just 10 ("He got some good ones over there too, especially for a little bloke," says Rob), the Mentawais, Hawaii twice and most recently France. Unlike his kids, Rob hasn't always been vegetarian. He ate meat because growing up people said he was too skinny - the same has been said about his own - but it did nothing for his frame and he hated the taste. In Rob's world, if he don't need to kill to survive, he won't. "If all those people [meat eaters] had to kill the animal, skin it and gut it and then prepare it, I bet you none of them would eat it either."
Two weeks slide before I see Owen and Rob again, but the scene is mostly the same: Bendalong carpark, sun's rays still beaten by the cold, wind from the west, mum's got the rest of the family at soccer and Owen's rocking the exact same get up.
Owen goes to a local Catholic school. Not that the Wright's are religious. Their faith lies with the private schooling system, not who runs it - although the experience with the Anglican school and their devil talk didn't go down too well with the decent, down-to-earth Wrights. We bleed the day out over an apple and Owen recounts the most devilish sin he's ever sown. In Hawaii for the first time two years ago, Rob discovered he had no sticks to match the muscle. "Dad hardly surfed for the first week," says Owen. Rob's fortune only came good when Owen, who'd banged up most of his crafts over there, took them to get fixed. Rip Curl pit boss Matt Griggs was staying with the Wrights and asked if Owen could take his extra stick to the local repairer. "I'd had all my own boards back for two days but I kept telling Griggsy that his board was still getting fixed," recounts Owen, cackling with his old boy who'd been secretly riding the board at Seventh Hole on Hawaii's East Side. Owen had Griggsy fooled for days.
Evil, eh? About as threatening as a glass of organic soy milk. We need more like him in these desperate times.
