My story goes something like this:

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada.   I got into surfing my first summer out of High school.  With the water getting colder I went off to Australia right after my 18th birthday where I spent most of the year working random jobs and trying to surf every day.  On my way home from Oz I stopped in the Philippines for a couple months.  That trip was an eyeopener.  It was my first time outside of a first world country.  I went home to Canada to spend a month surfing hurricane swells, and spending time with friends and family.

Still not ready to go down any conventional path, I went to Costa Rica instead.   There I did a two month course in outdoor leadership.  That led to an internship, then a job as a surf guide/instructor.  That year (2007) I came to Nicaragua for my first time on a visa run.  After my first trip to Nicaragua I knew it was a place worth spending some time.  I went back to Canada to work in a restaurant for a few months.  I figured out it was possible to get a loan, so i got thinking…With a loan I could buy some land in Nicaragua.  With land in Nicaragua I could have mango trees and surf good waves every day…So with that mindset I came back to Central America, guiding the occasional trip, but more so exploring, looking for waves I hadn’t heard about before.  I stumbled upon a spot that seemed pretty cool, and has really challenging waves.   Eight months later I was owner of a property in that area.

After another stretch of hurricane surf and cooking steak and potatoes, I set off back to my place to build a house and learn to surf the wave there.   I built what some would call a treehouse under a mango tree, and spent months straight just surfing, reading, planting trees raising chickens, and fixing boards.  Towards the end of that year my friend Phil offered me a job as a volcano boarding guide for a couple weeks.  I wasn’t so sure about the idea of having a job, but I did it anyways.   Surprisingly a little bit of work here and there actually made things more interesting.   After a couple more years of living in my treehouse, working on and off as a volcano boarding guide, running a surf school, and guiding trips I was ready to go travel.  I went away for a year to work and travel in New Zealand and Indonesia.  After a year I realized how good things were here in Nicaragua so I came back.  Since I got back I’ve been working as a surf Instructor/Guide with Rise up, building a more proper house on my land, and planning my next adventures.