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Benny is a paradox. On the outside, he is a longhaired, chain-smoking kid with a ‘Cenny Coast’ drawl. On the inside… |
“WOOOOO… Thank you so much.” “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” “WOOOOO.” Ben Godwin had on been sitting on the Mango for an hour; we still had a long day of motoring ahead for the Mentawai crossing. “Thanks for what?” I kept asking. “For letting me come, this is amazing,” he shot back.
I couldn’t work it out; it was me that should be thanking him. Ben was a last minute score for our free surfing boat trip and one that would add an element of “GET FUCKED” to entourage’s repertoire.
Benny is a picture of paradox. On the outside, he is a longhaired, chain-smoking kid with a ‘Cenny Coast’ drawl. On the inside, he might possibly be the kindest, most polite professional surfer I’ve ever met. Benny is also one of the few pro goofy-footers in Australia who hasn’t spent anytime up in the Ments. Not only that, he was on a two week boat trip with all of his heroes.
In the water, he takes his time getting into the swing of things, he is simply happy to share the lineup with the boys and watch. When he does finally swing into one, the wave becomes a blur of loose tail and fins. Benny throws combinations down like no one I’ve ever seen.
“Backwards Benny” becomes his name for the rest of the trip, due to the amount of time he spends surfing fins first in between his reverse combos. The surfers he’s looked up to for so long are now shaking their heads in disbelief as Benny launches into air after massive air. Suddenly Ando, Ozzie and Craikey are on the back foot and step up their game to match him. When we regular footed folk steer the boat towards a fun, right-handed Roxy’s, most of the goofy crew opt for a lazy afternoon with a Bintang instead. Not Benny, “I’ve never been here before man. No way am I missing out,” he says.
Contests have never really been an option for Ben, his surfing doesn’t suit them and he doesn’t want his surfing to suit them. “I guess I like free surfing more than competitive surfing because all the guys I look up to are free surfers, so it’s always been something I wanted to do since I started. I used to do contests but I never really looked up to the guys who were winning events, I just always looked up to the guys who were making it without having to do contests you know, that’s something I aspire to be for sure,” he explains. “You just get to do your own thing really and be yourself. You don’t have people judging you, you can go out and just cruise and it’s kinda cool to be able to ride a wave and do what it allows instead of having to force turns out of it. I don’t like things that are forced I just like things that happen.”
A week later and we’ve reached “The island of Nowhere”. Benny hasn’t stopped smiling since he stepped foot onto the boat – the kid has a lot of energy for someone who’s staple diet consists of Cola and ciggies.
He now knows the name of every single crew member on the Mango and sits and talks at length with them, all the while listening intently to all they have to say.
When a swell finally arrives, he feels slightly out of his league. He’s only got small boards and the one he wants to ride is on its last legs – besides, he wants to save that one to give to the local grommets back home.
“Fuck it,” he says. “I didn’t come all this way to pussy out.” With that, Benny jumps off the side of the boat and gets a crash course in backhand barrel riding at a wave no one had ever ridden before and does not pull back once.
Two days in heaven later and it was time to head home. Backwards Benny spent some time saying goodbye to his new Indonesian friends from the Mangalui, bought them all a new stockpile of ciggies and decided right then that he wasn’t going home. His original plan had been to head home and get back to labouring to earn some much-needed coin. Instead he flew to Sydney, headed home for a few days and then hopped a flight to Bali to continue surfing backwards on Indonesian lefts.
Words and Photos By Ben Whitmore
For the whole Galactik adventure, check out the latest issue of Tracks with the DVD on the cover.
