My memories of MP come seeing him at his peak, when I was a 12-year-old grom… Yes there were the Stubbies, but as any grom who has been out in the water with Slater, Parko, or Mick etc, it is actually being there in the water that really sets in your mind.
I was 12 years old surfing Rainbow, and this guy comes flying along, throwing his board up into the lip upside down, releasing the tail, free falling to the bottom and then doing the same thing again as I duck-dived the wave. He then continued this into the distance towards Greenmount.
Then in later years, Michael was out at Burleigh, and he stood up and just stood there, did not move his body. The wave enveloped him, he still did not move. Five seconds later he flew out of the barrel, still in the same stance he had when he stood up… Amazing. Even when he was not trying, he could still get a tube most surfers could only dream of. An amazing surfer who was the Kelly Slater of my childhood, and that may be why Kelly has a special thing with MP and his family. The surfing tribe has lost one of it best ever old warriors.
