Occy! Occy! Occy!

Aussie surf legend Mark Occhilupo opens up about wiping out and the long ride back from depression.

You’ve spent 15 years, on and off, on the pro tour over the past 25 years. What was it like being on it for the first time as a 17-year-old winning buckets of money?
It was massive fun. It was a much bigger party scene in those days. All the Aussies hung together and it was just unbelievable. We’d get paid in cash. Now they put it into your bank account. It was so much fun. You’d be counting out bills from a 20 — grand win and planning what you were doing that night.

What’s the groupie action like on tour?
I’m married now so I don’t really look that way. But back in the day, for sure. It was everything you can imagine.

Can you tell us about the first time you paddled out at Hawaii’s Sunset Beach?
That morning it wasn’t big — probably six or eight foot — but it was way big for me. By the afternoon it was 15-foot and frightening. I forced myself to go back out. I was a young kid, and there were a lot of heavy local guys in the water. There’s a big pecking order. I was sitting on the edge, picking off a few waves. [Pro surfer] Ken Bradshaw was one of the best out there. He was a big guy, super fit, with a big beard. I think I got in his way. He paddled straight up to me and says, “Who are you?” Then he bit a chunk out of my board. I came right in after that.

Your new biography is pretty honest about the wild times when you were young and your depression.
When I read it, it was pretty confronting — to say the least. It’s hard reading about yourself, especially when you’ve had a lot happen like that.

When you came home, you went into what you describe as your “Elvis period”. You vanished from the tour and didn’t compete for eight years.
I was totally burned out. I came home from Hawaii, got married to my first wife and settled down, but more accurately, I just hibernated. I put on a lot of weight. I didn’t want to go outside. I went from the rigours of the tour, with such a fast life, to totally the opposite. I slowed right down, watched TV all day, ate big dinners, drank beer... it went on for years.

So how did you get motivated to go from being a couch potato to becoming world champ at the age of 32, when most surfers are hanging up their boards?
I just saw what I was wasting. I looked back on my career. I slowed down enough, and then with the help of the counsellor, I started to see everything in perspective. Then there was the fact my sponsor, Billabong, said, “Come on, we can’t keep paying you anymore.” They stuck behind me through all of that, when a lot of sponsors wouldn’t.