meet mik.

This interview is from our latest issue, On our latest road trip up North, we stopped in for a chat with our mate Mik. Mik recently moved up to Queensland from the Northern Beaches of Sydney and now works for Ocean Street Shapes, you may have heard of them. They’ve got some pretty funky surfboards going, most of which Mik shapes and glasses. His mate, Jarryd, is the rest of Ocean Street. Mik likes that you may not know him, he likes seeing the board he sands and glasses in the wild. Not too long ago, Mik made the move up to Tweed Heads. He had a bit to say about his new lifestyle, and about the whole background of him glassing and shaping boards, and a bit about life in general. After the chat we watched the surf from from Rainbow surf club, then found ourselves a few tequila sunrises deep, doing Karaoke. It has a lot to say about the lifestyle up there, a standard Thursday night. We then woke up in a Caravan park the next morning feeling pretty dusty and made our way to the Shaping Bay where it all goes down. The harsh smell of chemicals that Mik is now immune to.  Anyway, have a read. It’s pretty interesting how all of this fell into place.

WANDERER: How did the opportunity come up to work with Ocean Street?

MIK: So it's a long story… and it's a good story. Years ago I was planning to do a trip in my van, just up the coast. And I knew one girl that I followed on Instagram that had a photography account and I came up here and messaged her to hang out. Then she introduced me to some friends of hers and they have become like my best friends now. I was meant to just come up for a week and do a little surf trip; I ended up staying for a year. During that time I was surfing lots and I met Jarryd in the surf. He wasn't shaping at that time, but he was into surfing and surfboards and whatever. And then we ended up going to California together.

What year was this?

I want to say 2016. I think it was just before we went actually that I helped him shape his first board and showed him how to shape and glass. We'd just mess around with this thing and it turned out actually a really good board. Jarryd was really good at it. I'm very ‘slap it together’ where he is very professional, super OCD about everything haha. So we did that, went to California. He came back and was like, ‘Fuck it, I wanna make a few more boards.’ But then I moved back to Sydney after that trip cause I ended up dating my now ex-girlfriend. So I was doing trips up [the coast] all the time, I'd probably come up once every two months.

Far out all the way up to Queensland?

Yeah, if there were parties on, or a good swell, or a long weekend. A lot of times I'd come up and then glass boards for Jarryd. He would make a bunch of boards and then when I'd get here, I'd do like a working holiday. So I'd be here for a few days and we'd just glass heaps of boards and work really hard. And then I would party really hard. I would drink heaps and then go to work really hungover, then glass heaps and just go straight back out. I was doing that for like, three years. But then this guy Jarryd works for, Ben Webb Surfboards, asked Jarryd if I would come up and work for them and he runs the place, so I was like, ‘Oh, that's a pretty big deal. Like a legit thing.’ So I was planning to move up in January 2021. But then in October I was like, ‘Fuck it. I'm just going to go now.’ So I pretty much just quit my job, gave them six weeks notice and just went for it. I came up with nothing, just my surfboards and some clothes.

How did you get this place? How did it all line up?

[The people living here] had just moved in not too long before then and I knew they had a spare room. I just sent them a message and I was like, ‘Could I live here?’ So I've ended up just staying. I think they always wanted to keep it as a spare room and they haven't said anything yet so I hope they don't wanna kick me out.

So what's it like shaping boards for a living?

Well, I don't do much shaping. I do more of the glassing. I've shaped a bunch of boards just for myself and friends but it's pretty hard. I find shaping... not boring, but it's hard to get it right. Whereas glassing I find more fun because you do all the colours and it's when the board is finished, whereas shaping is stressful. I always felt like my shapes, they work good, but they're just kind of technically shit. 

What sort of board is it?

It's an eight foot mid-length thing that's really simple. Really plain, really boring, really safe. But that's what I want, it's all I want to ride. They work well in everything. If it's big, they work really well and if it's small they work really well. They’re just good boards. Like, I shape how I want to do it, all my stuff is really thin and rolled, just fun I guess, but not necessarily what people want. 

Do you reckon it's something you would get into or are you happy doing what you're doing?

Yeah, I'm planning on making a few more of this type that I'm doing at the moment. But I'm just going to just do like, one a month to try and sell them.

Catch the rest of the interview in our fourth print issue

photos by: Miriam Radford