“See, your old man can still make a fire.” “Yeah.“ “Tell me about how you got your first surfboard. You remember that one?” “Oh, man. I didn’t have much money.” “Yeah.” “So I decided the easiest thing to do was to buy the cheapest board.” “And the cheapest board happened to be a kneeboard.” “Yeah, but I didn’t know what the kneeboard was. It looked like a surfboard to me.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “Michael February, making his debut on tour representing Cape Town, South Africa.” “I always wondered if there would be a time where there was someone who looked like me. It’s been earned. And he’s setting the tone for the future generation.” “Falling in love with surfing and being able to pass that on to my son, it was a special moment for him to experience the water the way I did and not to think of the negative things that was attached to it for me.” “People just screaming Mikey’s name. A lot of support for him.” “The individuality he shows is just second to none.” “You chase this dream your whole life, and then when you get there, you realize that it changes.” “It’s looking pretty solid, eh?” “Yeah. A lot of, like, water moving around. Yeah, quite a big swell this, eh?” “Out of control.” “It’s huge. Look out there. It’s like —” “Yeah.” “You know why, is the swell direction is just coming straight this way.” “Can’t even mind surf.” “No.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “The early days were just pure enjoyment. I had no concept of what competing was. Catching a wave and having this blank canvas where you can express yourself. I just fell in love.” “Starting off his whole surfing career was building sand castles before competing. But when he started winning his first contest, from that day, he just pushed hard and built less sand castles.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “Hi, there.” “Hi.” “My dad, he’s quite a young soul. He’s like a little kid. From a very young age, he instilled that it’s OK to be different. It’s actually a good thing.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “My father wasn’t present in my life. I grew up with my mom. I met him a few times. But I didn’t feel like I needed to spend time with him or anything. Look, he had his issues and problems. And I was going to make sure that I don’t have those same problems, and make sure that I’m there for my children, and my wife.” “Entreat me not to leave you.” “Entreat me not to leave you.” “For where you go, I will go.” “For where you go, I will go.” “Hey. Morning.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “That’s amazing.” “It’s good, eh?” “Yeah, it’s just a fun little board.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “It’s nice to be on the road again.” “I know. I love it.” “I imagine going on a road trip with the grandchildren one day.” “I know. We may have grandkids. They’re going to call you Grandpa.” “Not a chance.” “What are they going to call you?” “They’re going to call me Isaac.” “Yeah, I don’t think you get to decide that, eh? I think the kids get to decide what they call you.” “That won’t work.” “I think from the outside, for a lot of people, it looked like for you, it was a easy road. But getting the results that you did took a lot of hard work. Traveling on a tight budget, not having everything that all your peers had around you.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “When I went overseas to compete when I was around 14, 15, it was a humbling moment where you’re like, wait a minute. There’s so many good people out there. Maybe I won’t get to that higher level.” “His style of surfing, I know it was always a problem for him competing because he had to adapt to what was required to win competitions. He was always lanky, and a bit awkward.” “My body just didn’t feel like it would fit into that way of surfing. For many years, I was trying and trying. And my arms would go everywhere and my body would do its own thing. Eventually, failing to mimic other people, it made me realize I should just stick to what I’m doing and embrace it really.” “Maybe in the morning, eh?” “Yeah.” “Oh my gosh. Oh. Did you see that? I’ve never seen it this hollow.” “Surfing feels so relatable when it comes to jazz.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “It’s just spontaneous. It’s not calculated. It’s just a feeling.” “There’s this really cool quote. I think it was Miles Davis. ‘I’ll play it first, and I’ll tell you what it is later.’” “Going surfing together feels like an honor. Especially because my circumstances was different to his. So yeah.” “Back in the day, it wasn’t the same, I’m sure.” “No, we couldn’t just surf wherever we wanted to. We had to travel long distances.” “Yeah.” “Apartheid was a horrible feeling to go through when I was young.” “Growing up, we went to a place called Big Bay. As I was in the water, kids started circling me. And they said to me, you can’t surf here. Years passed, and Mikey won a competition at Big Bay. And he said, ‘I dedicate this one to my dad.’ And the tears just started rolling down my eyes.” “I had this dream of qualifying since I was like 12, 13 years old.” “He was the first Black South African to make it onto the world tour. That taught a lot of young kids, they can have a dream, and work hard at it, and achieve anything.” “You chase this dream your whole life, but competing to win a world title wasn’t feeding my soul. It wasn’t what I wanted to do in surfing.” “When you are part of the top 34 in the world, you realize that it’s not really everything.” “For us, the main thing was that our children understood who they were and what their purpose was in life, and that they had a purpose. This must have been weird, just you surfing out there.” “Traveling in Africa is so unique. Surfing wasn’t a thing in the community. And now, it’s making such a big difference.” “How you’ve navigated this whole surfing career all your life, I’m extremely proud of you. And we’re taking a tour now, changing people’s perception of where they come from or where they’re going.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “From a very young age, he kind of taught me that surfing is like life. You take off on a wave and you got this amazing canvas. And you just have your own expression that you kind of get to paint on it.” “As parents, it was cool to do that for your children. It wasn’t always easy. But if you look at our family and where we come from, all we want to do is move forward. There’s no one like you. As a father, that is amazing. Just keep changing surfing, eh?”