Feature on ” Dingo” - Spy’s Dean Morrison

Dean Morrison is from down under in Coolangatta, which is located on the Gold Coast of Australia.

Dean’s father was a native Australian and his mother a native New Zealander with a Maori background. His parents eventually ended their marriage when Dean was at an early age.

It was then the Australian surf legend and the 1978 Surfing World Champion Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew took Dean under his wing and raised him. Being raised by a former World Champion, Dean was destined to be a surf star. Rabbit would coach Dean as he would surf in the Kirra Surf Club contests. Rapidly Dean was getting recognized for his success along with two other surfers, Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson.

The three would eventually become known as the “Collie Kids.” It was from then on that Dean would be recognized as one of the top leveled competitors in professional surfing.

Dean has never grown out of his grommet surfing mindset; he will surf for hours on end when there are waves.

He is constantly looking for good waves and barrels. When he is not surfing or training, Dean can get a little wild or loose and find himself in some pretty amazingly funny situations.

I have three stories that will help better describe Dean and the unbelievable situations he can get into.

JO,
Spy Surf Team Manager

Story 1:

We went on a road trip back in 2006 for Transworld Surf.

The trip was a road trip in a RV from his house in Coolagatta down to Bells for the WCT contest and then back up. We could not even sleep in the RV because he brought so many boards with him that it took up all the room inside.

Due to the lack of space we had to bring another car for people. He also brought both his large dogs Ikey and Saba; the poor photographer had to sleep and travel with them for the entire three-week long trip.

In the beginning of the trip, Dean cut his foot while surfing and got stitches. We all thought that the trip was over because of his injury. Immediately after leaving the doctors office Dean got word that a swell was going to hit a rare breaking island off of Tasmania called King Island. This would take chartering two private planes to get there and surf for a day.

We scored perfect 4-6 foot waves with no one out but Dean was so tired from travel and his injury that he did not surf.

Dean was so happy to be there and wanted to surf that he convinced the pilots to stay over night so he could surf there the next day.

After another day of fun and uncrowded waves we took two flights back to the airport where our RV was for more surf along the East Coast of Australia.

Dean is a wave magnet! We scored so much surf it was unbelievable. That road trip was one of the best surf trips I had ever been on but he had us driving on long insane missions to find those perfect waves.

After it I needed a month long vacation just to recover from it.

Story 2:
Spy’s website did a did a featured athlete story on Dean’s boating accident where he sank his boat in the middle of the ocean and had to swim to an island in the dark and was stranded there for a bit. Here’s the recap…

DEAN SURVIVES THE SINKING OF THE TINNIE IN OZ
An unexpected mishap; Dean shares his story

Spy’s Dean Morrison decided to take some time off the World Championship Tour to take care of some ailing injuries he had acquired. In September, Dr. Warren Krammer, the renowned surgeon who works with surfing’s top professionals, operated on Dean’s hip and knee.

It’s been three month of rehabilitation after his surgeries and for those who know Dean he’s not the type who can sit for long. He gets bored quick and the next thing you know, he’s off and running somewhere. On a typical day, he’s surfing for six hours. He is like the ultimate surf grom. He never wants to leave the water. Since surfing has been out of the question temporarily, Dean decided to come up with other mischievous fun…

With that being said Dean is off to the nearest boat dealership to buy a small fishing boat, what the Australians call a “Tinnie.” Next on his agenda is to grab a few friends and head up the coast from Coolangatta to the Great Barrier Reef to go fishing and ocean exploring.

Dean, Paul Fisher, the Harrington twins Dean and Shaun and Darren Scott were on their way headed up the coast to break in the new tinnie. The car was loaded with five bored and anxious surfers, fishing gear and the proper Australian beverages. The crew was in for some good times, but little did they know what could happen.

Once they arrived at Hamilton Island (October 12th), camp was set up and the fun began. After about three days of unsuccessful fishing, the beer tasted better than ever and the stories were non-stop entertainment. Dingo (Dean Morrrison) then decides to appoint Hazza (Dean Harrington) to be in charge of the outboard motor.

All on board, Hazza full throttles the motor, causing Fisher to scream at Hazza to slow down. A novice at boating, Hazza immediately slowed down the boat causing the wake to violently crash at the boat. The large wake had spilled into the boat putting the crew in an unexpected predicament.

Now in the middle of the ocean, by the Great Barrier Reef, known to have an over abundance of shark life, the tinnie was beginning to sink. Cell phones and everything on board were sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The boat had flipped and now Dean and the guys were drifting at sea. At the beginning it was funny, but then the night was approaching and there were no response to the flares that were set off earlier. Panic and concern had begun to set into their minds.

They were about 2.5 miles from land and they knew it was time to swim if they were going to have any chance to make it to land before night fall. With the strong open ocean currents the swim was much more difficult than they had anticipated. It was now completely dark and they couldn’t see any land. They swam for about two hours and it was just their luck they had finally reached land. They had no idea where they were. Dingo and Fisher were excited that they had made it. Screams and shouts filled the night air. Then it just came to them that they were missing the others.

Now in search of the others and looking for help there was no one to be found on the deserted island. In the distance, Dingo and Fisher heard some noises, which ended up being the others. The current had taken them to another place on the deserted island. Cold and bothered by the biting sand flies they continued to search for help. They realized that they needed to call it night and sleep near an outhouse that was built on concrete flooring. Cold and exhausted they decided to sleep huddled together to help keep warm.

Unable to sleep they woke up early the next morning and it was in the morning that Dingo came across a six foot black snake. After the snake encounter, they all realized that the island had nothing to relieve their situation. So they decided to swim to a nearby island that was visible on the horizon.

Once in the water after about 30 minutes of swimming they came across super strong currents and massive whirlpools. They all struggled just staying afloat, and luckily saw a pontoon boat. They began screaming and yelling to catch the attention of the fisherman. The wide-eyed fisherman was in such shock seeing the guys adrift in the middle of the ocean.

On their ride back to Hamilton Island, they told their tinnie story to the fisherman. The fisherman then tells them it was Tiger Shark breeding season and that the beaches have been closed due to recent sightings. A huge sigh of relief fell across everyone’s faces. Lucky for them they had survived the adventure of sinking the tinnie in the middle of the South Pacific.

Story 3:
I am going to end this by telling you one last story about how funny Dean can be when he’s not surfing.

His birthday is just after the WCT Pipe contest in Hawaii, which is the last event of the year, meaning its time for Dean to let loose. Dean loves sushi and there is this traditional sushi place he likes to eat at in downtown Honolulu, so he decided to go there for his birthday and hit up the karaoke bar that is about a block away.

After dinner everyone walked down to the bar to drink and sing the night away. Well if haven’t heard yet Australian’s love to get loose, meaning drink a little too much and get wild. So as soon as we enter the bar everyone rallies money and there is a huge stack of cash and the drinks are flowing and the voices are cracking trying to sound decent over the mic. As the night goes on everyone is having fun singing and laughing at each other.

Unexpectedly Dean runs by the bar and throws all of his clothes over the bar into where a small old Japanese lady who could barely speak English was standing. Then Dean begins to dance around completely naked.

When one of Dean’s good friends saw this he copied Dean, got naked and danced around the bar too. Amazingly, this was in front of some of Dean’s family and his friends and a member of their family too. This is how Aussies party! His girlfriend at the time and now fiancée got him to put his clothes back on the apologized to the embarrassed Japanese lady behind the bar. Unbelievably Dean never got in trouble. Since then Dean has revisited this bar and it has become somewhat of a tradition for Dean to do a strip at some point of the night.

There are too many stories to tell and some of them kept to his friends but you can only imagine how funny and crazy they must be.

Dean is one of the most amazing people I have met. He’s very genuine and extremely a giving person. He loves his family and friends. He loves surfing more than anything. Dedicated to the sport and good health, but every now and then he loves to let his guard down and cut loose.

To see more Spy surf team videos click on Vimeo or You Tube..

Dean is Spy’s athlete of the month! Be sure to enter to win Dean’s gear “A Dingo Ate My Kit.”  Spy, Volcom, Nixon and DVS are giving away a pretty sweet kit. You just have to answer one question for the Dingo….What are the names of his two dogs?