The good folks running the YouTube page “For Those Who Surf ,” recently captured a clip of Rusty Miller surfing Byron Bay at 80. While surfing at 80 is impressive in and of itself, the man is a bit of a legend as well.
Rusty was the first to surf Uluwatu, as depicted in Albert Falzon’s Morning of The Earth, the iconic surf film credited with introducing Bali to the surfing world. As the site for his surf school reads, “His image – the silhouette of two surfers, boards under arms, looking at the surf, Rusty on the left – defines the film and the era of surf discovery in Indonesia.”
Or maybe you’ve come across this iconic photo, taken by Dr. Don James, of Rusty flying down the face of a Sunset bomb, right in front of Miki Dora. It was used as an American beer advertisement in the early ‘60s.
Rusty’s been everywhere. The man grew up in Southern California, captured a United States Surfing Championship in 1965, then moved to Hanalei, Kauai in the late ‘60s, eventually becoming a Byron Bay fixture in 1970.
That adds up to 60 years of traveling the world, destroying waves. Based on the footage above, he’s not gonna be done any time soon.
