Out of last issue of RP Insight Australia



"Trust Enables Blind Surfer" - Peter O'Connor The Chronicle-Herald 6/10/2004



Stanwell Park, Australia - Nathan Johnston says he surfs just for fun.

Friends and family see it as an act of extraordinary courage and
perseverance over adversity.

Shrugging off the fact that he is blind, the 18-year-old dismisses the idea
he's showing any special courage in learning to ride the waves at Stanwell
Park, a picturesque town 20 kms south of Sydney.

"It's just something I've wanted to do for a while," he says. "Just going
down a wave and across a wave, it's something I love. It's just the
enjoyment of it."

Nathan's sight began slipping away at age 11 due to a genetic disorder
called retinitis pigmentosa. He now has less than five per cent frontal
vision and zero peripheral vision.

On a bright sunny day, there is enough light for him to sense a wall of
water as a dark shadow just before it crashes over him. But that's long
after his acute hearing warns him what is coming, he says.

Nathan decided he wanted to surf two years ago.

"Once he gets an idea in his head, you can't stop him," says his mother,
Sandra. "Nath does whatever he wants, anyway."

When told about Nathan's dream last year, his father, Wayne, a surfer
himself, was the most sceptical "Nathan can't balance; he can't see, how's
he going to surf?" Wayne recalls saying at the time.

His son soon proved him wrong.

Peter and Fiona Hunt, who run Stanwell Park's Bliss Surf School, were
worried, too, about taking a blind person into the pounding ocean waves.

"We've learned all these little tricks as we went along. Wind is important,
that's the first thing we discovered. He uses the wind to get his bearings,"

Peter says.

Most Saturday mornings Nathan hits the beach with Peter. They wax their
boards and do warm-up exercises, then Peter takes Nathan's hand and they
walk to the water's edge.

"OK, Nathan, the wind's coming from the northwest. You're facing the water.

Your back's to the sand," says Peter.

Nathan shifts his head slightly left, right, senses the breeze, listens to
the smacking of water on water and churn of whitewash. He nods, and the two
plunge into the surf.

"It's about hearing - it's most about hearing but feeling as well," says
Nathan.

It's also about trust. Nathan puts his life into the hands of Peter and
Fiona, who talk him into each wave: when to paddle, where to paddle, how
steep the drop down the wave face will be, how fast the wave lips are
peeling, which way to turn.

But when the ocean energy shoots board and surfer on an exhilarating charge
down a wall of moving water, he is on his own.

"You've just got to trust them. It's worked really well. I reckon they could
help anyone with a disability," Nathan says.

Nathan is now surfing waves up to 1.5 metres high. After wiping out, he
splutters to the surface, usually laughing, climbs on his board, pauses to
sense the wind, listens for oncoming waves, then paddles out for the next
set. "This guy now is a surfer - he's not a blind surfer. He's a surfer."

"We might have taught him to surf, but he's taught me a lot," Fiona says.

"He's made me realize that no matter what happens to you, if you have the
right spirit, if you're determined, passionate, you can get the most out of
life."







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