Too much of a good thing? Jay Davies reckons he might know a thing or two about that.
But, it ain’t what you think. The good thing is the waves and the West Australian has had bucket loads of those this year. And…the downside?
“I think people are starting to get sick of seeing me in perfect waves,’’ the 28-year-old told Tracks.
“I really need to get out and show everyone I can surf a bit of everything, but I just can’t leave this place, it’s just been pumping all year and I’ve just been hunting waves up and down the coast.”
And like clockwork, the pumping waves went from 10 to 11 right in his front yard with the return of Yallingup’s most famous resident, Taj Burrow.
The two have found themselves gorging on the heaving shore break that is Rabbit Hill over the past two weeks.
“I swear, that place just turns on every time he (Taj) comes home,” says Jay.
“There hasn’t been any good sandbanks there for ages and as soon as I heard he was on his way, the banks started to build.”
But, by his own admission, 2014 has also been a challenging one for the much-lauded power surfer, with injury and subsequent time out of the water also giving pause to reassess a career that till now seemed to get by on the strength of his free surfing.
“I went to Lakey Peak early in the year with Yadin Nicol and the Coffin brothers and slipped off the back of my board and ended up with a grade two tear of my MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament-it’s in your knee),’’ says Jay.
“It wasn’t a hectic injury and luckily there was no surgery involved, but I was out of the water for two months and it gave me a bit of time to think about how good this “job” is.”
With no real contest ambition to fall back on, Davies then found himself struggling to gain exposure amongst a landscape already flooded with video edits.
And with contract renewal season about to get underway in the surfing world, Davies admits to putting a bit of thought into his plan of attack from here on in.
“It’s a bit of a worry I guess and it gets tougher living in an isolated area like I do which is why I was trying to hammer out the edits so much,” he says.
“But I think I released so many random things it sort of drowned out all the good things. I’m just trying to tone it down and concentrate on putting out the special moments.”
His last feature edit, Whatever Happened, filmed by fellow West Australia, Tom Jennings, was a perfect reminder of Jay’s explosive brand of surfing, but as he points out, it did cause a stir, then just…
“There’s just so many web edits out there that are just viewed and forgotten that it kind of takes the substance out of what good surfing is,” he says.
So he’s turned his attention towards the longer format of release as exampled by John John Florence, Mason Ho, Dane Reynolds and the recently released full length flick, Attractive Distractions.
“I think its all coming back around to proper films that will be released on iTunes and you’ll have them to keep and get frothed on as opposed to click bait that you watch once and forget about.”
Oddly enough, despite living in area surrounded by big slabby waves, Davies reckons pursuing a career at the end of a tow-rope isn’t on the cards either.
“I’ve absolutely no interest whatsoever in being towed in those big slabby waves or even big waves in general, ” he reckons.
“I’ve got all the respect in the world for those guys and what they do, but for me, if you can’t paddle into it, there’s no point towing into it, so going down that path isn’t really an option.”
Nor is a return to competition, which given the current criteria of best two waves wins, could indeed suit his style of surfing.
But Jay know that between the glamorous WCT circuit lies years of slogging it out on the WQS in less than stellar waves a long way from home.
“I did get pretty psyched after Joel won his title and had a crack at a comp in Burleigh shortly after,’’ he recalls.
“But just all the snaking and heavy vibes…I knew straight away it wasn’t for me. Although, I’d give anything to get another shot at the the Teahupoo event again. ”
Regardless, Davies says he’s glad he’ll be in Hawaii to watch the world title go down at Pipeline and is hedging his bets on Medina to take the crown.
“I really wish John John was still in with a shot,” he says.
“But I’m hoping Medina will win. He’s super focused and it would just be the best thing for the sport I reckon. The first Brazilian world champ. How good would that be?”
