In raw tell-all interview, Kelly Slater reveals the dark side of competing, “Sometimes I think, what the f*$k am I doing”, cradling a convulsing pedestrian following fatal hit-and-run accident and his pessimistic view of surfing, “I feel bad for the next generation!”

"I felt like my life was going to be special. I just knew it. I never questioned it. I just felt like I could create anything."

Seven years ago, the wife and baby of surfing photographer Chris White were swept across the North Shore’s Kam Highway by one of those great North Shore pulses.

The kid, who was strapped into his pram, was separated from mammy and deposited upside down, drinking water, gonna die etc.

Kelly Slater, who was nearby, ran over got to the pram, flipped it upright, pulled the kid’s head out of the water, scooped the sand out of his mouth so he could breathe, helped out mammy and give ‘em a lift home.

Ever since, Chris and Kelly have been buddies.

“He’s a surf Jesus,” says Chris, who is forty-two, a star of Ninja Warriors, and lives in North Beach in Western Australia.

Little surprise, then, that Kelly feels warm under Chris’ wing and was talkative, generous, close during an interview for Chris’ The Grim Reapers podcast.

Kelly talks about the dreariness of the tour, “Sometimes I’m in heats and, literally, what the fuck am I doing here?”

On being born great, “I felt like my life was going to be special. I just knew it. I never questioned it. I just felt like I could create anything.”

On surfing’s gloomy future, “I feel bad for the next generation. It’s so fucking crowded now… all the great waves are so crowded now, Pipeline, Bali, all through Indo.”

And wait for the time he saw two people get belted by a hit-and-run in Avalon when he was nineteen. Woman dead, man convulsing in his arms as the couples’ pals ran out of the nearby bar, looked at him and said, “Wait, aren’t you Kelly Slater?” to which the future world champion said, “Yeah, and your friends are dying here.”