On the city’s coastal fringes, where the urban and natural worlds collide, the east-side surfers spill towards the Pacific. They descend from unit blocks, gritty streets and the surrounding hills, bare feet slapping bitumen, and dodging broken glass en route to the beach.  

These city surfers may be shaped by the forces of family, ethnicity and economic status, but amongst the waves they find common purpose and a level playing field – an ocean in a constant state of flux, which tests the content of your character and the quality of your cutback.   

The eastern suburbs have a colourful and well-document past, but out in the waves another history is written. A tale of glory days and friendships, of reckless abandon and barrels, of bluebottle stings and sunburn, and the daily ritual of ocean bliss. Meanwhile, if you look closely enough at the faces of the surfers in these photographs you can feel all their triumph and tragedy, the story of every ride.    

Image: Hugh McLeod