Did you feel safe in your childhood home? If not, were you able to leave, or did you have to stay? 

Ruby Southwell hit the road, travelling solo for years, searching for guidance. What she found was a deep and clear inner well - and a renewed love for riding waves. 

At age 22, Ruby moved to Indonesia’s remote Mentawai Islands, where she surf guided, taught herself how to tube ride, and lived offgrid with a local family for just over two years.  

Ruby is known as a wildly talented navigator of weighty situations – both on land and in the water. Clips of her have been shared readily on social media – where you’ve probably seen her riding twinnes, pulling into big barrels, and displacing water in a distinctly feminine way. 

When "Big Surfing" came knocking about sponsorship, Ruby took the deal, but she also took the reins. With her content budget, Ruby defied the norms and made a short film about the Mentawai’s pioneering female surfer Siska. 

Parallel to wave riding, and now back in Australia, Ruby works to support at risk youth, with her sights on exploring the best of what her big island home has to offer. 

She shares generously about the joys and adversities that have shaped and are shaping her path forward: the life changing joy of a magic board, travelling humbly,  keeping an eye out for gurus in the Himalayas, and the only core surfer she's ever met. 

 

Send us a text

...

Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander

Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll

Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander

Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast

...

Get monthly musings and behind the scenes content from the podcast by subscribing to our newsletter.

You'll get water-centric reading and listening recommendations, questions worth asking, and ways to take action for the wellbeing of Planet Ocean delivered straight to your inbox.

You can stream every Waterpeople episode from your desk.