We asked professional surfer Nathan Florence — who was named 2023 Surfer of the Year — about the sunscreen, action camera, and protein bars he can’t live without.
I use this reef-safe tinted stick before three- to four-hour sessions in the water. I found that other sunscreens would leave my skin dry after the session and kind of crackly. I hated that. It’s not oily, but it just has a little bit of substance to it so your skin doesn’t feel really dry after and it just covers you, does the job. It’s very simple, and it doesn’t leak in my eyes.
After years of salt and sun and debris hitting your eyes from being in the ocean, your eyes will actually build up scar tissue, and that tissue starts to go into your iris — a lot of surfers and sailors have it. My doctor said that it warped the lenses in my eyes a bit and so I started to lose my sense of distance. If you’re surfing and in the ocean, you need to see sets coming in, you need to make sure you’re not dropping in on anyone. So these contacts are crucial and I wear them all the time. But my doctor gave me these ones with transition lenses. It’s almost like wearing polarized sunglasses. You can see through the water. It’s pretty sick. But my eyes would turn completely black from the transitions. Some guys are like, Your eyes, man, they’re totally black! And I’m like, I don’t know, dude!
Every surfer’s necessity. Gotta have ’em, especially being here in Hawaii. Growing up on this side of the world, tropical island life, we grew up in board shorts, we surf in board shorts, I train in board shorts, all my activities are in board shorts. They’re meant to be durable, and they’re meant to dry fast.
Riding a wave, you enter into a state of reactiveness — all of a sudden, you’re confronted with so many moving parts that you don’t have that much time to think. It’s a flow state. And I found that this little drink could almost be a little shortcut, a little boost to get into that state, and I’d never found that with a supplement before. There are days when you’re not feeling it, and you want to practice and work on something, or you just flew a ten-hour flight and now you’re going out to surf a scary slab. And, yes, you have adrenaline, but you want to make sure your reflexes and your flow state are ultrasharp because you want to make the best decisions on the go.
A huge part of the content I create is being able to bring you along with me to a wave. And everyone’s like, What kind of bite mount are you using? I just use the GoPro stock one. It’s a little rubber one. People are like, Oh, we have this different mouth that allows you to breathe better. There’s other ones that have a snorkel intake. But if you look at all these mounts, the GoPro is the leanest one, the least intrusive.
I love the 8 especially for long sessions because it’s small, compact, and durable, but obviously you’re not going to get the quality that those newer models have. Those newer ones like the 12 just have bigger sensors. They have way more options. But I love my 8.
I’ve been loving the Garmin for tracking surf sessions, workouts, cycling, everything. I tried Whoop, Oura, and Apple Watch, but I kept losing them. So I tried the Garmin and was just blown away, especially by the data tracking. I became my own little bio lab tester: Like, Oh, I ate way more and I drank way more water today. Let’s see how my recovery is tomorrow versus a day not doing it. And if I’m surfing 30-foot waves at Jaws, I want to see what my heart rate is doing out there. It goes from resting heart rate to 185 for 30 seconds and then back down. That’s a wave, and a fall, and a beatdown. It’s just so cool to see.
I’m the type of guy to wake up with zero appetite, and if I’m left to my own devices, I’ll drink three coffees and go work out or surf for four hours and have not eaten a bite of food. So I had to set rules for myself, and eating something, anything in the morning has helped me so much with my endurance. I started PR-ing all my high-intensity timed workouts, all of my cycling segments. So I was like, I need something that I can just get down really quick or in between workouts or right after that’s a little bit of higher carb and fats and protein combo. The GoMacro bar is literally exactly what I needed. If I have to cook eggs or make oatmeal, I won’t do it. I’ll be like, Ah, fuck that. I’m out of here!
I can’t sit still even on rest days, so I often do active recovery: small things like a 20-minute bike ride, a sauna and ice-plunge session; I’ll stretch for 20 minutes and use my massage gun. I like how I can toss the Mini in my backpack. I can pull it out on the plane and use it. I could use it in the airport. I throw it in my car, take it to the gym, while watching the waves, checking the waves.
This is my all-around fun-size, everyday-use surfboard. We call ’em short boards, and that’s just basically the board you’re going to take when nothing crazy is going on. My brothers and I grew up here on the North Shore and Jon Pyzel helped shape some of our first boards, and so it’s been like a 20-year relationship. When you have that kind of relationship with a shaper, the surfer and the shaper can create boards that just work so well. You have so much feedback. I’m doing it all year long, calling them after the session, Hey, this felt a little weird. Oh, this felt insane. Let’s make the whole next batch like that. And so over time, you just get really refined boards.
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