There’s a Four Seasons hotel in the Maldives, a nation of small islands in the Indian Ocean, that runs a very elite surfing event called the Maldives Surfing Championship Trophy. Each year, they invite a handful of notables from recent surfing history to compete in a three-part event – they have to surf singlefins, twinnies, and thrusters. Think T Knox, Sunny Garcia, Curren, Layne Beachly, Mark Richards, Shane Dorian, Occy, Rasta … you get the idea.

A few years back, I was writing for an online surf publication and they reached out to see if we wanted to go to…