“It’s not like a real job… it doesn’t feel like work.”

James Kinnaird, aka ‘Jimme The Rat’, is living the dream. The 18-year-old videographer from Avoca Beach on Australia’s Central Coast is edging towards the end of a six-week stint on Hawaii’s North Shore. He’s been dragging his much-loved Panasonic P2 along the hallowed stretch of coast between Haleiwa and Sunset Beach for over a month, capturing all the action from Australia’s new brigade of young grommets. And he reckons it’s cool.

“I love doing it,” The Rat says. “It’s what I do. I just film people doing stuff so people know what’s happening. If I was at home I’d be doing exactly the same thing, I just wouldn’t be getting paid. There’s some kids doing some pretty amazing stuff and if no-one captures it, it’s like it doesn’t happen. There’s only a few people to see it… the people in the water or on the beach. It’s like telling people you caught a big fish. It’s just a big fish story if no-one captures it.”

At just 18 years old, The Rat is a veteran of the surf video genre. He’s been filming since he was 15 – initially just his mates skateboarding on a JVC handycam before being recruited by local Central Coast surf star Matt Wilkinson. Wilko bought the kid a camera and took him on the road as his personal videographer. “He bought a good camera and dragged me around everywhere, just around Australia, to Bells, Queensland, and just everywhere in between.” The Rat caught Wilko landing a Gorkin flip (named after Florida’s Aaron Cormican) at a Pro Junior event at Victoria’s Gunnamatta Beach, and his name was soon in the headlines – Waves magazines used frame grabs from The Rat’s footage for a double-page spread. “When you film acting, you can get another take, people can act again. But with surfing it might only happen once, you’ve got to capture it as it is. If you miss it, it’s gone. You can’t tell them to run down the beach and do it again.”

A few months later Rip Curl sent The Rat on his first overseas adventure – to Chile for the Rip Curl Pro Search event in Arica. He was just 16 years old. “I fell in love. I got a rash. They (Rip Curl) didn’t know I was only 16… it was a pretty crazy experience.” A few weeks later he landed a Mentawai boat trip with Taylor Knox & co., where he got to work with his idol, Jon Frank, and earned his nickname (“I annoy people a little bit, I’ve got ratty hair, I chew on dry wall…”). The Rat then skipped on to his first Hawaiian winter – six weeks On The Rock with good mates Matt Wilkinson and Owen Wright. He ended the year filming Steph Gilmore winning a maiden world title on Maui. “That was pretty amazing.”

This year wasn’t quite the year of The Rat, but it wasn’t bad. He spent four months in Indonesia and is back in Hawaii, earning his place amongst the North Shore pecking order. He’s sleeping on a mattress on the floor and living on Starbucks and Ted’s Bakery. He barely finished Year 10, but the kid has ambition. “I want to make surf movies. Movies with amazing surfing but shot properly… not like Taylor Steele movies. That’s heavy but it’s true.”

So while you can call the kid The Rat, just don’t call him a “vidiot”. “I think if you just shot everything on auto and just pointed your camera, then maybe you’re a vidiot. I’m a cameraman. I’m a rat.”

The dead cat lying at the end of the driveway hasn’t had a good night, and neither have several other residents of Ke Nui Road.

It was Friday night here in Hawaii, and with the Pipe Masters finishing yesterday, there was no shortage of partakers for a wild toast to the season out at Turtle Bay. It began with two guys in the Curl Off The Wall house saying they were only going out to Lei Leis for two beers. They soon found out there’s no such thing as two beers, and they found plenty of accomplices in the Sports Bar, with half the pro tour out there. A hundred mai tais, a face-slapping contest, a marriage proposal, an eviction by two comically huge bouncers and a chunder in the car park later, the night ended with Mick Fanning and Curl video guy, Shagga on the balcony of the OTW house, wrestling at 5am.

“Whoah, it’s the WWF, the Orange Avenger versus Blondie!”

Taylor Knox walks in the house at 11am this morning as Mick and Shags are recounting the night’s events. Shagga looks dusty to say the least. Mick is looking surprisingly fresh, apart from a small cut on his cheekbone the size of a nickel. The two had been wrestling in the early hours of this morning, and Mick’s head had ended up bouncing off the corner of the stainless steel barbecue. He was lucky he only got a scratch.

The casualty list was high this morning, but it was a great day to be hungover. The sky was a sea of black cloud, and the record rain continued to bucket. The swell was half of what it was yesterday, and there were few takers along the North Shore. The water was still twelve shades of mission brown, and getting even browner. Most of the local crew, despite it being Saturday, gave it a miss. The water flowing down the plateau and out to sea is full of all sorts of fertilisers, stormwater, and pig shit, and it’s got ear, nose and throat infection written all over it. The other reason crew are avoiding it today is that freshwater runoff equals sharks. Makua Rothman reported there’d been an 18-foot tiger spotted out the back of V-Land.

We have an early surf at Rocky Lefts, confident the 50 other bodies in the water will reduce our chances of being eaten substantially. The waves are fun, but it remains the world’s most frustrating wave.

We rendezvous with Mick Fanning, Karissa, Shagga and Jon Frank for breakfast. Today, breakfast is served at 12.30pm at Haleiwa Café, hangover cure to the stars. Taylor Knox reportedly eats free in here, but the rest of us mortals are all handing over hard earned Australian moolah, at a rate of almost two Aussie dollars for every greenback. It’s worth it though. Karissa orders eggs benedict, Mick and Frank both order the breakfast barrel a burrito the size of a baseball bat packed with potoatoes, spinach, mushrooms and Canadian bacon. I get the Off The Wall omelette.
Shagga orders pancakes, but makes the fatal error of pouring the maple syrup on before spreading the butter. The butter won’t melt when spread on the syrup. But even in his scattered state Shagga is in he finds a solution,… he flips the pancakes and butters the other side. He’s pretty happy with himself, although we point out to him that it was hardly curing cancer or sending a man to the moon.

Back at the house and all my breakfast companions retreat to their respective caves to sleep it off. It continues to rain, and does so all afternoon. I sit down in front of VH1 and begin watching Metallica’s docco Some Kind Of Monster when I’m rudely interrupted by Taylor Knox, who is disturbingly starting to look like James Hetfield these days. Taylor is filming for his training DVD with an entourage big enough to film the sequel to Titanic. He’s interviewed, taking the piss hilariously out of his trainer, Paul Hiniker, who can only sit there and laugh as Taylor is on fire. Paul has already been nicknamed “Buckets” by the Aussie guys, because as his stocky, muscular frame runs down the beach it looks like he’s holding two buckets as he goes. He’s had to develop a thick skin living in the OTW house.

Mick finally surfaces late in the afternoon. He’s groggy, but he’s got a plan. It’s the only logical option for a rainy, hungover North Shore afternoon.

“Let’s get a tattoo…” //SEAN DOHERTY