A Water World Of Her Own

A free spirit and quite the pilgrim for most of her life, Shell Biles settled in Gerringong six years ago. She was looking for a place that wasn’t as hot as Darwin or as cold as Launceston, and no way could she cope in a metropolis like Sydney. One thing she liked about Gerringong was that, at the time, none of the big fast-food chains had a presence here. Those kinds of outlets . . . well, they’re just not her.

More than a lot of people, Biles is in tune with “what’s me and what isn’t.” Take competing, for example. Though she took it up only when she came to Gerringong, she’s now devoted to surfing. And she’s good at it. Other beachgoers say she’s probably the best female surfer in town; certainly the keenest. But when friends urge her to enter competitions, she just shakes her head. “Competition isn’t me,” she says.

Then there’s the matter of trying to sell stuff. For a while she worked in the surf shop, which seems like a good fit for a surfie chick. But Biles, 27, couldn’t bear having to push people toward clothing that they didn’t come to buy. She’s happier now next door serving in the Perfect Break vegetarian caf, where people ask her for a coffee and that’s what she gives them.

She has the surfie’s blonde hair, which maybe has something to do with conforming to an image? “Not with me,” she says. “I’m the biggest dag ever. When I was working next door, they let me wear the shop’s clothes because what I wore normally wasn’t good enough.” She prefers walking to driving, sometimes hiking for two and a half hours over the hills into Kiama, then catching the train back. She’s quick to laugh, but not a reveler. Her idea of a party is having a couple of friends over to her place and cooking for them.

Her place, which she’s sharing with a couple of guys, including a German backpacker, is a colorful, lived-in shack two streets back from the beach. When it’s quiet, you can hear the waves from the front room. In the warm weather, she’ll surf twice a day, she says, but in winter it’s more like every second day. As determined as she is to develop her skills, she can’t stand the cold for long.

Surfing makes Biles late for work and for university, where she’s in her last year studying to become a health and physical education teacher. But the prospect of working full-time holds no appeal for her, while being placed out west somewhere and not being able to surf is out of the question. She won’t even holiday away from the coast. “People keep calling me a dreamer,” she says. “It’s, ‘What kind of house do you want to live in when you’re older?’ ‘Are you going to have kids?’—all these real-life questions. I’m still trying to get this responsibility thing. I’m grasping at it. I’ve improved. I’ve definitely improved.”