Newcastle surfer Josh Levey catches 7,000 waves in one month for charity

When his eyes were stinging and his lips were “on fire”, Newcastle surfer Josh Levey remembered a simple mantra — “love is the willingness to be inconvenienced by another”.

The 21-year-old competitive surfer, who has been riding a board since he was seven years old, has caught a staggering 7,000 waves in the last month to raise money for a local homeless charity.

“I’ve always kind of wanted to do some sort of a challenge using my gift, which is surfing,” he said.

Physical, mental toll

Josh faced difficult conditions throughout January — from heavy rain and strong swells to heatwave weather and tiny waves.

But they did not stop him catching an average of 225 waves a day.

“A tricky part of the ocean is there’s so many uncontrollable variables,” he said.

“I think the biggest thing is the exhaustion. You’re burning insane amounts of energy and calories constantly, so I can feel my energies go super up and down all the time.

Spending hours in the sun and saltwater took its toll, made evident by Josh’s wetsuit neck tan, salt-reddened eyes and chapped lips.

“My eyes are cooked,” he said.

“My lips are so sore they feel like they’re on fire.

“I woke up this morning and there was, like, blood on them.”

Doing it tough

Josh initially set out with the goal of catching 5,000 waves in a month but upped the target to 7,000 about halfway through his gruelling schedule.

“We realised that there are so many people out there that are doing it tough,” he said.

“And so we thought, ‘Let’s just put the pedal down and give it everything we got for the last two weeks’.

“I discussed it with my team and I felt like I could get to 7,000.”

A bigger purpose

Josh used the challenge to raise funds for Newcastle charity Soul Hub which provides food, support and services to the city’s most vulnerable, homeless, and at risk.

“Soul Hub is an amazing place that really shows their love through their actions,” he said.

“So I thought, ‘Why not support [them]?'”

He has raised more than $95,000 for the charity, which relies on community funding.

“It’s huge for us,” Soul Hub’s guest support coordinator John Fowler said.

“The support from the community — whether that’s pocket money from a child which we sometimes receive, or whether that’s thousands of dollars from somebody like Josh — the impact on our guests is significant.

Soul Hub has more than 300 volunteers and supports about 250 people each week, providing meals, support services and essential facilities.

Inspiring others

Josh said he hoped his efforts would also help to spread an important message.

“The message that we really want to convey with this challenge is that love is the willingness to be inconvenienced by another,” he said.

“So, I hope it could inspire someone else to go out and love someone in their own way.”

Josh spent 12 hours in the water with Sydney surfer Blakey Johnston, who holds a Guinness world record for surfing 4,000 waves in a wave pool over 25 days in August last year.

The Newcastle surfer’s efforts won’t be recorded as an official record because it would have required every wave to be videotaped for verification.

But Josh said it was not the point of the exercise, and he had received “overwhelming” support from fellow surfers, sports people and the wider community.

“There has constantly been people coming up to me asking me how many waves I’m on and how I’m going,” he said.

“Having people like [ultramarathon athlete] Nedd Brockmann [reach out] — there’s been so many cool people that have jumped on board and helping us out.”