What makes for any surfing life? Using a blaze of groundbreaking performances and a swag of titles claimed from all around the globe to his name, Australian globe champ surfer Nat Little might know. His seventieth birthday inspired some representation on precisely that, and on the waves and people that have marked his remarkable existence – Miki Dora and Midget Farrelly to name a few.

But browsing for Nat Young – therefore many like-minded surfers – has never been about winning, hardly ever been about the activity. It’s a contacting, an endless quest, a philosophy, a religion. Most of all, surfing is a way of life that has underpinned his other identities as table shaper, film producer, writer, raconteur, conservationist, activist, pilot, husband, father.

Candid and wryly noticed, Church from the Open Sky explores what it means to be a surfer, using a collection of accurate stories of Nat’s surfing life – and the friends, foes and heroes he’s met along the way.