Would You Break Your Wedding Vows To Score the Best Waves of Your Life?

Originally posted on SURFER | By Zander Morton | Last updated Jul 28, 2025 2:10 PM ET

Last summer a clip surfaced of a lanky, blonde goofyfoot standing tall in a 10-foot tube at XL Cloudbreak. It was the wave of the day, during the swell of the season, in a lineup that included Nate Florence and Soli Bailey. Impressive stuff.

Turns out that surfer was German born, South Africa raised, Bali based Nick Blottnitz, a venture capitalist (at least he was employed by a VC firm at the time) that told us he wakes up at 2am everyday, works for six hours, surfs during the day, works a couple more hours during the afternoon, and goes to sleep before the sun even goes down.

While that schedule worked for eight years, it just wasn’t sustainable long term. Something had to give. And that thing was his career. At least for now.

With a home base in Bali and a chunk of savings earmarked to score swells, Blottnitz is finally free to chase waves to the far reaches of Indonesia and beyond without setting an alarm to take zoom calls in the middle of the night. In the process, Blottnitz plans to share his travels on a brand new YouTube channel, which he’s working on with his wife, Kelsey, who also happens to be a damn good (and seriously committed) filmer and partner.

While Blottnitz is putting serious time, energy and effort into this new YT channel, his goal for it isn’t financial. “I’m just gonna chase as many purple blobs as I can for the next year with the goal of properly scoring 12 times,” Blottnitz told us. “And so I figured we might as well film the whole thing so we can share it all with our friends, and eventually our kids. And also: when Nate Florence paddles out in a lineup anywhere on the world he gets way more waves because everyone knows who he is. So, if this channel can eventually help me get just a few more waves….that’s also great [laughs].”

Click play for Blottnitz’s first edit, where he breaks his wedding vows to chase four waves across two islands during one recent swell in Indonesia. It’s a surf channel with a Wes Anderson twist, and if this first edit is any indication, it’ll be a really fun ride.

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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