Cold Water Immersion; Skill Required: NIL. Balls Required: NIL. Friends Required: At Least One. Introducing My Tribe...

I always travel with a few simple items to reduce my use of single-use plastic. Here they are…

In this podcast myself and Matt Barr discuss my move away from “the dream life”, bikini modelling for big surf brands and travelling the world, to slowing things down and immersing myself in the cold waters of Ireland. We discuss female objectification, the toxicity of gender stereotyping in surfing, and the prism of controversies that come along with it.

The hyper-sexualisation of women in surfing culture is an interesting conversation and it’s an issue men need to be talking about too. It’s especially interesting for me as I have been on both sides of the debate. I am full of contradictions.

For all the women here and the ones I haven’t featured yet; the young ones like Seren in surf league, the ones who are away travelling, the original ones who were surfing here long before I blew in, the ones who are in the sea all the time but no one has ever thought to capture it for you, the ones who are so shy and humble they quietly asked me not to be featured. I salute you.

It's lovely and everything smells nice. It's warm, not hot and I didn’t really burn. When I arrived I was picked up at the airport, it was all smiles and kind exchanges, it was all good vibrations and happy people. This was my first time here, everything was pleasant, every day was fulfilled and each person more than civil.

It’s winter and I find myself floating in my 6mm suit, hiding behind my board, trying to stop the hail, the snow and the wind that is burning my face, I’m laughing and I realise I’m pretty much as stoked as a girl can be.

Community is everywhere, it is more than one person doing something, it is communicating, it is a life like your parents lived, it’s hard, and it’s easy. It can be a challenge. For me community meant thinking differently.

Spring isn’t as conventional here as seasons elsewhere, winter is not quite dead. We are behind on our new farm, the lads are battling against the weather to get the beds prepared and onion seeds planted, polytunnels are going up slowly in the rain.

Finding Home is a short documentary profile of my search for a way of living at one with the ocean and the earth. Film makers Michael Fordham And Ed Andrews travelled with me from my childhood home to the incredible coastline of Clare – discovering that perhaps the most important journey I have taken is the one inside myself.

“The normal clichés about being a ‘surfer girl’ don’t apply when you live in County Clare,” Sophie Hellyer tells me. Sophie is poised at the wheel of her wagon, looking out across a wind-blasted Atlantic coastline just north of Doolin, in the far west of Ireland. No placidly perfect, cobalt blue waves today. No California dreaming for this girl.

This summer I became the first British (or Irish!) female to feature surfing on the cover of Surf Girl Magazine. It was also the first cover to have no logos, branding or sponsorship.