{"id":21100,"date":"2026-05-29T23:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T23:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/21100\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T23:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T23:37:09","slug":"tributes-for-big-wave-surfer-nathan-bartlett-who-died-at-nsw-south-coast-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/21100\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes for big-wave surfer Nathan Bartlett who died at NSW South Coast break"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tight-knit NSW South Coast community has been rocked by the death of a world-renowned surfer and “pure gentleman”.<\/p>\n

Manyana father and carpenter Nathan Bartlett , 43, died when he and his brother, Byron, got into trouble in waves close to Cape St George Lighthouse, near Jervis Bay, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Emergency services, including police, Marine Rescue NSW, Australian Federal Police and the navy, responded and Mr Bartlett was pulled from the water unresponsive about 1.50pm. He died at the scene.<\/p>\n

Byron Bartlett was assessed by paramedics on shore and released.<\/p>\n

Kurt Nyholm, a life member of the Ulladulla Boardriders Club, said Nathan, his friend of three decades, was a revered underground surfing figure who travelled extensively chasing waves.<\/p>\n

“Nath was an extraordinary talent in the waters,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He was regarded highly across the world as one of the best big-wave slab guys. He was a pioneer in it all.<\/p>\n

“Surfing aside, he was also just a pure gentleman.”<\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/p>\n

Nathan Bartlett riding a wave on the east coast in 2014. (Supplied.)<\/p>\n

Mr Nyholm said his friend was “never one to chase the limelight, even though he could have because of his prowess in the water”.<\/p>\n

Surfing had been a big part of Mr Bartlett’s life since he was a boy in Manyana, south-west of Jervis Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When I was about 16 or 17 at a surf comp in Manyana, he would have only been eight or nine when I won the event,” Mr Nyholm said.<\/p>\n

“I just remember him sticking to me the whole time and asking me a million questions.<\/p>\n

“We just became really, really close friends over the years. I have a surfboard upstairs that he was meant to come and grab one day this week.”<\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/p>\n

Nathan Bartlett in hospital with facial injuries after a wipe-out in Indonesia in 2017. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Nine years earlier, Mr Bartlett survived a near-fatal wipe-out while surfing at Desert Point in Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Other surfers swam Mr Bartlett to a rescue boat and saved his life by performing CPR.<\/p>\n

Despite suffering severe head and facial injuries, he was determined to return to his beloved sport.<\/p>\n

“He had a good gash on his head and a scar was left there,” Mr Nyholm said.<\/p>\n

“If you become an elite surfer, you don’t just get there without risk.”Community in mourning<\/p>\n

Amid the pain of losing his friend, Mr Nyholm said he found some comfort in believing Mr Bartlett was comfortable in his realm the day tragedy struck.<\/p>\n

“He was not out of his depth. Him and his brother, it was just what they did,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Anywhere that had a hint of a tube, they’d surf it.<\/p>\n

“We’d all try to find the best [barrelling] waves, that’s obviously where the stoke is.”<\/p>\n

Mr Bartlett’s death has rocked the tight-knit South Coast community.<\/p>\n

“The amount of people that are just coming in [to the surf shop] and staring blankly and embracing each other shows how raw it is,” Mr Nyholm said.<\/p>\n

“The community has just lost a really good guy.”<\/p>\n

All three Bartlett brothers were accomplished boardriders on the South Coast, with Nathan’s son Taylor also cementing himself as a successful “grommet”, recently winning the Barton Lynch Blast Off 10-and-under division.<\/p>\n

Mr Bartlett is survived by his wife Hollie, his son and a daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tight-knit NSW South Coast community has been rocked by the death of a world-renowned surfer and “pure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,20165,6868,2717,20167,20166,6356],"class_list":["post-21100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-big-waves","tag-community","tag-death","tag-drowning","tag-manyana","tag-surfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}