Who are you? Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m Joel Gibson, self-taught carpenter, builder, maker, average surfer. I grew up in Sydney, moved to Berlin when I was 23, met my Marie, convinced her to come back to Sydney for a while and 10 years later we are on this little rock in the middle of the Atlantic. I’ve spent the last year and a half (maybe more) building this little cabin up in Lombinha da Maia. It’s finished now and it’s been a journey.

How did you and Marie end up on the island?
My Dad loves to fantasize about buying some abandoned farm in the middle of nowhere in France and occasionally looks around on real estate sites looking at old ruins and farm buildings. One day I started looking with him and I clicked on the map view. One dot popped up way out in the Atlantic. It was a forest for sale on Faial. I’d never heard of the Azores in my life, and neither had anyone else I told. There the seed was planted. Marie and I were living in Sydney at the time and she had already mentioned that she’d like to move back to Europe. After a lot of fantasizing through what we found online and then a two week test visit, we finally made the move!

How’s life on the Island?
Island life is undulating. It’s amazing and it’s very hard at the same time. Everyone comes here for that quiet life, but it’s hard to attain. Four years later and we are just starting to figure it out.

Favorite place on the island? Why?
Ooo I’m not sure if I want to disclose this, but I guess I won’t give away the details! But it’s Lombadas. I love going up there to feel the solitude, to feel the lack of human intervention. The secret waterfall is cool, but there’s a lot more up there to find!

Favorite object? Why?
I like things that I use all the time that do their job well. I guess a good example would be my fold out Stanley knife. It has a nice wooden handle and opens beers nearly as well as it cuts things. I actually lost it in our field about a year after I got it, then it showed up again and has basically been stuck on my hip ever since. I’d be sad if I lost it.

What about surfing? What role does it have in your life?
I caught the surfing bug when I was 9 or 10. Ever since then it’s been a theme in my life. But it’s funny that only shortly before I moved here was the first time I ever thought about HOW to surf. For 20 years I just jumped up and did whatever on the wave. Had fun. Loved every minute of it. Only recently have I started to think about how to do certain maneuvers or wave science and all of that! I guess it’s why I’m still a shitty surfer!

One song / Band?
Kafi Lied – Kalabrese.

What about hobbies?
Building this cabin has taken nearly all my time away for hobbies. But I still like to make and build things. I like to make little sculptures or try to carve some bowls. I also quite like growing things. When we first moved here I was looking for some hardwood but couldn’t find much so I planted a whole bunch of my favourite timber trees. Now I just need somewhere to plant them! I like to plant palm trees from seed too. Quite a lot of the garden around our land I grew from seed, it’s been nice to see them grow.

A unique moment in your life?
Surfing a secret spot on the island in absolutely maxing conditions. The biggest surf I’ve ever been in. A spot which a group of friends and I had looked at and attempted so many times but without much success. On that day it was perfect, but huge and fast. I had in my mind where I should take off and just put myself in there, under-gunned on a new old 6’8” which I’d never surfed. There were clean up monster sets coming through so I knew I had to take one soon or risk just being cleaned up without getting a wave. I took off on a wave and it was like a complete out of body experience. My brain was disconnected. Unfortunately, as I went to stand up my board was just gone. I don’t even know how it happened, if I slipped or the wind blew it away but it was gone and I just slid down the face of the wave like a water slide. Feet first into the flats and got seriously pounded. The “unique moment” was when I popped up, board snapped in two and then got to see the next one from the inside. Beautifully terrifying. It broke about 2 meters in front of me and felt like a bomb went off. And the next one. I eventually swam in and lost a toenail getting in because it was so big the sea was rolling boulders all around where you have to get in and out. The next minute we were welcomed into a fisherman’s shack with locals and fed wood fire roasted sweet potatoes and aguardiente to soothe the pain and watched the rest of the crew get some amazing waves! The vision of taking off so deep on such a bomb has stuck with me for a long time even though I didn’t even make the take off!

If you could pick two people (alive or dead) one to surf with and one to have dinner or conversation, who would they be? Why?
To surf would be Lloyd Kahn, he’s kind of the master of do it yourself craftsmen building. He lived through the hippy movement in California and all of its’ radical building ideas. He’s also the publisher of Shelter Publications which one of their books inspired me to design and build an arch. He also still skates at 88 years of age so maybe he’d be down for a session. To have dinner would be Richard Leplastrier. Hands down one of the best architects in the world in my eyes. I would love to pick his brain.

What haven’t we asked you?
We just had a baby in December! So in a couple of years I’ll be able to tell you what’s harder: building a house or having a baby?

Surfing photo credit by: Azores Bagus (https://www.azoresbagus.com/)

Please follow Joel @joelgibsoncreative or @arcs.of.lombinha.