By Michael Jacobsen via goldcoast.com.au

JAMIE Mitchell is christening the prototype for what will be his signature stand up paddleboard, the stillness of Currumbin Creek barely disrupted as he shears through the water.

It's something to observe, timeless in the way Jamie's movements conjure historic images of islanders standing on rough-hewn craft and stroking their way through the break to check nets and pots or to greet strangers in tall ships.

Yet so too is the image slightly incongruous, particularly given modern board paddlers are most often seen on their bellies or knees as they use their arms to power through the surf. However, Jamie makes it all seem so natural, his effort so apparently effortless the water offers only token resistance, at times appearing simply to move out of his path.

Natural is an apt term for Jamie Mitchell. The champion stand up board paddler, conventional paddler and big wave surfer is a child of the sun and the ocean, burnished and blonded by one and shaped by the other. His nearby apartment is where he lives, but the water is home.

"Some people can do maths," he says. "I do water."

He speaks like a surfer, all loping vowels and laconic delivery, and he's versatile. Whereas some surfers have their days ruined by lifeless water, the whims of the ocean leave Jamie unfazed as he swaps one board and activity for another, the ultimate example of going with the flow.

When Jamie returns to the Currumbin Creek foreshore, a group of Australian Technical College students enrolled in the Jamie Mitchell School of Paddle and Surf are readying for their Thursday lesson.

"G'day boys," says Jamie.

"G'day boss," comes the reply.

Then they spot their instructor's new board and offer 'ooh-aah' and 'cool' at its clean lines, pristine finish and elegant simplicity, the result of Jamie's specifications and the construction expertise of Californian surf company Surftech.

"Looks all right, eh, boys? I'm fairly stoked with it," says Jamie. "Nothing fancy, none of that crazy stuff that some people get caught up in. This is the one for me."

And he is the one for it.

Like his board, Jamie Mitchell is nothing fancy. In his field and in his element, it's enough to be the best.

Of course, it hasn't always been this way. The highly accomplished performer of today -- one observer described Jamie as the toughest athlete on the Gold Coast -- was once a sickly child no stranger to the emergency room.

 Born and raised in Coffs Harbour, now 32-year-old Jamie Mitchell was still knee-high to a Nipper when doctors suggested swimming might alleviate the asthma that too often confined him to a hospital bed. Accordingly, at five Jamie had joined the surf lifesaving movement and this was quickly followed by surfing.

However, it was an extension of both pursuits -- board paddling -- that years later continues to set Jamie apart. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Hawaii.

"I went to Hawaii for the first time in 1999 to compete in the famous Molokai to Oahu paddleboard race and I just fell for the islands and the long distance racing," he says.

"The race is a 51.5km paddle from the west side of Molokai to the eastern side of Oahu and it's just you, your board and the power of your arms in the ocean. I won it for the first time in 2002."

He's also won it every year since, including in July when Jamie secured his eighth Molokai title. After almost five hours in the water and 20 minutes ahead of the second-placed paddler, Jamie finished just 10 minutes slower than the race record he set in 2007.

Still, when it comes to the ocean, Jamie understands that time is less important than timing, his aim being always to strike a balance between physical conditioning, co-ordination, instinct and vision enabling him to read the mood and movements of the water and make the most of its charity.

Last month Jamie was the beneficiary of perfect timing of a different sort.

About 200m out from Duranbah and filming the pilot for a planned 10-part TV series called Living in Liquid, he was greeted by a pod of frolicking humpback whales.

Their spectacular interaction made the front pages here and drew international media attention. Jamie, in typical form, took it all in his stride.

 It's this attitude, Jamie's overriding calm, that serves him so well in the water, particularly during events as long and demanding as Molokai, or when nature turns waves into mountains.

Take Maverick's, the legendary northern Californian surf spot where waves grow to proportions as alluring to surfers as they are menacing.

Every big wave surfer knows Maverick's waves take plenty of riding. Occasionally, so too do they take lives.

"Maverick's, mate. You should have seen Billy's face that day. God knows what I looked like," says Jamie.

Billy is Jamie's surfing mate James 'Billy' Watson and two years ago the pair embarked on a surfing safari taking them from Maverick's to Mexico and most big wave points in between.

"Big waves excite me, as much for the adventure of getting there as being out there," says Jamie.

"You monitor the internet beforehand, see where the waves are going to peak, then arrange the flights, drive to the scene and look out at the surf to see if all the effort has been worthwhile.

"Then you're out in it, doing it. It's addictive. You see those blue-green faces building behind you and coming at you and you just go 'well, this is it, now or never'.

"That was the case two years ago when Billy and I looked out at Maverick's and saw waves with 60-foot faces.

"People reckon being nervous is good. It helps you make good decisions. We were nervous."

Not long afterwards they were in danger, because Maverick's was making all the decisions.

"We just got into a really bad spot near the rocks and were being thrashed by the white water. It was a matter of staying calm and just trying to survive," recalls Jamie.

"I wiped out and three waves later I was flushed out on to the rocks. It was a tense time because your life is suddenly on the line. You're scared, but you can't let fear engulf you or that's it.

"And then, when you somehow make it out safely and you check your body and find all your limbs intact and your gear all safe and sound, you get this feeling of euphoria.

"I suppose it has something to do with survival. Whatever it is, it's pretty quickly followed by a real and important sense of what you've just been through and how lucky you are.

"It puts you on your guard. It reminds you the ocean is always different, can do the unexpected and can put you into a position of no return. You must be ready."

Such readiness has allowed Jamie to surf and survive the world's biggest breaks -- from the northern Californian coast, Hawaii and Chile to South Africa, Ireland, WA, Victoria and Tassie -- and it's difficult to imagine anything might equal the thrill of riding these waves.

Jamie doesn't bother with comparisons. He embraces each experience on its own merits and each pursuit -- surfing, paddling, stand up paddling -- for its own rewards.

Conventional board paddling was a crucial factor last week when Australia's finest surf lifesaving competitors tackled the annual Coolangatta Gold. Jamie recognises the commitment required to compete in so gruelling an event.

"Six weeks out from the Molokai race I'm paddling 40-50km of coastline for training sessions that can last up to five hours," he says.

"The whole process of Molokai is so intense. The training, the logistics of getting there, the fact that there's not a lot of money in it. The race is easy by comparison, although by 30-35km into it I'm generally wishing I was somewhere else.

"But this is what I do. Surfing or paddling, this is who I am and I have to make the most of this while I can.

"Growing up, I was hooked on sport and would do just about anything to get out of school.

"I left Coffs Harbour High after year 10 and started a carpentry pre-apprenticeship at TAFE, but I knew it wasn't what I was meant to do or be.

"I got into lifeguarding, moved to the Gold Coast in 1995 and then Molokai came along and I started to become known through that. I started to believe I could make a living from the thing I loved.

 "As for stand up paddling, it came so naturally to me and now it's growing. It was pretty big in the 1930s and '40s in Hawaii, but it's resurrected itself in the past 10 years to become one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

"The good thing is that anyone can do it and you don't even need to be on the ocean. You can be in a creek, a river, any stretch of water, and go as fast or as slow as you like.

"Out in the surf the paddle makes all the difference. When you're on a wave you can really drive into your turns and your cutbacks and there are more options when the surf is small.

"The whole experience is a different sensation to surfing, but it's still an amazing sensation."

With some international stand up paddleboard wins under his belt in recent weeks, and some welcome prizemoney in his kick, Jamie is eagerly anticipating a stand up world tour set to launch in 2010.

This, along with his surfing and paddling school, international sponsorship and determined marketing, will inevitably boost his and the sport's profile.

"The faces of the sport will come. There's blokes like James Watson, Mick di Betta and me already getting a bit of a name and I can see the growth of the sport happening.

"We all came back from Molokai in 2005 and there was no one on the Gold Coast doing stand up paddling.

"People would look at us as if we were idiots. Now there's paddlers everywhere and I'm really committed to giving this a go. For the moment, I don't really have time for much else."

That last statement is as fine a cue as any for the arrival of Jamie's girlfriend, Jocelyn Kempe, a highly credentialled surf lifesaving competitor in her own right and a natural beauty.

"Except for my girlfriend," says Jamie quickly. "I have to find time for my girlfriend. She puts up with a lot."

 As the afternoon sun begins to dip in the sky, Jamie scans Currumbin Creek from his apartment balcony, looks at his watch and wonders if there's time to sneak in an evening paddle.

There is. There always is.

Within minutes he is on the water, paddling smoothly and casting long shadows that somehow link the past and present and Jamie Mitchell's future. There's no point asking when he'll be home.

He's already there.