Dunphy, QS grinding at Soup Bowls, Barbados. Andrew Nichols//World Surf League
Michael Dunphy is a wandering surf guy who’s chasing waves from 10,000 feet. Hailing from Virginia Beach, Dunphy is a long-time pro who has surfed at every level. From grinding the Qualifying Series and competing in the Triple Crown, to surfing against Kelly Slater in the California farmland, he’s traveled the globe doing what we all wish we could — surf the best waves this blue planet has to offer.
Recently, Dunphy’s added a fun wrinkle to it all. He ditched four wheels for three when he bought a plane, a Cessna 172. As an East Coast surfer, having a plane gives a whole new meaning to the term “strike mission.”
I had a chat with Michael to learn about his surfing life, and what the hell he’s been up to in that Skyhawk.
“My home beach growing up was First Street Jetty in Virginia Beach,” Dunphy says. “It taught me to take advantage of any waves you can get.” Swell comes when it comes, goes when it goes. East Coast surfers know the drill. The margins between those dreamy Atlantic barrels and windblown slop are thin. The locals have to dial in on forecasts. “It taught me to be a trooper,” he says. “Anytime there are waves, I’m grateful.”
Dunphy was shaped by homegrown East Coast surfers — like Asher Nolan and Gabe Kling — who made it to the world stage. They made the blueprint for Dunphy to turn surfing into a career. “I was like, okay, I could kind of get there. They were guys that I looked up to. They grew up surfing the same waves we surfed.”
The QS and Challenger Series became a reality for Dunphy, one filled with highs, and lows. “I focused a lot on trying to win events, travel around, and get better at surfing to be able to be on the highest stage,” he says. “It taught me a lot of lessons as far as learning how to lose and dealing with adversity through traveling around the world, losing, and doing well at times.”
Hard fact: the contest scene is difficult. “It was really hard to win events and really hard to make heats. When you win, it feels like you’re on top of the world, and losing was always rough. But I still do it and I still love to compete. I think it keeps you hungry.”
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One of his most memorable moments was sharing a heat with Kelly Slater — at his own pool — in the niche Championship Tour event.
“It was funny because not everyone is matched up directly against each other, but you share the pool with one other person,” says Dunphy. “Kelly and I were in the same heat together. He was on the ski while I was on the wave, and vice versa. It was crazy to be in a CT and feel like I was against Kelly, just because we were together in the bracket. I have a lot of memories from that, especially seeing how nervous Kelly was. I could see it all over his face. It was kind of crazy to see how much he was still into it. That’s something I’ll always remember, surfing a CT event against Kelly in his wave pool. It was something I never even thought was attainable. It was a dream, you know, going back to the Virginia Beach days.”
Dunphy is chasing another dream, flying high in the sky with his Cessna. “I bought a Cessna 172,” he says. ‘It’s a small three-to-four-seater airplane. I can fit three people plus four to five boards. It’s really tiny. People trip out when they actually come fly. They’re like, ‘What the hell, are we getting in this thing?'” He’d flown before with his girlfriend’s dad during COVID and had the vision.
“I’d wanted to get my license for a little bit,” Dunphy says. “At the end of 2024, I had done the Challenger Series and was kind of burnt on it. I just wanted to put my head down and dig into something different for a little bit. I kind of just sent it and went all in on doing it. It was definitely hard for someone like me, who has very little schooling and not much education over the last 20 years. It was different having to study and take tests. All that was a challenge for my brain, but I knew I had to commit to it, study, and focus if I wanted to pass the test.”
There’s a lot of planning involved with his flight missions: weather, airport locations, landings. “Clearing customs and doing the paperwork for crossing borders — you always have to plan ahead,” says Dunphy. “For future missions, I definitely want to keep popping around the islands and just keep going. I know there are more waves out there. I just want to find the right swells and keep trying to come back with some good waves.”
He flew to the East Coast Surfing Championships in Virginia Beach last fall. “That was a fun one. I’d love to fly to the U.S. Open one year too — land at John Wayne Airport, pull up to the contest, and make a whole mission out of it. That would be pretty cool.”
As for what’s next, Dunphy just wants to fly. “ I want to build on the flying stuff and continue to learn that side of things. Getting good waves with the flying has been fun, and I’d like to build from that. I want to keep going to different, new waves for me, see what I can find in the plane, and continue to get better at surfing. I want to keep pushing that envelope, hopefully keep the sponsors happy, and just see where flying can take me. Really, it’s day by day.”
