The siren was blaring when Jack Robinson got caught inside.
The world saw an attempted layback, a twist of the knee, a strong body thrown into Bells Beach’s powerful Victorian swell. What the world No.1 felt in that moment was something far greater than pain.
He’d been on a winning run across the 2023 season, claiming the Billabong Pro Pipeline Masters in Hawaii and beating out Kelly Slater in the first round of the Rip Curl Pro.
Days before he was swallowed by the ocean in his heat against wildcard Xavier Huxtable, though, he’d received some life-altering news. His wife, model and creative Julia Muniz Robinson, was pregnant.
“Everything happened at once,” Robinson tells STM. “I found out Julia was pregnant that week, and then I got the injury — it was just all of these emotions at once. I had to drive around in the car for an hour just to think about it and process it.”
For most people, that hour in the car might be a time to let their thoughts spiral.
For Robinson, it was a moment to calm the chaos from within. Hardly surprising from the bloke you’ll see cross-legged, eyes closed before a competition heat. Yoga and meditation are daily non-negotiables.
It’s a glass-half-full philosophy he’s long adopted that doesn’t dismiss the hard things in life, but locates the lesson inside them.
“I was kind of forcing things a bit back then,” he says. “I was a bit stressed with everything, and I got injured but kept going because the Olympics were coming up. How I got injured was forcing a turn and pushing really hard — I think I shouldn’t force things so much. It taught me a lot. But now I’m good, I’m all fixed.”
Fixed is referring to his November 2025 surgery on what he calls his “gnarly” meniscus injury suffered at Bells — one he surfed on, and won on, for years, including winning silver at the Paris Olympics, before finally going under the knife.
“All of those years were adding up, I didn’t want it to linger,” he says. “I wanted to be back. I was already winning events at 80 per cent — I want to be a little bit better and hopefully win a lot more.”
Robinson is casually weaving through a New Zealand airport when he chats to STM after getting a feel of the waves ahead of the fourth stop on the 2026 Championship Tour in Raglan.
He’s tired, he’s surfed out — and he’s ready to roll again.
“I was dreaming about this when I was on the operating bed,” Robinson says.
“My body is fully recovered, and now it’s more mental, going through the motions. The more surfing you do, the better it gets. I do so much training, now it’s just getting everything connected.”
A lot has changed since Robinson last graced STM’s cover alongside his wife in 2021, the two looking very much in love during the exclusive shoot in California. They were married in 2020 after meeting in Bali two years earlier.
The pair are still travelling the world, only now they have an important stowaway in tow: their two-year-old son, Zen.
He has the deep brown eyes and latte skin of his model mum, but when his face lights up — he is all Jack.
It’s the smile that not only West Aussies, but the world, were introduced to when he dropped into the scene as a headstrong eight-year-old grommet.
With a flash of sun-bleached hair and cheeky smile, he was the fearless youngster to watch. Robinson was making global headlines before going on to not only surf against some of the legends he admired growing up, but beating them too.
Throughout it all, the calm and grin have remained.
So when Julia suggested Zen as a potential name, it was the perfect fit.
The toddler has inherited his parents’ love of the ocean and travel, flowing between English and Portuguese — the latter currently a secret language with his mum. Robinson is back taking classes.
“He’s definitely both of us, he’s got his personality, though I was pretty cheeky when I was young too,” Robinson says of their son. “He’s got character and personality — he pulls the same looks at me. It’s a miracle, so special.”
When the family isn’t jet-setting, they’re based on the Gold Coast, convenient Robinson says for flying out to wherever the waves are calling them.
The 28-year-old enjoys floating around like a gypsy. Zen, for his part, is an equally happy traveller.
“He’s really good on the plane, he just runs the aisles, but it’s a challenge for sure,” Robinson says. “We travel halfway across the world and then I’m competing . . . but it’s also the best times of our lives, these memories we’re making.
“ It adds more substance and meaning to life, you do things 100 per cent because everything has a bigger purpose.”
A recent shoot with fine jeweller Linneys drew them back to the South West, with the couple announced as brand partners of the heritage jewellery house.
Shot against surf breaks and vineyards, Robinson remarks it’s some of the best pictures taken of him in years — and he’ll be wearing the pieces from the family-led business on tour.
Muniz Robinson will be too, saying of the designs: “I’m naturally drawn to jewellery you can actually live in — pieces that move with you and become part of your everyday rhythm.”
It also brought Robinson home ahead of the Margaret River Pro in April, paddling back into the waves where he grew up.
And he’s handling the weight of home-crowd expectations with characteristic ease.
“Everyone’s looking at me, and it’s cool — it’s good they’re looking at me, it’s good that people are excited,” Robinson says. “It’s all about how you process it and make sure you don’t put too much pressure on yourself.
“Everyone is going to come out firing because they’ve had six months off, and they’re going to be really excited. So, I’ve just got to be mindful and know there’s a long year ahead, it’s not just about one event.”
Luckily, he knows the breaks better than anyone. He was out there with weathered veterans riding the hard and fast break while others his age were practising on friendlier white wash. They’re also where he first encountered one of the surfers who shaped him the most — Taj Burrows.
Burrows launched Taj’s Small Fries 21 years ago, a junior surfing event that gave grommets the platform to shine. Robinson thrived year after year, in 2010 beating surfers three years his senior. Fellow surfing heavyweights Jacob Wilcox, Flick Palmateer and Bronte Macaulay also competed over the past two decades.
Burrows once handed him sandy trophies. Yet now, after navigating injury, new fatherhood and the relentless churn of professional sport with a sense of zen, Robinson wonders if his idol might one day consider passing him something else.
“100 per cent I want to do an event like that, for sure,” he says of Small Fries. “Maybe Taj can hand it over one day and I can take the torch.”
The Margaret River Pro runs April 16-26. Linneys will open a special boutique to showcase its designs April 13-18 at 135 Bussell Highway, Margaret River.