In my final interview with South African surfing legend Ant van den Heuvel, his parting words were: "Till death do I surf."
Two years later, it is fitting that Jeffreys Bay's best-known resident died as he lived - in his tent above Supertubes, home of one of the world's finest breaks.
The 59-year-old "Doc" died of a heart attack last Saturday.
J-Bay regulars will miss the wizened, weatherbeaten surfer with his self-confessed love for the natural "herb".
Van den Heuvel was a local institution. An amazing surfer right until the end, Van den Heuvel more than earned the title "surfing legend".
At the age of 21, he became one of the first South Africans to compete in an international surf competition, the 1965 Surfing World Championships in Peru. Although he notched a second place in the paddle race, the tenacious surfer and perennial hippie skipped the 1966 competition in San Diego, over a dispute about "hair length".
He spent two years travelling America, before returning to Jeffreys Bay to eke out a living making leather boots.
Like his prowess on the waves, Van den Heuvel's calf-length "ug" leather boots have become legendary.
J-Bay's sole surviving hippie surfer lived a solitary life. A brief marriage failed after six months. "She left me because she just wanted to party and I wanted to surf," he said.
And surf he did. Doc was three-times South African surf champ who remembered Bruce Brown and The Endless Summer film crew coming through J-Bay in 1964. In 2001, he was the South African Legends Longboard Champion and in 1992, won the national Super Veterans title.
His only companions in the past 20 years were his dogs. His first, a mongrel called Faith, died of old age. Her successor, Socks, would watch from the shore while his master surfed J-Bay's famous waves. Sadly, Socks died a few weeks ago.
Cheron Kraak, another J-Bay legend and founder of Billabong South Africa, said: "He kept his respect and dignity to the end. He lived a rough life and really did not look after himself and his health was not great, of late. But that is the life he chose."
There will be a memorial service for Doc next Saturday, where wreaths will be laid on the waves the veteran surfer knew and loved so well.