SurfAid has named Eugene, Deb, Jet and Spike Tan (the people behind Aquabumps) as SurfAid’s Humanitarians of the Year for 2025.
This award recognizes individuals, groups, or in this case families, for their exceptional contributions towards supporting SurfAid’s mission to improve the health, well-being, and resilience of people living in isolated regions connected to us through surfing.
You might know photographer Eugene Tan, or Uge, from his incredibly successful daily Bondi photoblog: Aquabumps. He’s the man behind the lens at Bondi and his early morning beach life images are sent to 40,000 people each day via his iconic email that began way back in 1999 – that’s a year before SurfAid was founded.
Uge paddled out at the first ever SurfAid Cup at Manly in 2011 and was instrumental in bringing the SurfAid Cup Bondi to life in 2016. Since then, the whole Tan family has been involved with the Bondi Cup, and raised money and awareness for the important work that SurfAid does. This year’s SurfAid Cup Bondi has just concluded with the Tan family raising $17, 000 for the cause.
“I first got involved with SurfAid in the early 2000s after visiting the Mentawais and meeting SurfAid’s founder, Dr. Dave Jenkins,” Uge explains. “I fell in love with the Mentawai region and return annually with a group of mates. I love the people, the waves and the place.”
Around 2009, Uge made SurfAid Aquabumps’ main charity focus.
“When SurfAid was starting out, I got wind of their work and wanted to give back to the area,” he contunues. “It was hard to help the people in the villages back then, as we were mainly exclusively on charter boats – there were no surf camps back then.”
In 2011, Uge put an Aquabumps team into the first SurfAid Cup at Manly. “We won the surfing and the fundraising, and I think we’ve not missed a year since. My son Jet was born that year and came to the SurfAid Cup with Deb. He was only a few months old and now he’s about to turn 14 and was our secret weapon in keeping on the top of the scoreboard at this most recent SurfAid Cup.”
This year marks the ninth year running the SurfAid Cup Bondi. Aquabumps has participated in 13 SurfAid Cups.
“Bondi is the most consistently average wave in the world, so we typically have something to run the comp in,” Uge explains. “The community gets behind it, and it gets very competitive, even with the groms. We raised more than $70,000 in total at this year’s SurfAid Cup Bondi, which was held on May 9th.”
Uge said he would recommend the SurfAid Cup to anyone with any surfing ability. “The surfing day is fantastic, but raising money in the months leading up to it is also enjoyable,” Uge adds. “We run events, source prizes and think of creative ways to get people to donate! The kids are very good at it. Who could say no to them?”
Uge’s Aquabumps team consists mainly of the Tan family as they all surf. “I feel it’s essential to show the kids philanthropic pursuits and that giving is beautiful,” Uge offers. “Their school supports and recognises our contribution to the community, which is great for our boys to see.”
Jet won an award at school a few years ago for his fundraising efforts and involvement with SurfAid.
“If you ask Jet and Spike, they will let you know you also get the day off school – what grom wouldn’t want the opportunity to have an approved day off,” laughs Uge.
Debs said it was pretty special to now have their boys involved. “Firstly, the boys have a passion for surfing and love the competition element too, but the real gift is educating them on giving back,” Debs smiles. “They have been at SurfAid Cups since they were a few months old – supporting and watching dad. Then we blinked and they were wanting to be on the Aquabumps Team.”
“One year at Bondi SurfAid Cup it was blowing a gale and Uge had to carry Spike’s board so he and the board didn’t blow away,” Debs recalls. “I think he may have been the youngest SurfAid competitor ever.”
The entire Tan family also took on the Make A Wave challenge to raise money for SurfAid – surfing for 30 days straight over September. “There’s nothing like hooting at each other and catching waves everyday to bond with your family,” Debs admits.
“We’re big on educating the boys about ‘giving back’,” she adds. “Yes, the Cup day is the cream on top, but the journey of raising money and what the money goes to support in remote Indonesia is what’s important. It’s a big beautiful life lesson and one we hope they carry on, on behalf of our family and business for years to come.”
Uge described being named as SurfAid’s Humanitarians of the Year for 2025 as “the ultimate honour”.
“It’s such a nice reminder that together you can make big differences to small remote communities in Indonesia,” he smiles.
“SurfAid is our main charity for our small family business, Aquabumps, do it’s beautiful to be recognised for the work we do,” Debs adds. “But to see the impacts that the money allows for in places that we visit as a family – like Sumba – is when it really means the most. To me it’s a heart-filling reminder to give back and a motivation for our family to do more of it.”
Jet and Spike said they were “just stoked we get to do what we love on a school day and help the people of remote Indonesia”.
Uge visited Dunedin in 2013 to photograph the city’s waves with Maz Quinn. While there he worked with NZSJ’s founder Derek Morrison to help him refine his own weekly surf photo blog: Box of Light, which was a few years old at that stage and mostly modeled off Aquabumps.
“Uge is an amazing human and was so giving of his time and happy to share the things he’d learned across almost 15 years of his photo blog,” Derek offers. “Plus, he’s still one of the most talented and creative photographers around.”
You can visit Aquabumps right here. And subscribe to Aquabumps’ daily photos here.
Learn more about SurfAid here.
Donate to SurfAid.
