Nathan Bartlett died in the waters of Jervis Bay on Wednesday afternoon after he and his brother were pulled from the sea near Cape St George Lighthouse, just outside the bay.
Emergency services were called at about 1.55pm on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, after reports of two surfers in trouble. Officers from the South Coast Police District and Marine Area Command retrieved the men from the water. Bartlett, 43, was unresponsive when brought ashore and died at the scene. His 38-year-old brother, Byron, was assessed as a precaution by NSW Ambulance paramedics at the nearby Murrays Beach Boat Ramp.
Bartlett’s death landed hard on a South Coast surfing community that knew him as one of its most gifted riders. Tim Bonython, who had filmed him in numerous events over 15 years, described Bartlett as “one of the best surfers to grace the wave” and said he was “a free surfer and one of the best with the big waves.”
That reputation had been built over years. Bartlett was widely regarded as one of the best surfers on the South Coast and among the finest in Australia, coming from a prominent surfing family in which all three brothers were accomplished boardriders. The death left the local surfing community in deep shock, especially in Manyana, south of Jervis Bay, where Bartlett was a familiar name.
He had already survived one close brush with death. In 2017, Bartlett suffered severe head and facial injuries in a near-fatal surfing accident at Desert Point in Indonesia, then made a full recovery and returned to surfing. Those who knew him said that resilience was part of what made him stand out. A childhood friend and fellow surfer from Ulladulla said, “We are all in shock. We are very saddened,” and recalled first meeting Bartlett at a surfing contest when he was 11 and the friend was seven. “He was amazing on the big waves,” the friend said.
Friends also remembered him as a man whose life was built around the people closest to him. One friend said Bartlett was “a lovely, confident guy who was all about his family. It was work, family, and surfing for him.” He worked as a professional carpenter and a merchant mariner, and is survived by his wife and two young children.
His death leaves a community that had watched him come back from a near-fatal accident and never expected to be grieving him now. For many on the South Coast, Bartlett was not only a name known for heavy surf, but a presence that seemed larger than one day in the water.
