“This one time I was starting to get a bit scared and sure enough the wind changed, the weather started going in and I started to get sucked out to sea.
“Thinking I’d never come back to shore again, I jumped overboard and started swimming for the shore and the rescue people that were looking after the race had to come and rescue me.”
Back on shore safe and sound, he had to face up to father, Robert Maxwell.
“When I got back to shore, I could tell my dad was a little bit disappointed just with obviously being silly, jumping overboard and I should know better – I put myself in more danger,” Maxi admits.
While for some people, the scary incident may have put them off being near water for life, for Maxi it was the opposite.
After going overboard, he swapped sailing for Nippers (a youth beach education program) which eventually led to him becoming a lifeguard at Bondi Beach.
The skills he learnt as a lifeguard also became a good stepping stone for Maxi to achieve his dream – becoming a firefighter. After he applied every year since he was 18, he was finally accepted at 24 and now balances his firefighting duties with being a lifeguard.
With such a busy schedule, it’s no wonder Maxi relished recently catching up with his dad to enjoy some Glen Grant Arboralis whisky – a brand the Bondi Rescue star has partnered with.
“I’ve been so busy lately, it was actually so good to wind down with my dad,” he says.
“Honestly, in all these years of doing my own thing, travelling the world and the stuff that I do, I’ve never really been with my dad one-on-one so it was kind of like a mutual get together and we were both smiling from ear to ear and we both enjoyed a nice drop.”
