
"The food is amazing the people are so welcoming, so happy, I think the quality of life is really good," Igarashi told Portuguese Waves. Igarashi has even purchased two homes near fellow Olympic-qualified Surfer Frederico Morais. He fell in love with Portugal when he first started competing on the Iberian Peninsula, aged 18, and has since learned to speak Portuguese.
Surfer style windows#
In the small windows of opportunity when he's not competing, Igarashi returns to his adopted home in Ericeira, Portugal. The northern swells that hit the stretch of coast known as the “Seven Mile Miracle” are considered some of the best in the world, and to be the best you must surf the best.įor 10 months of the year, Igarashi now competes around the world on the WSL Championship Tour. As is the case for most elite surfers, his winter home became the North Shore of Oahu. From a young age, Kanoa then began following swell patterns around the world, finding a few consistent travel locations to further develop his surfing. It all started with his parents move from Tokyo to USA.
Surfer style professional#
Like most professional athletes, Igarashi spends little time in one place. His surfboard was his magic carpet and his wits were his wings, and from the late 1960s up until his death in 2002, except for a couple of brief prison stints, Mr Dora lived the endless summer lifestyle, defining what it meant to be a surfer.2 - An international man with a love of Portugal Funded primarily through bogus credit cards, forged cheques and the kindness of bewitched, often deep-pocketed friends, Mr Dora gallivanted around the world riding the best waves, drinking the finest wines and living life on his own terms, all the while avoiding any semblance of “work”. He then set off on what can only be called the greatest surf odyssey of the 20th century. In the semi-finals of the 1967 Malibu Invitational, with thousands of spectators huddled on the beach, he took off on a wave, dropped his shorts and flashed his bare backside while riding the length of First Point. He was surfing’s bad boy, both anti-commercialism and anti-contest. Hailing from Malibu, Mr Miki Dora dominated the 1950s and 1960s dancing up and down the board in a skittish, cat-like manner that was both elegant and cool. Often dressed like a pimp, he created an alter-ego, The Player, and lived much of his life there. In another he stands shirtless, rifle in hand, a freshly killed antelope at his feet. In one shot he wears black bell-bottom trousers, a fur vest, studded bracelets. He is remembered as perhaps the most photogenic surfer of all time. In 1977, at the age of 27, Mr Spreckels died of a drug overdose.

Surfer style movie#
Mr Kenneth Anger was making a movie about him.īut things quickly spiralled into excess.

For a few years Mr Spreckels was surfing’s divine prince of darkness.

He spun it into a surf fantasy of pomp and excess, travelling to the world’s best breaks with his gorgeous girlfriend, a personal photographer and a quiver of rocket-like boards. Heir to the Spreckels Sugar fortune, stepson to Mr Clark Gable, he was a teenage surf star who would soon come into a multimillion-dollar inheritance. Mr Bunker Spreckels had much to celebrate.
