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The surfing subculture has a history of lending itself to hedonism. Tracks’ last issue featured some fantastic surfers who, like Icarus, flew close to the sun but ultimately couldn’t save themselves. Guys like Kev ‘the head’ Brennan and Bobby Brown. One surfer of rare talent who was able to pull himself back from the precipice, with a little help from his friends was Cacho Izquierdo (1963-2023). Cacho, who lost his battle with cancer recently in his sixtieth year, was as unique an individual as you’ll ever come across and lived life hard and fast, directed by his desire to surf the best waves the world has to offer.
A couple of hundred members of the global surf community gathered on the Bukit on Saturday the 2nd September to commemorate the life of Cacho, first with a paddle out at his beloved Padang Padang and then later on at his Mexican restaurant in Bingin. The paddle out was extraordinary in scale and as his twenty year old daughter Taina observed, “It was a beautiful memorial, not sad, beautiful, because he wouldn’t have put up with it being any other way.”
Cacho spoke English in his own broken sort of way that belied both his Peurto Rican and Hawaiian roots (think hard Hawaiian pidgin with Spanish lilt.) He was not tall in physical stature but an incredibly strong willed guy who wasn’t afraid to kick it (and fall out and back in with) some of the hardest men in the heaviest surfing communities in the world. His single mindedness and determination are legend. By way of illustration, when on one giant day at Ulu’s he snapped two surfboards he was not content to give in. After breaking each board he went and fetched another gun to head back out, not just a second, but a third time.
Cacho’s surfing was shaped by his native Puerto Rico, where from a young age he quickly became a hot shot who stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of surfing talent in the water. On land he made up for his lack of size with a self-confident swagger and he always had an inimitable presence. Nusa Dua’s Tim Stripling remembered visiting Puerto Rico from his original home in Florida. “He was clearly far and away the best surfer over there and out of the water also really stood out with the way he would hassle tourists loudly and in his own way.”
No one could say exactly what age Cacho was when he moved to Hawaii. Tim, who like Cachi also landed in Bali via many years in Hawaii, has it at around fifteen years of age, although his daughter Taina thought it may have been as young as thirteen. His passage was the product of a ticket to Hawaii he received after winning a local surf comp. As a young grommet without any English whatsoever, he went with a Puerto Rican surf team and just didn’t bother coming back. Like many a wayward youth, fast Eddie Rothman took him in and introduced him to his own famous brand of tough love.
There’s also stories of Cacho making a temporary home for himself underneath the famous Haleiwa Bridge before being taken in by the Budroe and Ho families. The Budroe kids were some of the hardest partying crew ever to grace the North Shore and there’s no doubt Cacho charged at least as hard as anyone on land in his wild youth. Most of the best partying stories about him aren’t fit for print here but his surfing spoke for itself. North Shore royalty Rainos Hayes attests to Cacho being amongst the hardest chargers of an era that predated making money from surfing.
“He was one of my childhood surfing heroes when we were growing up,” insists Rainos. “There really was a moment where he was incredibly talented for the time period. Unique and gifted. There really was no clear path in any of surfing and so everyone just kind of came and went, but as kids, him, Noah Budroe, Jason Majors, and Ronnie Burns were all on another level. Noah never really surfed much big waves but Jason and Ronnie were in another world. Derek was later to the party out here on the North Shore in my eyes, but had clear direction and knew what he wanted to do. Ronnie’s time was short, and Jason could never keep it together like that. Cacho was somewhere in the middle of it all 🙂 But I related to his surfing skills more than the rest. What he did back then when we were kids was gifted :)”
Much as he was helped to his feet in Hawaii he extended that same care to others. Former Drifter king Jake Mackenzie, who, like Stripling, shared a similar trajectory from Hawaii to Bali, says Cacho took him under his wing when he first arrived at the North Shore as a wide eyed seventeen year old.
“He just scooped me up and looked after me ya know and he was always looking after groms, probably because he was the underdog and was empathetic towards young crew who were alone or potentially vulnerable.”
Cacho’s migration to Bali around the mid-nineties was in the same vain as his move to Hawaii. He came for the first time with the Ho family; Michael, Michael’s wife Tanya and uncle Derek – once again he just never left. To make ends meet he worked at a venture in Kuta called the All Stars Cafe, which Hans Heideman conceived of but pulled out of. The whole thing eventually got the better of Cacho and toward the end he went off the rails again.
As a friend of friends, so too Cacho and I became friends over twenty years ago after he’d set up his next venture, a classic Mexican Restaurant located in the small row of shops perched over the break at Padang. I vividly remember him sharing his philosophy on intimate relationships with me one day. “I go this way she wanna come good good, no sweat, she don’t wanna come this way, good good no sweat but I’m still gonna go the same way no doubt, good good no sweat.” He clearly didn’t suffer fools gladly and hanging on the walls of the restaurant in between pictures of him charging massive surf at spots like Pipe and Ala Moana Bowls, his classic approach to life could be interpreted by the firm instructions to customers like “Free Beer Tomorrow, ” “People in a rush not allowed,” “No dating my staff,” “If you want fast food go to Warung egg on top,” “No nasty drunk beaver hunters” and “If you want fast food go to McDonalds.”
For the last twenty one years his energy had been directed toward the love of his life, daughter Taina Izquierdo. Taina is now a professional surfer herself who has been sponsored by Rip Curl for the last seven years. “I like to surf” the ripper says modestly before telling me how excited she is to be checking out Hawaii for the first time later in the year. “I wanna get to know my dad more through the places he loved.” It was clear Taina wasn’t all that naive about her father’s wild past when she told me candidly , “Dad was doing heroin out the front of the hospital when I was born. He expected it to take a long time but I came out in an hour. But he gave up doing drugs right after that and he did it for me.”
Taina, who has taken a year off chasing the tour this year to look after and deal with losing her dad didn’t hold back the tears when she talked about her father. “He was the best father I could ask for. He is the most unique person I have ever met. I don’t know anyone even close.”
And she was right, every single person you talk to about Cacho understands and shares a deep respect for him. No bad stories, no gripes, just a deep respect and admiration for a hard charger who let his life be directed by surfing. When his Padang restaurant burnt down as a result of an electrical mishap the community raised money to help him start again at the new Bingin location that Taina is now looking after. And just as Jake was taken care of by Cacho over thirty years ago in Hawaii, so too Taina is now in the good hands of the same strong surfing community on the Bukit. In Jake’s words; ‘We got you Taina’.
VALE Cacho
