Kai Garcia - The SURFER Interview

Family's everything in the Islands, and on or off the road, tour vets like Andy Irons and Sunny Garcia keep Hawaii close. Bosst Mobile Pro, Trestles, 2006

It’s also provided you a side career, because now you working all over the place, on movie sets doing stunt work, water patrol, as a coach/mentor/security detail guy. Staying involved in both worlds has offered you your own little niche.
Yeah, well a lot of that stuff is just a side job for me. But it’s great. I love it. It’s funny because when people ask me what my title is, I can’t really put a finger on it. You can’t go to the people I work for and say, “Hey, what is this guy’s title?” because I don’t have a title. But there’s always something there; sometimes I feel like a psychiatrist more than anything. Stuntman work is pretty rare. You don’t ever quit your day job to do that or you’ll be in the gutter, but it’s fun when it comes, and it’s nice to get big checks from movie companies. But it’s funny to see how this has all evolved. Where I’ve come from and where I am now. I have my kids, my wife, I’ve always been stable, but I’ve grown up a lot. Once you get married and have kids, it changes everything.

So let’s talk about Bruce and Andy for a sec. What’s interesting is, despite all of Andy’s world titles and all of Bruce’s success at Pipe and the Eddie, back on Kauai they’re still the same kids on the beach. It hasn’t really changed them.
Oh, they’re doing the same thing today as they were 20 years ago. Don’t even kid yourself. They’re hanging in the same place they grew up at—the same parking lot, the same people, playing the same stupid jokes on each other…it’s comedy.

Would those guys be basket cases without that?
It’s so hard to tell. They’d probably be in the gutter…its hard to say…they go home and recharge their batteries…they wake up and look at the mountains, they look at the ocean, they go down to the parking lot, they see all their same crew there, all the kids running, living the dream. It astounds them; it makes them appreciate everything, because they know it’s coming to an end soon, too. I think they’re reaching the age now where they really appreciate home and their opportunities. They have no problem getting on a plane now, even when they don’t really feel like it. Like, Andy’s got to go to New Zealand right now before he goes to Brazil, and he has no problem with that because he knows he’s got five more years left. And then if he plays his cards right, he’s set for life. He can hang here all he wants. They haven’t always taken the easy road, but they’ve done pretty well. They have a lot to be proud of.

Now that you’re living on the North Shore of Oahu, are you still able to maintain a deeper connection with guys from Kauai?
It’s all family, but a lot of them, the younger ones, I don’t even really know now. But, you see, at some point they’ve got to come across me, you know what I mean? At some point our paths will cross, because they’ll eventually come over here and they’ll be introduced to me.

Do you ever get the urge to escape all that North Shore hoopla?
Nah, I love it. I don’t get caught up in any of that stuff. You know what, when I paddle out, I don’t paddle nearly as fast as these kids now. So when I do go out, I’ll sit and I’ll wait. And when my wave comes, you know—hey!—it’s my wave! I’m going! It’s not like I’m out there catching 50 waves a session. I’ll catch maybe 10 good waves and go in, maybe even five. I don’t scramble; I wait for my wave to come directly to me. And if there are a couple guys behind me, they usually know they can go left because I’m going right. I don’t abuse it.