Rob Machado

📍Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Encinitas, CA 92007, USA

“Robert Edward Machado was born in Sydney, Australia, in October 1973, and when he was about four his family moved to California, settling in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, a relaxed beach community in Encinitas, in North County San Diego, with its reef breaks, lagoon and laid-back surf culture. His father surfed, and Rob has described an idyllic childhood in North County in the late 1970s and 1980s, spent down on the beach with his family. He started out letting the waves push him, then bodyboarding, before standing up on a surfboard, and he grew up surfing the reefs and beach breaks around Cardiff and Encinitas every day. He watched his father surf and learned by watching and doing. He went to San Dieguito High School in Encinitas, and he developed a smooth, flowing, relaxed style that seemed effortless. He was a quiet, easygoing kid with a big mop of curly hair, and he loved music too, playing guitar. By his late teens he was one of the best young surfers in California, winning amateur contests and attracting sponsors. He turned professional and was one of the best surfers in the world in the 1990s, finishing second in the world in 1995 after a famous duel with his friend Kelly Slater at the Pipe Masters, where the two high-fived in the middle of a heat. He later focused on free surfing and films, and founded the Rob Machado Foundation, which works to reduce waste and provide clean water in schools. He still lives in North County San Diego, near the waves where he grew up.”

Sources: localemagazine.com themoviedb.org