OCC Member Profile
“He’s the type of kid that if it goes great, you’ll hardly hear about it from him, and if it goes poorly, you’ll probably see him in the ocean even more.” —Billy Pratt OCC Club Captain
exemplifies, making the water your home,” Sunnland says. “And he’s just a really good kid, well mannered, good head on his shoulders. He always makes the time to say hi—a lot of kids don’t do that these days.” Pratt adds, “What I really appreciate about Toa is he has a bit of that old soul to him—he has a lot of aloha spirit. He is just one of the nicest kids. He’s out there to grind, he’s out there to compete, but he’s always a humble victor and gracious in defeat as well. You win some, lose plenty. The valuable les- sons come when you lose, and I think he is able to process that at a young age, and I’ve never seen him appear as a hothead, someone with an attitude. He’s the type of kid that if it goes great, you’ll hardly hear about it from him, and if it goes poorly, you’ll probably see him in the ocean even more.” “Surfing is what got me started in the ocean,” Toa says. When he was two or three, his dad “would strap a life vest on me and we’d go tandem surfing across the street from our house, like Gas Chambers, Rocky Point, Pūpūkea.” About a decade after those early days sitting on the front of the surfboard with his dad, he started surfing big Waimea. He remembers his first session out there—he was stoked to catch two waves, but when he saw the photos afterwards he said he was “totally on the shoulder, not even near the wave.” He told himself, “Okay, I’m going to go way deeper next time and just get better rides.” When he was six years old, his dad pulled out two Bark Commanders from under the house so they could compete
The North Shore-born, big wave-surfing grom does what he can (and has a lot of fun doing it) with the South Shore's weakening swell.
16 AMA | SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2024
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