Mickey Muñoz

Born in 1937, Mickey Muñoz moved from New York to Los Angeles at age six, started surfing at age 10, and swiftly found Malibu's First Point. He became one of the top surfers out there, and made friends with the regulars—Joe Quigg, Matt Kivlin, Miki Dora.

Muñoz eventually moved to Hawaii, where he rode Waikiki and worked restaurant jobs to get by. He soon found his way out to the North Shore, which was a new frontier at the time, becoming part of the pioneering crew at Waimea Bay.

Muñoz appeared in the new Surfer magazine in 1960, riding at Malibu with Dora and Mike Doyle, all three on the same board, as well as doing the first ever "Quasimoto," a head dip with the front arm aimed forward.

Muñoz competed in and won contests, among them the Tom Morey Invitational noseriding event, in 1965, for which the prize was a whopping $750. He shaped surfboards for Hobie, got deep into sailing and catamarans, and brought what he'd learned on the open seas to wave-riding and board design. He wrote a memoir, No Bad Waves: Talking Story with Mickey Muñoz, published in 2011.

But Muñoz's legacy is as much about simply living and perpetuating the joy of the surfing life as it is about benchmarks or achievements. And he's still doing it, at age 87.

In this episode of Soundings, Muñoz talks with Jamie Brisick about Malibu's golden age, experimenting with shorter boards, early days on the North Shore, riding Waimea, modern performance surfing, riding waves into his eighties, and Miki Dora.

Presented by Rainbow® Sandals.

Produced by Jonathan Shifflett.

Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).

Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com.