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Memories of Machuca, The Puerto Rico Surf Wizard

11/22/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
By Corky Carroll

Right about now they are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1968 World Surfing Championships that was held in Rincon, Puerto Rico.  It was a great event that was won by Hawaiian Fred Hemmings.  That was my third trip to Puerto Rico and I wound up in 7th place, this was due to an ill-timed kick out that caused my board to get picked off by the following wave and limiting my rides to four, when they were scoring the best five.  At the time there was an amazing young surfer who lived there who was showing the promise to become a real surf star.  His name is Jorge Machuca and I thought I would spotlight him for you today as he was a part of surfing history at the time of the big change from longboards to short, and he has been more of less forgotten about outside of Puerto Rico.

I met Jorge on my first visit to the island a year before the World Championship.  There was a surf event going on called the Puerto Rico International and surfers from all over came to compete.  At that time I was riding for HOBIE surfboards and was in charge of Hobies surfing team, a group of excellent surfers who were given free boards to ride.  The Hobie dealer in Puerto Rico was Jose Rodriguez and he and I became friends.  He told me about this young kid who was really good, named “Machuca.”  I met the kid when the competition started and could see that he had the makings of an excellent surfer, even at such a young age.  I am thinking he was about 15 at the time.  I liked him too, really nice and super stoked on surfing.  As the competition came down to the finals it was between Jorge and me for the title.  In a close decision I won, and he took second place.  I was so impressed with his surfing that I gave him my board after the event was over.  When I got home I talked to Hobie about getting him on the surf team, which we did.

I went back to Puerto Rico and stayed for about four months between January and April of 1968, thinking it would be a good idea to get to know the break a little better before the upcoming World Titles in November.  There was nobody surfing out on that end of the island at that time other than the handful of Puerto Rician surfers.  Tom Morey, of boogie board fame, rented a little place next door to me and on most days we would be the only two guys out.  One enormous day at Tres Palmas comes to mind when it was probably 20 feet and we tried to ride it on normal small wave boards.  I got three rides that day before my little “mini model” spun out on a huge take off and I wound up swimming for what seemed like weeks to retrieve it.  During that time I was able to surf with Jorge many times and got to know him better.  Always a totally stoked kid with a big smile and some big turns.  We flew him to Florida for the Easter Classic at Coca Beach and he was on his way to becoming a top-flight competitor.

After the World Championship in 1968 I only went back to Puerto Rico a few times.  These were when I was doing Miller Lite commercials and they would send us on cruises a couple times a year to promote beer sales.  I only got to surf on one of those trips and it was in San Juan, near the airport.  I never got to see Jorge again, but have always remembered so many fun days surfing with him out at “Marias.”  That was back when Maria was still alive and would sell us cokes out her kitchen window.  Dogman was there too, living under a tree on the beach in front of “Dogmans.”  B.C. was also there, living in a little cave in front of “B.C.’s”.   Great times and super good memories of totally uncrowded waves and Jorge Machuca when he was a stoked up and coming surf gremmie.   Unfortunately, his career was cut short just as he was reaching International acclaim by a car accident, leaving him unable to surf again.  Cool dude though, and a surfer that should be a little better known than he is.  ​

2 Comments
DAVID PRIVETT
11/24/2018 11:10:43 am

Looks really good, Corky

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Conrad Miller MD link
2/14/2020 07:58:39 pm

Hi Corky I've been a fan of yours for a long time I love your book was it surfdog days and bitchin' nights the first chapter I think is the funniest chapter of any book I've ever read but I'm prejudiced Im a surfer 🏄 maybe

The only time I actually saw you close-up was when you played in Santa Barbara in The mid-1970's in a small club with your band & your back-up singers the Corkettes. same place I saw Tom waits for the first time.

This article I'm so thankful for because I was trying to remember this guy that I surfed with the first time I went to Puerto Rico and surfed at Maria's and I dropped in on my first wave it's probably about a four or 5 foot wave Hawaiian and I turned to my left and there was this guy coming out of this big tube - I had dropped in on him - he was cool about it - he's a little guy Who turned out was Jorge Machuca. later in the same session I dropped into another wave and again inside of it is this guy coming straight at me as I dropped in and again it was Jorge Machuca. again he shrugged it off & was cool about it. I don't remember what happened the rest of the session. I went to Puerto Rico about four times in the next year or so.

then Jorge Turns up in Southampton New York where I lived for about 50 years or more, not sure if it was 68 or 69 or 70 and he is surfing these little waves maybe 2 feet beach break and he is ripping them up. He was amazing what he was doing with these little crappy waves that were basically closeouts but had a little bit of open face but not much.

when did he have this terrible traffic accident.?

I'm writing a Surf memoir now. Since I'm a doctor and a surfer (and I was a DJ and an anti-nuclear activist - still am) I'm going to call the book 📖 Surf Doc. If you want to see some of it I'll send you some I got about 60 pages written so far. And then I've been writing stories surf stories and Dr. stories over the last 40 years randomly which I may use in the book but I have to adapt them to the voice that I am grooving in right now.

You can see me in YouTube mostly Fukushima videos and then there's one wave that my wife took of me riding a left at shipwrecks in New Zealand 🇳🇿 with the drive-by truckers as background music. ConradMillerMD is the channel.

So you didn't do it, I did: "Who wants to look at guts and butts all day?" Corkys corner - surfer TV

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