Imagine getting your first frontside tube ride at Nias, scoring your first backside barrel at Super Suck, and learning the finer points of the pig dog at Desert Point. When you were only eight years old.
Now envision your adolescence, when your dad, a ripper and frother himself, regularly takes you out of school to surf the other marquis waves of the world. And high school, when you homeschooled in Bali, living walking distance from Uluwatu.
Or merely consider your present routine, where you spend four months each year surfing the perfection of the Mentawai Islands. Now you’re comprehending the kind of charmed life that Raphael “Rapha” Castro enjoys.
You could also consider some of his non-surfing blessings: Disney prince good looks, a near-constant positive attitude, magnetic personality, and 100 percent family and friend support. I mean sheesh, bro.
“I feel so lucky,” Castro told me. “I’m so, so grateful for my life, every day.”
The kid can do it all. Photo: Kandui Villas
Gratitude isn’t the only bi-product of Rapha’s good fortune. Good surfing, an ability to blow minds on virtually every wave, has also sprung from his special upbringing. His game has it all; high amplitude airs, fin-bending carves, tube aplomb, and a pleasing style; Kerrzy’s flair blended with any of the great Hawaiians, the masters of casual.
But there is something Rapha’s surfing lacks. At least, according to him. Something all significant surfing talents crave: validation on the world stage. And in pro surfing’s current iteration, that means competition.
“I want to do see what I can on the QS,” Rapha says. “I’m gonna do the Asia events this year; the Philippines, India, Japan.”
It won’t be Castro’s first rodeo.
“Rapha started surfing when he was 3,” says his father, Luiz Castro. “He started competing very young, in Brazil. When he was 12, he was ranked number one in the country.”
Born in San Diego while Luiz was in college there, when Rapha was 12 the family returned to the States from Brazil. He continued to compete in NSSA, making the Prime Series, but gradually his focus swung to freesurfing and family trips around the world: Hawaii, Central America, Europe, Bali, and of course, Indonesia. As he grew, so did his reputation for being the guy who goes, and goes big.
He’s become accustomed to riding barrels like these. Photo: Kandui Villas
Jordan Heuer has observed the world’s best come and go in the Mentawai Islands for over two decades. He operates Kandui Villas, a surf resort with porch views of Kandui Left, where the now 19-year-old’s personality has earned him an invitation to couch surf indefinitely.
“The guy is charging the Mentawais as hard as anybody,” says Heuer. “Even when the pros come down.”
Maybe it’s Rapha’s seemingly bulletproof optimism.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him be negative about anything,” Heuer says.
“He has always been a good kid, a happy kid.” says Luiz.
Though still young, and capable of full-on grom stoke spasms over a good session or just a sunset, Rapha is also citizen of the world. A speaker of four languages who learned early from this father the value of an uncomplicated life. Rather than take a highly stressful but lucrative job in the successful family business, Luiz chose to travel and surf with his kids.
I know what you’re thinking: This surfing gypsy kid ain’t no QS cage fighter! He’s Mowgli from the Jungle Book, not Shere Khan! But how does Heuer like Rapha’s chances?
“I think he’s gonna wax fools,” he says.
Watching Rapha scream down the line backside at consequential Kandui, bronco-riding the foam ball through multiple, warped barrel sections, you wonder why he aspires to anything else. To leave the dream life, even for the Dream Tour.
“Rapha wants to compete because he says he wants to get better, to be at his best,” Luiz says. “He surfs best under the pressure of competition.”
Heuer supports Rapha however he can, and is surprised when others don’t.
“What’s insane to me is that he doesn’t have a sponsor,” Heuer says.
Air game is on point, too. Photo: Kandui Villas
Watch Saga, the film Rapha just made in the Mentawais with his friend Max DeSantis, and you’ll scratch your head, too. In times past, Rapha would have had multiple sponsors already, but his boards are still sticker-free.
Pro surfing is dead. Long live pro surfing.
Unfortunately, Rapha has arrived in the era of industry consolidation, when the scant support that is available is often awarded to lesser surfers with more followers. When the brands would rather build wave pool communities than sponsor pro events. Where without CT qualification, the only way a surfer of Rapha’s caliber can earn enough money to keep surfing is to also hold down the full time job of being an influencer.
Can he, and all of today’s other aspiring pros, succeed on this platform?
In Rapha’s native language of Portuguese, the name Castro means “castle” or “fortress.” A stronghold. The base of one’s power. Raffa has found his. And he’s gonna need it on the QS.
“Every time I come back to the Mentawais, I appreciate it more and more,” he says. “How simple life is here. Just surfing everyday, that’s it.”
Watching Saga, you think that surfing this damn good must be enough to make Rapha’s pro dream a reality. Or at least that it should be.
