Buddy Wiggins
By Hillary Cramer

Honolulu surfer Buddy Wiggins is one to keep an eye on. If I had to bet on a future success story, I would put my chips on 13-year-old Buddy.

Photos by Zak Noyle

Photo by Tammy Moniz

The middle child of five kids, Buddy was born in Kobe, Japan. At age 6, he and his family left Japan and went to Guam, Saipan, Tennessee, South Florida, and Hawaii, looking for the right place to call home. They settled in Honolulu, in a house across the street from pro surfer Tony Moniz. Tony had Buddy on a board, surfing in a short time.

Now in middle school, Buddy is pushing into the finals at HASA (Hawaii Amateur Surfing Association) contests, competing against John John Florence and Keanu Asing, some of the best kid surfers in the world. He is known widely at local breaks by the groms, older guys, lifeguards and moms dropping their kids off, who all consider him their buddy. He tirelessly shakes his shaggy hair away from his eyes, and often has a stubbed toe or two from skating barefoot. After a full day of school, a session at the neighborhood skatepark and then hitting the beach, Buddy wound down a Monday evening doing this interview at McDonalds. Here is what he had to say between bites of a Filet-O-Fish and fries.

Photos by Hillary Cramer

How did you get your name?
My parents didn’t have a name for me for a long time and then my dad just started calling me Buddy, and then that was my name.

What’s your routine after school?
I finish school exactly at 2:15. And usually our class talks a lot, so we have to stay after school and we have to write definitions and stuff or lines like “I’ll be responsible to something, something, something.” My mom drives me or my friend’s mom. Then I’ll usually get home around 2:30. From there I go straight to the computer, check the waves, AIM [AOL Instant Messenger], My Space. Then I do my homework, then usually I get a call from someone to do something and whatever they say, I’m always down to do it. We go to the skatepark and then go surfing or just surf the whole day.

I’ve seen you heading to the far out breaks by boat. How do you have boat transportation? 
When I surf with the red heads [his good friends, the Tyndzik brothers] we go out on their boat. It’s a Seadoo. It goes like 50 miles per hour and it can go in water like maybe a foot deep because it goes super fast. It’s exactly like a jet ski except more seats and a little bigger. So we all just put our surfboards on that and get on it and then we’re out there. We go straight out over the reef and anchor it in a shallow spot.

Who are the best surfers at the secret spots you hit by boat?
Aaron Naluai and Uncle Mike [Carney]…they kill it out there. And Randall Paulson and Uncle Davy [Davy Gonsalves].

I heard Randall Paulson hooked you guys up.
Oh yeah, Randall Paulson, I thought he was really mean because one day at Bowls he started snapping at everyone because it’s probably really frustrating for him since he surfs real big waves, then comes there and all these people are in his way. He started screaming, “If you don’t know how to surf, get out of here.”

Then I met him at xxxxx [secret spot] and it was like perfect waves coming in and he’d just give them to us, [he was] really nice to us. One day my friend Evan was out there and he snapped his board on the set and Randall Paulson felt really bad for him so then he ran home and grabbed him a brand new board and gave it to my friend. He’s [Evan] surfing it now and gonna keep it forever. A brand new board!

What are you riding? 5’0 DeMarco. Joe DeMarco, he’s a shaper on the North Shore at V-Land.

You surf Sandy’s a lot. How would you describe Sandy’s? Oh, Shorebreak’s just like crazy, break your back, neck…If you don’t really know what to do, don’t go. I’ve seen a lot of people get saved there…people get sucked out.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen there? Kalani Robb was out there with his Brazilian friend and his friend got worked at Half Point and cracked his head open. They got rushed to the hospital. And then at Gas Chambers [the neck breaking bodysurfing spot at Sandy’s], it was me, Kailon [Tyndzik] and Zak Noyle [surf photographer] and then there’s this one huge set that came in and I was going for it. It was about to break and at the last second Zak said, “Don’t go!” So I ducked under it and this other guy went and he broke his whole collarbone. So I was stoked I never went. I was like, “Ho!” I was tripping out on that.

Tell me about living in Japan, and then your move to Hawaii.
In Japan I started off playing Gameboy and stuff, stayed home and played games and I didn’t really have that many friends there. And like towards the end, before I moved over here, I started skating just a teeny bit…When we moved over here, it was the perfect place and we landed right with the perfect people in front of us [the house across the street], the Monizes…they’re all surfers and super nice people. The dad, Uncle Tony taught me how to surf on really weak, small, fun waves at Baby Makapu‘u. He was tandeming with me for a couple waves and then he jumped off the board on one wave. [laughs] I was freaking out because I didn’t know what was going on. So that’s when I first started surfing by myself. I continued from there. They just started helping me all along the way. They give me rides everywhere and took care of me. 

What are your favorite things? My friends, surfing, my family, skating, and just having fun with everyone. My favorite food is sushi and my mom’s cooking.

What are your goals in surfing? I want to make all my finals and then do well in the Surf Into Summer [contest] and hopefully do NSSA [National Scholastic Surfing Association] next year.

What’s coming up for you? I’m going to go to Japan this summer to surf with one of the top kids on Billabong, and visit my grandpa. He’s really old but he’s super cool.

Okay. Well thanks for the interview Buddy.
Oh yeah! Thank you. Interviews are pretty fun.