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hurrengoa
"Da Cat" in Getari odlok   There are a lot of mythical like figures in and around surfing. None of them, however, have achieved the legendary status of the Californian “Da Cat”. Not very many people know that “Da Cat” spent the last years of his life in Lapurdi. In Getaria to be more precise. His neighbours said that he would walk down to the seashore to gaze at the waves everyday. Cancer was already eating away at him when he returned to California and he finally passed away on the 3rd of January, 2002 at the age of 67. That day, after a long spell of calmness on the sea, great big magnificent waves thundered into the Getaria coastline. Mickey Dora has been the Maradona of surfing. Hungarian by birth (He was born in Budapest and was christened Miklos), he turned Californian surfing and the philosophy behind it on its head. He first started surfing at Malibu Beach and he soon became the known as the King of Malibu. The guy was silky sweet and skilful on top of his board. He never shied away from giant waves and he was merciless if anybody got in his way. When commercialism and competitions started taking over the world of surfing, Dora, arguing that they were going against the philosophy of surfing, struck out against these new phenomena. He very quickly became a polemicist. He wasn’t very fond of the media either and he had some serious run-ins with several magazines. He was a bigmouthed revolutionary and a person brimful of contradictions. Even though he openly fought against commercialisation, it must be said that he appeared in a few surf movies as well. That very same contradiction is happening amongst surfers over here at the moment. The very people who have for years complained of too many people getting involved in the sport are also the ones who make a living out of the growth of the surf industry.

He left the States in 1974 and surfed over 300,000 kilometres of coastline throughout the world. The FBI caught up with him in 1981. In his own words: “They caught me after spending millions of American taxpayers’ dollars and I had filled five false passports. They put a gun to my head and that was the end of the greatest surfing journey ever.” He was brought back to the States and sent to prison for credit card fraud. His legend just grew and from that moment on the ghost of “Da Cat” was being continuously catching the wave all over the world.

After his term in prison, the most unusual surfer in the world chose the coast of The Basque Country to live out the last few years of his life. Every now and then he’d head off to South Africa to ride those long waves down there, but the Getaria Wave was “Da Cat’s” very own particular paradise. He’d slide into the water without saying a word to anybody and with his long board would attack the giant waves that none or very few of the peroxide blondes would face. Many of the local surfers have never known they have surfed alongside a myth. “Da Cat” was special. He turned out at a surfing competition in Biarritz wearing a plastic mask to hide his face. Many of you will probably think that his life story would make a great film. Well, you’re not the first. Right after Dora died Leonardo Di Caprio bought the film rights to his biography. We hope that nothing ever comes of this sacrilege to this American antihero.