A few weeks ago I got to attend the grand opening of the new Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center in downtown Laguna Beach. I had a great time and got to see many old pals and surf legends that I had not seen for a while, some not for decades.
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At my table I was flanked by the wonderful and always upbeat Jericho Poppler and my lifetime mentor and friend Mickey Munoz. This made for an incredible evening of laughing and memories.
Also at our table was the great Joey Cabell. To the general public, Joey probably is not as big a name as he really should be, he is more of a legends’ legend. A guy who we all have looked up to and respected as one of the best to ever do it.
Joey is known as a precision surfer who excelled at going as fast as possible. This was true both in and out of the water. He was an excellent downhill skier, extremely hard to keep up with. He surfed fast, skied fast, drove fast and just pretty much looked fast. Long and sleek.
The first time I saw him surf was at Lower Trestles, just south of San Clemente, in the early 1960s. I had seen him in surf movies, but in real life he was even better, a step above most of the better surfers I had seen surf in person at that time. When I won my first U.S. Championship in the Junior Men’s at Huntington Beach in 1963, he made it a point to personally congratulate me, and I always remembered that moment.
I should also mention that he was one of the guys who first opened the Chart House restaurants in Aspen, Colorado, and Newport Beach. Naturally, this became a huge chain, and Joey would own and run the one in Honolulu for most of his life.
I got to know him a little bit better in 1963 when I flew to Hawaii with him, Munoz, Mike Doyle and Chuck Linnen. I got to see him really surf on the North Shore that winter. He and Munoz hung together and both of those dudes are total speedsters, amazing to watch and very educational for a wide-eyed teenage surf kid like me.
I got to see some amazing surfing done that winter by the best that there were at that time, and these two were the cream of the crop. Mike Doyle, too, one of the greatest big wave riders ever.
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The next summer we got to be closer friends as members of the “Endless Summer” premier tour on the East Coast. Bruce Brown, who made the film, and Hobie Alter put together an 11-city movie showing and surfing exhibition tour from New York down to Miami. They invited Joey, Phil Edwards, Mike Hynson and me along to do the surfing exhibitions and be at the showings of the movie.
I was probably the only one who had fun on that trip, being 16 and “on safari with surf stars.” Joey was very easy to be around and took me to the World’s Fair and also to a jazz club in New York City. I was probably more “babysitting” duty than he really wanted, but he was very nice and tolerant with me. I liked him a lot.
As a competitive surfer, he was successful although never went at it full time like Doyle, Munoz and myself. He placed second in the first world championships in Australia, won the Malibu Invitational and also the Peru International Big Wave Championships.
I am sure he would have won more if he entered more. But Joey was doing more things than just surfing. As I mentioned, he was an excellent skier. He spent a lot of time in Aspen. He even did some bullfighting in Spain — the guy was just one of those totally “go for it” kinda dudes.
One of my favorite Joey Cabell memories: One night I was driving south on Pacific Coast Highway heading down to Dana Point and was in between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach, I don’t remember the year, but would have been sometime in the late 60s. A Porsche went screaming past me with that cool whine that a car engine makes when it is really wound out. It was Joey headed from the Newport Chart House to where he lived in Laguna.
That more or less summed up how Joey has gone about his life. Blazing speed, precise and well balanced. A surfer I have always respected and a person I have looked up to.