By Santiago "Aguja" Di Pace - Introduction by Pablo Zanocchi

Santiago “el Aguja” Di Pace is an endearing character in Argentine surfing, a symbol, a piece of the folklore of the sport in that country. He has won multiple national titles, has stood out in open and masters world championships, in Pan American championships and in big wave tournaments (in 2018, he won the El Buey international giant wave tournament).

To that, he later added titles as coach of the Argentine team with which he won more than one team or individual medal (from some of his coaches).

One of the most prized achievements of the surfer and of Latin surfing in general was this double-page spread in Surfer magazine in 1992, in the Hawaii special, at a time when magazines had a very strict level of selection and, if you will, a significant barrier with surfers from lesser-known nations.

Below, the Needle tells how it all happened, from the day before until several months later when he found the magazine.

On January 25, 1992, it was the first time they tow in in the history of surfing, they went to the outside of Backyards with a Zodiac, Darrick Doerner, Laird Hamilton, Buzzy Kerbox and Marvin Foster.

They went out really cool and at night this Darrick Doerner, came to the house of my friend Glen Kahulukukui, a native Hawaiian from Kauai, where I lived, he came to celebrate and told me that they had done towin for the first time,

He told me the story from the movie Point Break, that he was paid $10.000 to go on those tumbles at Waimea and that he wouldn't do it again. Then he tells me: "You surf Sunset very good" - he told me that twice.

The next day I go and catch the best wave of the day, double page in Surfer Magazine, I also appeared in a Brazilian magazine, where it says: "On the 26th, the best wave of the day had tango as a soundtrack" and then it says: "That's right, an Argentinean hit an amazing tube, dude."

I met my friend because we rented a part of this Hawaiian's house, in Foodland (the North Shore supermarket), where there were little signs of people renting, there was one that said Studio for rent, so with Alejo, Lolo and I we rented a part of the house for a month.

Later, when I ran out of money, a Peruvian friend, Mario Chocano, acted as a translator for me because I didn't know how to speak English. I became friends with the guy and I told him that I had run out of money and that I could stay and live in his house and help with the cleaning and taking care of the child. He had a two-year-old son.

So I stayed there for a year at his house, as a babysitter taking care of the kid, in front of Velzyland and there I made friends with all the locals and I got that double-page photo in the Surfer, thanks to living there I felt like a bit of a local at that time because I was living in one of the baddest places on the North Shore, that made me feel safer and they respected me.

I went to visit him two or three years ago on Kauai, I visited him, I was with him and last year he passed away, he was a cousin of Titus Kinimaka, a Kauai legend, Glen Kahulukukui.

I found out about the photo first because I got out of the tube, I hit myself, it covered everything and the tip got stuck inside the tube, I stood there waiting to see what would happen and miraculously the tube opened and the tip came out and didn't get stuck.

It opened and I was in front of all the photographers, there were about five or six of them. I immediately spoke to a photographer, he showed me the photos that were slides at that time and up ahead I saw another one floating, I asked what his name was, it was Alberto Sodre, Brazilian, and well, that's where I contacted him.

I was in the Brazilian magazine and then I found out from Fernando Aguerre who said that I had been in Surfer, that he lived in California, that came out many months later, it didn't come out right away.

The first photos that  I was able to buy the ones that I'm opening my arms to very close by. There was a Japanese guy named Takashiro Sushira who gave me some good ones and another one named Denshiro Hato. The first ones I contacted were Japanese. Then the Brazilian guy and the Surfer thing that was through another guy, but I found out about it five months later.

In fact, the first photographer I contacted, the Japanese, says that when I opened my arms to him, he went to the moon and sent me the moon. He was a lover of the moon, that Japanese man was crazy, he was one of the best photographers in Hawaii at that time.