“So they call me Wico, but my name is Luis Enrique. So my sister, she couldn’t say Luis Enrique, she’d be like ‘Wico’…so we switched it a little.”
On Friday, I went with my friend Cathryn (hopefully a future Human of Rockaway) to the Rockaway Beach Surf Club, where she introduced me to her friend, Wico, who was tending bar. He shook us up some delicious watermelon margaritas and emphatically agreed to do Humans of Rockaway between customers. Cathryn and I munched on tacos while asking him questions.
“I moved [to Rockaway] in 2017. Got here ‘cause we went to France for the Surfing World Championships and then we ended up staying in Spain with some friends, and I told my friend that’s with me there, like, ‘Yo we’re running out of money. We’re not gonna have enough money to get to Puerto Rico.’ He’s like, ‘It’s fine if we have enough to get to New York, we’ll stay in Rockaway with my aunt.’ So his family is from Rockaway. His family is like the McGuinnesses. So, Tara and Tim, they took me in for a couple weeks. I lived in their basement until I found my spot in Community House.”
Wico grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but fell in love with Rockaway and has been living here for almost a decade. After staying with the McGuinnesses, he ended up finding a room behind the late Community House. “My friend came from Puerto Rico to work at Surf Club. I didn’t know he was coming, but we ended up both showing up to Rockaway the same day, and then we ended up renting that place together because it was like three beds,” he said. “I had just graduated college [in Puerto Rico], like right before…I did a bachelor’s in psychology. But then I didn’t keep going. I just stayed here. I started working at the surf camp–Skudin Surf Camp. And then I got a job at the bar, because my roommate was already working here [at the Surf Club] and I ended up asking Brendan and Brady for a job. I got hired. And uh. That was 2017. And then the hurricane in Puerto Rico happened that year. So I went back and um…it kind of wasn’t great the summer after there, it was still like a lot of work to be done, so I came back.” Wico stopped to help a customer and make a drink.
When he finished, Cathryn, a lifelong friend of Wico’s wife, Summer (Wico and Summer met while both teaching surfing), revealed, “Summer said when you first moved here, your favorite block was 116.” While I was laughing at the very idea of having a favorite block, Wico confirmed.
“We were walking over from 120th to The Wharf, and I’m like walking up 116th, and I’m like ‘this is like a movie town. I feel like I’m in a movie.’” Cathryn follows up, asking his first impressions of the peninsula, “Like…I don’t like. It wasn’t like a bad impression, but I was like this is way different from what I’m used to.” He stops to make another drink, but comes back to elaborate, “No, I was just like, ‘Oh, this is a cool little beach town that looks just like you’re in a movie.’”
I asked Vélez more about his love of surfing. He loves, “just thinking about anything. Yeah, you forget the world exists. You’re in the ocean and like, kinda staying alive out there in a way…I feel like when you get scared, you’re obviously uh, pushing your limits. Which is what you always want to do. When I try to surf 20-foot waves, it’s…” he grins and shakes his head. Like most surfers, always seeking the perfect wave, Wico has traveled significantly for the sport. He said, “We just came back from Nicaragua. We went there last month. I’ve been to Indonesia. Later, though, I heard him say, “Probably the best barrel I’ve ever gotten was in Rockaway…the travel doesn’t meet.”
Wico has plenty to show for his surfing accomplishments. Hanging on a hook behind the bar, there is a long metal dog tag chain with easily two dozen colorful tags. Above it is a label, ‘Wico’s Wins.’ Each tag is a contest win–RockStock, Eastern Surfing Association, Southampton Surf Contest. He said, “I won the Red Bull contest in Rockaway. I won the Eastern Surfing Association, the Northeastern region, and I won RockStock nine times.” He missed this year’s RockStock, finishing up X-ray school in Puerto Rico.
I had noticed his shirt while we were talking: a tie-dye tee with a small shark icon across the chest. He didn’t mention it until Cathryn brought it up, but Valéz created a small clothing brand. “I started a brand called Chark, yeah. So I pronounce ‘shark’ with a C and a shark,” he gestured to the logo on his shirt, “and I made a logo with a C instead of an S. And that’s how it started. Its clothes and then Chark Surf Academy is like my surf lessons, surf school. I give lessons. Any age. I like the feeling that people get when they are able to experience it [surfing]. And the humbleness that you get when you’re in the ocean and you realize how big it is and how small we are and…we really can’t control the…we can’t control…anything. Except what we get and how we make it happen. Just like surfing. You get a wave, and every wave is different. You gotta figure out how to ride it all the way to the end.”
Summer and Wico plan to move to Puerto Rico sometime next year. His family is there, “yeah, everyone is,” but he will have a hard time leaving Rockaway, which he describes as “definitely another home.” In Rockaway, he loves, “the community for sure. The people here. And the waves when it’s good.” But he tells me a bit about growing up in San Juan (fittingly, he said his favorite thing about Puerto Rico is also “the waves”). “I mean, just like…I have a big family. I have my sister and then eight cousins. We all live nearby, but we also have like our beach house with horses. Our grandpa had horses. So we rode horses as well, growing up. Like spending time in the ocean,” Vélez explained. He wants to reach his 10-year Rockaversary before he leaves, though, so keep an eye out for Wico at the Surf Club and on the beach!
