Mindy Pennybacker: Ricky Boy leaves good memories behind

On Lei Day, May 1, I went to check the waves and found police cars pulled up on the sidewalk by Makalei Beach Park; three Suis regulars, stood speaking quietly with the officers.

“Ricky Boy,” said my neighbor Kimo Cameron in his gentle voice.

An ambulance had just departed, taking Ricky to the hospital after he’d collapsed at Suis and was brought unresponsive to shore.

“Ricky caught a set wave, came back out and said he had felt weak and dizzy on that wave,” said one of the rescuers.

“A minute or two later, I heard a gasping sound, and Ricky was still sitting on his board, but with his face in the water—I flipped him over, and he was already just limp.”

Andree Paradis unfastened her leash so the surfer and a friend could use her longboard to transport Ricky, but a set struck and washed it away. She swam the quarter mile to call 911, while the other two paddled with Ricky on their shortboards, struggling to keep his head above water while performing CPR.

The next day we learned Ricky had died in the hospital, and realized that, although he’d been a fixture in the Suis lineup for decades, we didn’t know his last name, or that his first name was actually Steven.

But we knew, because he told us every day, that he was happy and proud to be sober 15 years, employed, and free to surf on mornings off, after his 12-step meeting in Kapiolani Park.

Steven Ricky Nobriga was born August 3, 1958 to Frank and Ligaya Saldania Nobriga, and graduated from Kaimuki High School, said Sandee Morishita, his younger sister, who Paradis and Suis surfer Nicole Irie, both teachers, found through Liholiho Elementary School, where Ricky worked as a janitor.

“Hearing he had that other family at Suis, it helped me,” Morishita said. “And just him getting clean, there was this new Ricky that was always there, always so cheery.”

“My youngest memory of Ricky is always him having a board in his hand, always going surfing,” said Jason Nobriga, the baby of the family, who got his start as a musician when Ricky gave him lessons in guitar.

Their older brother, Harold Nobriga, died at age 34, Morishita said, and that was when Ricky fell deeper into substance abuse, lost his first janitorial job and, for a time, lived in his car.

“But he loved surfing more, and he used that to kick crystal meth,” Jason Nobriga said, adding he was proud to learn Ricky had also spearheaded and run AA meetings.

Harold Nobriga loved Sleepys, a deepwater break near Suis, where his ashes were scattered after his death, said Kimo Cameron, whose older brother, Keone, surfed with the Nobrigas.

“Ricky surfed Sleepys because of Harold — he sees sharks, he wasn’t afraid, he said that’s my brother,” said Cameron, who, paddled his own brother’s ashes out to Suis in 2019. “Surfing was Ricky’s saving grace, he told me, to be out, away from people, with his own thoughts.”

When Sydney Iaukea started surfing regularly at Suis in the late 1990s, Ricky and Eddie Louis took her under his wing.

“It was aggressive, all men for the most part, so it was nice to have the two local boys right there,” she said. “They would call me into waves. Kind hearts. I saw Ricky through all the seasons, and he heard all my stuff, too.”

Even after Ricky got sober, he had his good days and his bad days, “and whatever mood he was in, you heard about it,” said Marc Lambert, who returned Ricky’s board to Scott Morishita, his brother-in-law.

“You never knew which Ricky you’d be getting,” said Brendan Young, but, like Iaukea, he felt Ricky looking out for him.

“One day he told me he saw a small shark riding behind me in a wave at Sleepys,” Young said.

One day, after a tourist’s board hit me in the head, Ricky paddled beside me to shore and offered to drive me to the ER.

We knew he struggled with his weight and was a connoisseur of local fast foods, reciting drive-in menus out loud.

“We’d be sitting out at Sleepys and he’d shout, ‘Look at us, both of us got man boobs!’” Young said.

Sunday was the first Mother’s Day in recent memory without a giant swell on Oahu’s South Shore. I missed bumping into Ricky, with his board under his arm, salt-reddened eyes, sun-bleached hair and Cheshire Cat grin, wishing me a happy Mother’s Day after surfing big waves at Ricebowls.

“It just felt special. I knew to take notice of how special it was,” Iaukea said of those bonding times.

A paddle out for Steven Ricky Nobriga will start 10 a.m. Sunday at Makalei Beach Park, followed by a light lunch.