Friends and family share fond memories of surfing, shaping icon Ishimine
His two closest, lifelong friends still have a hard time believing that Lloyd Ishimine is gone, even though it has been more than two months.
Rusty Silva and Dennis Coratibo remember their days in high school with the Maui surfing legend in the early 1970s. Ishimine made his mark as one of the first top surfer watermen from Maui, both chasing and conquering big waves and custom shaping boards for some of the best in the sport.
Ishimine died surfing at Hookipa Beach Park, one of his favorite spots, on June 23 at the age of 64.
His Celebration of Life will be held at Hookipa Beach Park at the Pavilions on Saturday. The festivities will begin at 9 a.m. with an opening prayer and speakers, followed by a paddle out at 10:15. Food and drinks will follow the paddle out.
It will be an emotional day for Coratibo, who attended and graduated from Maui High School with Ishimine in 1976.
“I was living in Puunene camps and he was the only guy who would pick (me) up,” Coratibo said Thursday. “We went that far back.”
Ishimine was born in Kahuku, Oahu, on Sept. 27, 1958 — he moved to Maui with his family at 5 years old and soon began surfing at Kahului Harbor with older brother Lowell.
It grew into a career that lasted more than four decades, really starting when he began making custom boards for friends including Coratibo and Silva when Ishimine was a freshman at Maui High School.
“I wasn’t great, but he always took me, showed me the ropes, you know, just charging big waves,”Coratibo said. “We usually go to Honolua Bay or probably Hookipa was his favorite spot because he lived in Haiku. Sometimes we’d go Pier 1 or Spreckelsville.”
Ishimine and wife Leslie (Hayashida) had four children — daughters Gabryele, Micheyla and Noelle, and son Joshua. Ishimine is survived by all his immediate family and two grandsons, Makanaokeakua and Kamakani, and his sister Jasmine Ishimine.
Lloyd was born to Minoru (deceased) and Doris (deceased) Ishimine as the youngest of four children.
Leslie Ishimine said in an email to The Maui News her husband was “very artistic” and a “perfectionist”when it came to making surfboards.
Lloyd Ishimine was one of the first on Maui to buy a computerized shaping machine from Australia and began his company Hawaiian Energy Surf Designs that was carried worldwide.
“We used to carry his surfboards, you know, at Hi-Tech,” said Hi-Tech Surf Sports president Kim Ball. “Energy Surf (surfboards), they were great boards and he was just the easiest guy to work with. Always soft spoken and very humble. He was a tremendous surfer, very respected and, yeah, we loved our relationship.”
Ishimine was known to seek and conquer big waves and had a style of hitting the lip straight up, mixing in 360-degree turns. He rode both goofy foot and regular, a measure of his devotion to perfecting the sport.
He entered surf meets regularly as a teenager, but his passion was free surfing and big waves.
He was a team rider for Town & Country, along with Analu Deponte, Alan Wickland, Chris Vandervoort and Tony Buduria. His sponsors included Hobie, Lightning Bolt, DaKine and O’Neill, among others.
He also shaped boards for Honolua Surfing Co., named after one of his favorite spots near Kapalua.
The veteran was known for his smile as much as his surfing ability.
“He was such a good guy, he was one of the nicest guys you would ever meet,” Coratibo said. “It’s like I never missed him. Sometimes I look at the number and one time I called him and I forgot that he passed. It’s weird, so I had to call my friend, my cousin Rusty. … So sad, that’s all.”
Leslie Ishimine said in the email from the family that she remembers “how every time he was out there surfing, he would always be smiling. You could literally see him smiling from the shore.”
Silva echoed those sentiments when it came to Lloyd Ishimine.
“I’ve known Lloyd almost my whole life,” Silva said Wednesday. “I met him through his brother Lowell. One day we were surfing, I think it was at the harbor and (Lowell) said, ‘Hey, can you give my brother a ride home?’ I gave him a ride home and from that day we just started to stick together and surfed whenever we could.”
Silva is a Baldwin graduate, but that didn’t matter to the close threesome.
Coratibo laughs when he tells a story of the Maui High principal coming to Kahului Harbor and using a bullhorn to summon students on the water back to class during big surf afternoons.
Silva recalls a special person, no matter what the situation.
“Brothers, brothers, that’s what we were,” Silva, 67, said. “We knew each other 50 years and the trippy part of it is I’m two years older than Lloyd, but we made the friendship that we had because we both loved surfing.”
Silva and Coratibo both said their friend never let the prowess of his surfing success go to his head.
“Always smiling, always good attitude, personality, always nice, yes,” Silva said.
When he wasn’t doing something related to surfing, Lloyd Ishimine worked as a licensed electrician before he retired in 2019.
His other hobbies included martial arts and skateboarding, and he lived an active lifestyle. His family noted that Ishimine “loved Jesus, was a devout Christian and he would send Bible passages to friends and family every morning. People referred to him as a mentor, they looked up to him for how he surfed AND his faith.”
He loved spending time with his family, children and grandchildren and was excited to teach his grandchildren how to surf, just as he had taught his children.
Fittingly, the family noted, he spent his last day doing what he loved — surfing at Hookipa.
His two closest, lifelong friends still have a hard time believing that Lloyd Ishimine is gone, even though it has been more than two months.
Rusty Silva and Dennis Coratibo remember their days in high school with the Maui surfing legend in the early 1970s. Ishimine made his mark as one of the first top surfer watermen from Maui, both chasing and conquering big waves and custom shaping boards for some of the best in the sport.
Ishimine died surfing at Hookipa Beach Park, one of his favorite spots, on June 23 at the age of 64.
His Celebration of Life will be held at Hookipa Beach Park at the Pavilions on Saturday. The festivities will begin at 9 a.m. with an opening prayer and speakers, followed by a paddle out at 10:15. Food and drinks will follow the paddle out.
It will be an emotional day for Coratibo, who attended and graduated from Maui High School with Ishimine in 1976.
“I was living in Puunene camps and he was the only guy who would pick (me) up,” Coratibo said Thursday. “We went that far back.”
Ishimine was born in Kahuku, Oahu, on Sept. 27, 1958 — he moved to Maui with his family at 5 years old and soon began surfing at Kahului Harbor with older brother Lowell.
It grew into a career that lasted more than four decades, really starting when he began making custom boards for friends including Coratibo and Silva when Ishimine was a freshman at Maui High School.
“I wasn’t great, but he always took me, showed me the ropes, you know, just charging big waves,”Coratibo said. “We usually go to Honolua Bay or probably Hookipa was his favorite spot because he lived in Haiku. Sometimes we’d go Pier 1 or Spreckelsville.”
Ishimine and wife Leslie (Hayashida) had four children — daughters Gabryele, Micheyla and Noelle, and son Joshua. Ishimine is survived by all his immediate family and two grandsons, Makanaokeakua and Kamakani, and his sister Jasmine Ishimine.
Lloyd was born to Minoru (deceased) and Doris (deceased) Ishimine as the youngest of four children.
Leslie Ishimine said in an email to The Maui News her husband was “very artistic” and a “perfectionist”when it came to making surfboards.
Lloyd Ishimine was one of the first on Maui to buy a computerized shaping machine from Australia and began his company Hawaiian Energy Surf Designs that was carried worldwide.
“We used to carry his surfboards, you know, at Hi-Tech,” said Hi-Tech Surf Sports president Kim Ball. “Energy Surf (surfboards), they were great boards and he was just the easiest guy to work with. Always soft spoken and very humble. He was a tremendous surfer, very respected and, yeah, we loved our relationship.”
Ishimine was known to seek and conquer big waves and had a style of hitting the lip straight up, mixing in 360-degree turns. He rode both goofy foot and regular, a measure of his devotion to perfecting the sport.
He entered surf meets regularly as a teenager, but his passion was free surfing and big waves.
He was a team rider for Town & Country, along with Analu Deponte, Alan Wickland, Chris Vandervoort and Tony Buduria. His sponsors included Hobie, Lightning Bolt, DaKine and O’Neill, among others.
He also shaped boards for Honolua Surfing Co., named after one of his favorite spots near Kapalua.
The veteran was known for his smile as much as his surfing ability.
“He was such a good guy, he was one of the nicest guys you would ever meet,” Coratibo said. “It’s like I never missed him. Sometimes I look at the number and one time I called him and I forgot that he passed. It’s weird, so I had to call my friend, my cousin Rusty. … So sad, that’s all.”
Leslie Ishimine said in the email from the family that she remembers “how every time he was out there surfing, he would always be smiling. You could literally see him smiling from the shore.”
Silva echoed those sentiments when it came to Lloyd Ishimine.
“I’ve known Lloyd almost my whole life,” Silva said Wednesday. “I met him through his brother Lowell. One day we were surfing, I think it was at the harbor and (Lowell) said, ‘Hey, can you give my brother a ride home?’ I gave him a ride home and from that day we just started to stick together and surfed whenever we could.”
Silva is a Baldwin graduate, but that didn’t matter to the close threesome.
Coratibo laughs when he tells a story of the Maui High principal coming to Kahului Harbor and using a bullhorn to summon students on the water back to class during big surf afternoons.
Silva recalls a special person, no matter what the situation.
“Brothers, brothers, that’s what we were,” Silva, 67, said. “We knew each other 50 years and the trippy part of it is I’m two years older than Lloyd, but we made the friendship that we had because we both loved surfing.”
Silva and Coratibo both said their friend never let the prowess of his surfing success go to his head.
“Always smiling, always good attitude, personality, always nice, yes,” Silva said.
When he wasn’t doing something related to surfing, Lloyd Ishimine worked as a licensed electrician before he retired in 2019.
His other hobbies included martial arts and skateboarding, and he lived an active lifestyle. His family noted that Ishimine “loved Jesus, was a devout Christian and he would send Bible passages to friends and family every morning. People referred to him as a mentor, they looked up to him for how he surfed AND his faith.”
He loved spending time with his family, children and grandchildren and was excited to teach his grandchildren how to surf, just as he had taught his children.
Fittingly, the family noted, he spent his last day doing what he loved — surfing at Hookipa.
