Pacha Light And Lucy Small Continue To Pioneer A New Path For Surfing In New Film ‘Ceibo’
Written by Lucy Small. Photos by Maddie Meddings.
What do you do when the dream you were chasing turns out to not really be what you always dreamed of?
At some point, this is what Pacha Light realised - in the furor and hype of being a young professional surfer on the Gold Coast, Pacha realised it wasn’t exactly what she had pictured. In fact, it wasn’t exactly who she was. Something was missing and the process of finding out what would become something of a personal quest. Some of this is explored in a new film called Ceibo set to premiere in Sydney early in April.
For her teenage years Pacha had her wheels in motion - sponsored by Billabong, competing on the ‘QS, living every young ambitious surfer’s dream. But in 2021, while the world paused under COVID, Pacha’s world was rattled and her reality cracked open. She made the decision to stop competing after achieving feats such as representing Australia at the World Junior Championships, competing on the QS in France, the Caribbean and all around Australia; she ended her relationship with Billabong and in the same period and her father Marcelo, who was from and lived in Ecuador, tragically died.
After this, Pacha was in a limbo state, unable to move anywhere with closed borders and recalibrating her direction as a surfer and as a person. “I knew I needed to travel… it was like this kind of freefalling.” Pacha said. “I think at the end of the day, it pushed me to really take a big jump into the unknown.”
In new found territory, pinching pennies without a major sponsor, Pacha set off to Ecuador alone for the first time in search of answers to those burning questions - who was she and what was her purpose?
Pacha was born in the Ecuadorian Andes in a small city called Cotacachi. Her mum Anja travelled to Ecuador in the early 1990s to join the anti-mining movement in the mountains. Anja was an activist who had worked alongside communities in Borneo and Japan in their struggles to protect their lands and territories. In Ecuador she met Pacha’s dad, Marcelo, and Pacha was born in her mum’s office in the ecology centre that was a headquarters for a lot of the anti mining activity. Anja also built a house off grid in the Intag Valley where Pacha, Anja and Pacha’s younger brother Yani lived for about three or four years.
“Just that complete, simple life.” Pacha said in Ceibo, “The completely playful nature and knowing that there weren't really distractions, that we didn't have any electricity, so when it was afternoon, night time, you go to bed.”
The house is still standing, albeit a little run down, the land that is still under Anja’s ownership serving the purpose of protecting the forest from mining companies who have come into the region in search of copper and other minerals over the last three decades.
From Intag Pacha and her family moved back to Australia. They lived in Iluka, just north of Yamba on the Mid-North Coast in a converted shed. It was here that the relationship with the ocean really began for Pacha. After trying surfing, Pacha’s famous surfing origin story is that she needed money for a surfboard so she dance busked at the Roxy Pro Gold Coast in 2011 until she was spotted by Laura Enever who gifted Pacha her first board.
From here things started. Pacha began competing and Anja would dutifully drive her to contests, driving all night to competitions to save money on accommodation, packing dried fruit and nuts to keep the spirits up while Pacha got her important competitive experience.
“It was really refreshing not coming from a surfing background so the expectations of how we could do this dream of competing and travelling for surfing, it was kind of set in a different way.” Pacha said. “We were really creative in ways we could save money and still travel to compete.” They travelled in an old Delica van, Anja at the wheel and Pacha directing on Google maps, sometimes driving Iluka to Sydney or Melbourne in one go through the night. Sleeping in the car would mean Anja, Pacha and Yani crammed in with the seats down, often hot and buzzing with mosquitos.
“I remember the day that Billabong said ‘ok, we’ve got some money for your travel to a contest’. We got $500 for fuel and Mum was crying in the meeting, she just could not believe that there could be support for this.” Pacha said.
After this everything changed. Pacha started to get bigger contracts and could give back to her family. By 16 she had left school and started travelling the world to compete, doing winters in Hawaii at the Billabong house and following the professional surfing path of decimal points, rash vests and twenty minute heats. The family had relocated to the Gold Coast and moved in with Pacha’s grandmother who had received thyroid cancer diagnosis. Thankfully Anja’s mother recovered but for over 10 years Anja has lived in the house and cared for her. The Billabong contract allowed Pacha to give some support to her mum and grandma as she chased her dreams.
In the background though, there was something telling Pacha that the road she was walking didn’t necessarily belong to her. The reality of the world of competitive surfing is that it can be a world of exploitation, coastal colonisation and environmental destruction. Pro surfers occupy this strange space where they are dependent on a healthy ocean for their careers, but they’re also dependent on brand sponsorship for their income and more often than not these same brands are contributing to the environmental collapse of our planet. Representing Australia also felt complicated - Australia wasn’t necessarily a place that Pacha felt she belonged.
The pandemic offered a chance to pause and reassess. Already conscious of the impact the world of surfing was having on the planet and with a role model who has dedicated her life to environmental protection, the pause gave Pacha a chance to think about how she was going to build her own meaningful path. This was also a period of burnout - all the travel, the photoshoots, the social media output, the buzzers sounding and the adrenaline hitting - had taken a physical toll. Then, her dad died and it was time to redirect.
When the borders opened Pacha headed to Ecuador. Over the years Anja, Pacha and Yani had travelled back to Ecuador for stints, but Pacha’s dad had remained in his home city of Bahia De Caraquez for her whole life. He couldn’t speak English, Pacha couldn’t speak Spanish, so communication was limited when he was alive. With his death that question she’d always wondered, “Why isn’t he here with me, why isn’t he being a father?” would never be answered.
“Back then, he wasn't there, he didn't provide. He in a sense wasn't a father,” Pacha said, “But the only way to heal and move forward is to accept that and know that I'm so grateful that he gave me life and this connection to this beautiful place.”
In a way his death brought Pacha Ecuador. In her search for the uncomfortable truths about who she was, she found a home in the arid coast that winds northwards to give way to dense green jungle that leans out over the ocean. This was a place where she could finally feel what it was to belong.
After a six month stint in 2022, Pacha also journeyed to Europe to meet her half brother and sister who are the children of her father with different mothers. “My father travelled the world without leaving Ecuador.” Pacha laughs when she explains what it was like to meet these new family members. She started travelling just to surf, no pressure to compete or shoot, just to enjoy the ocean again.
All of this has made Pacha tough. She recently went to Iceland and surfed November waters in a 3mm wetsuit, road tripping with her mum in a van (slightly bigger than the old Delica), pulling the frozen suit on in the morning and paddling out despite the bitter cold eating at her bones. She’s also sunny wherever she goes, stopping to chat, knowing people in more or less every surf town across the globe.
Ceibo, is a film that explores some of Pacha’s journey of getting to know her first home. A journey across Ecuador meeting women who are leaders in their communities - from the frontlines of environmental conflicts in the Andes and the Amazon to the surf rich coast and the harsh but beautiful Galapagos Islands. It’s a study of what we as a global community can learn from a country like Ecuador when it comes to taking care of the environment and our communities. So much of what makes up the unique little country on South America’s Pacific Coast is sewn into Pacha too as she now forges her path in sharing both with the world.
In the last twelve months Pacha has also donned the competition rashie once again, this time with a bigger purpose than just herself - competing under the Ecuadorian flag.
Premieres for Ceibo begin in April. Tickets here.
April 8th - Paddington
April 10th - Brookvale
April 11th - Yamba
April 12th - Gold Coast
April 13th - Byron Bay
April 16th - Bells Beach
April 19th - Denmark
April 23rd - Fremantle
