Slater was born in Cocoa Beach, Floridain 1972. He started surfing when he was only 5 years old and by the time he was ten he was already winning almost any competition he entered. His talent became apparent to the world when he won his first world title at the age of 20, making him the youngest surfing world champion ever. He went on to win 11 world championships so far and his last win in 2011, at the age of 39, also made him the oldest surfing world champion.

He still competes to this day, but in his spare time he has a couple of other projects and accomplishments that you may have heard of. Back in 1990, when he just turned professional, he appeared on several episodes of Baywatch playing a character called Jimmy Slade and could also be seen in a bunch of surf movies and videogames. Next to acting he also likes to play the ukulele and guitar and he even performed with Jack Johnson and toured Australia with his band “The Surfers”.

Kelly Slater Surfing Uncrowded Uluwatu - Surfing Bali - 31st October, 2020

Kelly Slater isan all around talented guy, and as if all of this wasn’t enough, in 2007, he founded the Kelly Slater Wave Company which worked on a wave pool that would allow surfers to modify a wave to their wishes and surf it as often as they like. His Surf Ranch opened 10 years later and became a huge success, it is still considered to be the best artificial wave pool in the world.

There are a lot of other impressive things this man has done throughout his life and still does today, more than I could ever try to get into this article. If you ever have an evening free and you don’t know what to do I can really recommend watching a documentary about his life.