Prominent surfer Kurt Van Dyke, killed in Costa Rica, remembered for ‘spiritual connection’ to the ocean

Peter Van Dyke, brother of surfing legend and Santa Cruz native Kurt Van Dyke, said that he was an extremely easygoing, generous person both in the water and in the community — which makes his killing ironic and that much more devastating.

“No matter what happened, it was like water on a duck’s back. It’d just roll off and he would move on,” Peter Van Dyke told Lookout on Tuesday. “The people in his town [in Costa Rica] are devastated because he’s been down there since the ‘80s and he became part of that community.”

Costa Rican authorities found Kurt Van Dyke dead in his apartment on Saturday morning in Cahuita, a town near the Caribbean coastline, according to The Tico Times, an English-language Costa Rican newspaper. Investigators say two men entered his apartment and held Van Dyke, 66, and a woman with whom he shared the unit at gunpoint before forcing them into a room. The intruders allegedly took a number of valuables before attacking Van Dyke and fleeing. Investigators found multiple stab wounds and signs of asphyxiation on Van Dyke’s body.

The woman he shared the unit with was tied up but survived the break-in. An investigation is underway, but there have been no arrests thus far.

Peter Van Dyke told Lookout that he doesn’t know much more than what is already public, but that he is in touch with the Costa Rican authorities. Although his brother hadn’t lived in Santa Cruz for decades, the family holds a special place in local surf culture. Their parents, Gene and Betty Van Dyke, were both surfing pioneers. Gene was a notable surfing figure in Northern California, while Betty was part of an early group of women surfers.

“They’re Mount Rushmore-level characters,” said Garth Seagrave, who was a close friend of Kurt’s and met the brothers while growing up in Pleasure Point. 

Peter Van Dyke, who now lives in Gilroy, said that the family is still featured in an exhibit at the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum at Lighthouse Point, and had ties to some of the area’s other surfing pioneers including the Mels, Hauts, Novaks and O’Neills, among others. Even though the brothers “probably started surfing when we were old enough to walk,” going pro was never their chief concern.

“We were more about the whole spirit rather than the pro scene, even though we did some surf contests,” said Peter Van Dyke. “We would rather ride up to Scott Creek and surf there instead of at the lane with the contest crowd.

“We were professional-level, it just wasn’t what we were interested in. It’s more like we were into the meditative experience of surfing.”

Rosemari Reimers Rice, surfer and wife of well-known Santa Cruz surfboard shaper Johnny Rice, who died in 2015, was friends with Betty Van Dyke until her death in 2021. She recalled the deep connection the family had with the water.

“Everybody in their family was a part of the water. They were part of the ocean,” she said. “It’s been a part of their family for years and years.”

Seagrave, who now lives in San Francisco, said surfing was far more than just a sport to Kurt Van Dyke and that his death is a “monumental” loss. 

“It was a complete and total lifestyle, and [the Van Dykes] were a leading charge of that lifestyle without even knowing it,” he said. “There was no mention of sport. It was just what they did and who they were.”

Seagrave said the family had roots in Hawaii and Santa Cruz, where they were very active in the surfing scene. It was Seagrave who was instrumental in Kurt’s move to Costa Rica. After returning from a trip there in the early 1980s, Seagrave told Kurt that he had to go. Kurt did, and the rest was history.

“He went down there based on my recommendation and he walked into beautiful, perfect surfing conditions. He just said, ‘Holy s–t, this place is incredible,’” said Seagrave. “ He ended up buying the hotel that we stayed at in ‘87 and went back over the years to fix it up.” Van Dyke owned the business, Hotel Puerto Viejo, until his death over the weekend.

Seagrave said he hopes that younger surfers commit to the craft and lifestyle as much as Kurt Van Dyke did, and that he hopes people, surfers or not, approach their lives the same way and find the motivation to make the most of them.

“Most people have no clue how to live life. This guy packed five lifetimes into his time,” Seagrave said, adding that Van Dyke spontaneously drove to Panama from California via station wagon in the neighborhood of five separate times. “I can walk away from the sadness of his death and go, man, he f–king did it all in a relatively short window.”

And Peter Van Dyke hopes that surfers nourish the same type of spiritual connection to surfing and the ocean that his brother did. That includes a love and appreciation for the ocean and everything it holds.

“You’re surrounded by life in the ocean. We learned so much about just looking through the limpets and the kelp and that connection to nature is a legacy that should live on,” he said. “It’s not just surfing, it’s everything that surrounds you when you are surfing. Kurt had a deep appreciation for all of that.”

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