Eddie Aikau was born in May 1946 in Kahului, Maui, the third of six children of Solomon and Henrietta Aikau, and a descendant of Hewahewa, high priest to Kamehameha I and Kamehameha II. In 1959 the family moved to Oahu and lived rent free on a nine acre Chinese cemetery in exchange for keeping the grounds. At 16 Eddie left school and worked at a Dole pineapple cannery to buy his first surfboard. His middle name, Makuahanai, means a nurturing or feeding parent. In 1968 the City and County of Honolulu hired him as the first lifeguard on the North Shore, alone on the stretch between Sunset Beach and Haleiwa, where winter swells break at 30 feet over shallow reef. Working with a buoy, fins, and a surfboard, he saved more than 500 people at Waimea Bay, and no one died there on his watch. He was named Lifeguard of the Year in 1971 and won the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational in 1977.

Personal loss hit hard. He married Linda in 1971, and in 1973 his brother Gerald, a Vietnam veteran, was killed in a car crash, a grief that strained the marriage. In 1978 he joined the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Hokulea for a 2,500 mile voyage to Tahiti using traditional wayfinding. Departing March 16, 1978, the canoe capsized about 12 miles south of Molokai. Eddie took off his bulky life jacket so he could paddle faster and set out for Lanai. The crew was later rescued, but despite the largest air and sea search in Hawaiian history, he was never found. The Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational at Waimea runs only when open ocean swells reach 20 feet and has been held just 11 times since 1985, most recently in December 2024.

• Eddie and his youngest brother Clyde are the only Native Hawaiians to win the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational.
• A notable early 1978 rescue pulled television producer John Orland from the surf.
• Surfer Mark Foo coined the phrase Eddie would go while organizers debated canceling the first contest.
• Purists adopted Eddie wouldn’t tow to reject jet ski assisted big wave surfing.
• Sam George’s Emmy winning 2013 documentary concluded that Eddie’s heroism rested on a deep sense of fairness.