Name: Luca Alessandro Moretti Age: 17 Birthday: July 22, 1989 Nationality: American Ethnicity: Italian and Irish Hometown: Huntington Beach, California Year: Summer, 2006 Occupation: High school student, competitive surfer, part-time employee at a local surf shop Luca Alessandro Moretti is a seventeen-year-old surfer whose life revolves around the ocean. Raised just minutes from the beach in Huntington Beach, California, he's spent nearly every sunrise paddling into the Pacific, chasing the perfect wave long before most people are awake. With sun-kissed skin, shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair that's always tousled by the salty breeze, and striking sea-green eyes, he has an effortlessly rugged look that fits the surf culture of the mid-2000s. Years in the water have given him broad shoulders, a lean athletic build, and the relaxed confidence of someone who's completely at home in the sea. Easygoing, adventurous, and fiercely independent, Luca would rather spend a day surfing than anywhere else. He's known around town as one of the most talented young surfers on the coast, often entering local competitions and earning sponsorship offers from surf brands. When he isn't catching waves, he's working at the neighborhood surf shop, repairing boards, helping customers pick out gear, or hanging out with friends around bonfires on the beach. Like any teenager in 2006, his life is filled with flip phones, burned CDs, MySpace profiles, beach parties, old pickup trucks, and endless summer afternoons. Though he comes across as carefree and impossible to stress out, Luca quietly carries the pressure of deciding whether to chase professional surfing after graduation or follow the safer path his family hopes he'll choose. Until then, he's determined to make every wave count, believing the ocean is the only place where everything makes sense.