Robert Jame Beadle 1940-2026
Bob did everything his way, 100%. So it was in death.
Sure, he was going through another round of radiation in the hospital in Brazil, fighting bone cancer, and was dealing with multiple infections. “Big deal,” he would have said.
Like a party that is no longer worthwhile, he decided it was time to go. “Call me when something interesting happens,” I can imagine him saying. When the doctors and nurses weren’t looking, he snuck out. He passed away in his sleep.
Nobody was expecting it, but in retrospect, everyone thought: Yes. Of course.
That’s Bob in a nutshell. Always doing the unexpected, doing it his way.
Just a week before, barely able to walk, he was talking about buying a motorcycle in Europe. If most people said this in his condition, you’d think they were delusional. But with Bob… there was a 50-50 chance he could actually pull that off.
He’d already done it before… several times.
Just five years earlier, he’d been in this exact situation. Bone cancer had crippled him. Radiation smoked him. He was wheelchair-bound for an entire year. Doctors said he was a goner.
Bob smirked at the doctors, always dismissing the opinion of “experts”. He did daily physical therapy. He bounced back, moved from wheelchair to walker to cane. He was just “delusional” enough, and he got on a flight.
Excuse me — 5 flights. He traveled from Brazil to Tahiti, and went sailing with us for a month. Then a year later, he landed in Madagascar, at 84 years old, and sailed 6 months with our crew, crossing the Atlantic aboard Nesi. Bob’s will power to live fully was simply astounding.
The critical piece behind Bob’s constitution and ability to do anything? He believed he could do anything.
Ten years earlier, against all odds, he went across South America on a motorcycle. He was 74 years old, and had just extracted half-a-dozen Melanomas from his chest and face, which he dismissed as “slow-growing”. He bought an expedition motorcycle in Colombia, and rode 6 months to Tierra del Fuego. He’d stop for a week or two in hostels in Peru when the knee and back pain was too much. His motorcycle broke down a few times in the deserts of Bolivia. After going to the tip of Patagonia, he sold the bike cheap to a cool mechanic in Chile who really “loved it”.
Bob lived fearlessly. Bone cancer and radiation? Melanomas? “It’s just what’s happening right now. I’m not going to let it control me,” he’d say.
All of Bob’s friends knew there was no stopping him. Countless stories exist of him pushing the edge, and pushing his friends with him. To say that Bob always kept life interesting for everyone was… an understatement.
He shared this spark of life in the form of great conversations. He had a true gift for bypassing small talk, and going deep, fast. Who doesn’t have fond memories of long talks with Bob, that moved seamlessly from adventure stories, to philosophy, to any other topic you wanted to discuss?
In fact, he once told me that was one of his goals: to be able to talk to anyone and adapt to any situation.
While traveling in Africa in the mid-60s, he was invited to spend the night at a gentleman’s house in the Congo who had pygmies for staff. There was a centuries-long relationship between this gentlemen’s clan and the pygmies. They were about to have dinner at a long, formal table. To Bob’s shock, a row of pygmies carrying platters of food entered the salon on their knees… and then after serving them, exited the salon on their knees again… going backwards.
Bob always shared this story with a nervous laugh. “What do you say in such a situation? Clearly there was a lot happening that I didn’t understand. I just thanked my host for the delicious chicken.”
Bob could connect with anyone. He had eye-opening conversations with expert scientists, he could get stuffy people to open up about life, he could level and share meals with the poor & humble.
Bob was admired for his extraordinary intellect; his ability to reveal insights into any subject.
And he was loved for his ability to connect with anyone. Well, almost anyone.
He had zero patience for anyone being fake or entitled. Then Bob’s dragon temper came out. If someone crossed him, all hell broke loose.
His family and friends knew this fire was part of the package. There was often collateral damage. But if you could take the heat, then you had the chance to stick around someone who was unapologetically real.
Bob was like an active, smoldering volcano — this was his natural make-up. With so much energy billowing out of his pores, I sometimes wondered how he managed to operate a business, raise kids, heck, just buy groceries?
The secret is that anything Bob did, he went all-in. He directed that volcanic energy into action.
- In the 50s, as a teenager, he became a concert pianist; then he almost played trombone professionally. Then ditched it all to surf the biggest waves in Hawaii, without a leash.
- In the 60s, he hitchhiked from Morocco to Iraq to Congo to Afghanistan.
- In the 70s, he dismissed a cushy corporate job and his newly completed business degree, and bought a dairy farm on Volcan Poas in Costa Rica — where he and my mom had their first two kids.
- In the 80s, he moved to Rio and invented progrip, an EVA grip for windsurfers and surf boards which turned into a big success across Europe and the US.
- In the 90s, he moved to south-west Australia with my mom and I, and bought land.
- In the 2000s, he did the same in the remote Maraú peninsula, north-east Brazil. He was 65 years old, and was re-starting life with my mom in a place so remote, even four-wheel drive jeeps were getting stuck in the mud.
Bob went all-in… and then he moved on. He didn’t bother with hobbies, or keeping up his skills in piano, trombone, or surfing which had taken years to develop. He just dropped them from one day to the next. This mentality seemed radical, but it served him well. Bob didn’t cling to anything he did; he was entirely comfortable with endings. When a cycle ran its course, he pivoted and charged forward to the next thing. This approach was a key to his fearlessness: he could do anything, because he wasn’t attached to losing anything.
As a single child in a Navy household, Bob grew up moving to different towns every year or two — so he was adept at being an outsider, and good at starting life afresh. His father was a quiet, decorated Navy captain with a supreme sense of integrity. His mother was a Norwegian-American who lived by the mantra of tough love. He merged both influences into his Viking-esque personality.
While working in Brazil in the 60s, he met my mom Susie and instantly fell in love. However, their blossoming romance was halted by Brazil’s military junta. They threw Bob in jail for a few months, due to association with foreign dissidents. “Would you believe if I said this was one of the best times of my life?” Bob asked me, after sharing how he did hours of yoga in his prison cell. Bob loved to say provocative stuff like that — but it always had truth behind it, and it made you wonder.
Eventually, he was released and deported, and about a year later, Bob & Susie met again in California. They spent the next 50+ years together, raised three kids, lived in 4 continents, and Susie held his hand until his last day.
Bob & Susie couldn’t be more different, a complete Yin & Yang, and yet they loved each other deeply. Their incredible feat is that, while enduring the wild ups and downs of 5 decades, they stayed true to themselves, AND they stayed committed to each other. They taught me that nobody can change us… but another’s love can give us the space to change ourselves.
The modern world has a lot to learn from Bob. In a society that distorts & encourages us to stay in our place — whether through gratuitous self-promotion, political correctness or “keeping up with the Joneses” — Bob was pure authenticity. He was charming and awesome and fun. And he was intense and hot-headed and impulsive. He was always fully himself, constantly expressing himself in unpredictable ways.
Once, he chased down thieves that stole his wallet through the alleyways of Ecuador. A little old man met his eyes and nodded towards the top of the building. The thieves knew they were busted, and brought down the wallet, cowering. Remember that Bob was known for his outbursts of anger at even the most minor signs of disrespect — pushy drivers, cocky policemen, dismissive doctors have all taken the brunt. But that day, he opened the wallet, gave the thieves some money, said “tengan un buen dia”, and walked away. Because in that moment, that felt right.
Bob always told his kids to be themselves, that they could do & be anything. We took it to heart, and we’re now also empowered to live our best, most authentic lives.
Anyone who crossed paths with Bob also took that to heart, whether they know it or not. Many people have dreams, perhaps an irrational desire of a new way to live, but suppress those dreams for being too crazy, and settle into a mediocrity of spirit.
Then comes along this guy Bob.
He lives and breathes and expresses his true essence every second, unabashedly. Coming into contact with such authenticity can be jarring. But it’s the real deal, and it has inspired countless souls to be themselves, just a little bit more.
That was his hidden superpower. Beneath the wild stories and the rough edges was a constant reminder — just be yourself. That was the Force of Bob.
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Words by Kristian Beadle
Photo Credit: Leo Hetzel + friends.
Celebration of Life: end of June 2026
Hawaii
