Eri grew up in Buzios, a small peninsula in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Eri had an unusual childhood for a world-class water athlete. He did not grow up doing any watersports and was instead an acrobat in a circus school with the dream to become a circus performer. It wasn’t until he was 19 years old that he was first exposed to SUP. He was working on the beach renting stand up paddleboards and his boss invited him to do a race called Rei de Buzios (King of Buzios), which was one of the biggest races in Brazil at the time. He did the race just for fun and ended up getting 6th place out of 200 participants in his category. After that race, he fell in love with the sport and starting to train more seriously.

In 2019, Eri secured top 10 finishes at the APP World Tour SUP Open in New York and at the EuroTour Corfu Emerald Cup in Greece. He also finished first place at the Aloha Spirit Festival, proving his budding potential to the world.