Remember Ghost Tree? And Mouse Rock? What happened to the two most photogenic slabs in California? Well, people found out that jet ski’s were cheating and to be a professional big-wave surfer you needed to pull out a big board and paddle in with your two arms. In the early 2000’s, a purple blob with a jet ski and a rope would land you the cover of Surfing Magazine. These days a tow session at Mouse Rock will only get you a photo on Surfline’s local pro page. Oh how the times have changed.

This is a photo of my good friend Frankie D’Andrea. We had driven down to Mouse Rock from Santa Cruz with Tyler and Russell Smith. Everyone was getting crazy barrels. After 5 hours of Frankie driving me on the ski taking photos, he grabbed the rope and got hucked into one of the craziest double-ups of the day. This photo was used as a double page MADA ad. Remember MADA?