Centuries ago, explorers marked uncharted seas with the ominous warning, “Here be monsters.” Today, San Diego’s Jojo Roper hunts his own kind of sea monster: towering waves that test the limits of human endurance.
“I train everyday and work my ass off to chase these waves, and [when the swell comes], I don’t want to miss a thing,” Roper says.
The son of local surf legend Joe Roper, Roper grew up in his dad’s Kearny Mesa surf shop, catching his first wave at age 3. Fourteen years later, a trip to Puerto Escondido, Mexico ignited his obsession with big wave surfing. At 18, he was ready to take on Northern California’s big-wave mecca, Mavericks.
Now, from Nazaré, Portugal to Oahu’s North Shore, Roper’s journey is relentless. His team studies NOAA buoy readings, boards overnight boat rides, and hops international flights—all in pursuit of the planet’s biggest waves.
Last March, while surfing dreamy, crystal-blue barrels in Fiji, Roper was summoned by a swell alert to the frigid, churning waves of Mavericks. A quick 36 hours later, he was dropping into a 50-footer that would nab him Surfer Magazine’s 2024 Biggest Paddle-In Wave of the Year award.
But, make no mistake, these are treacherous waters. At six feet, waves are considered “overhead” and deter most average surfers. At 20 feet, paddle-outs become tests of endurance, and boards snap like matchsticks. At 30 feet, the force of a wipeout can rupture eardrums and drag surfers hundreds of feet along the ocean floor. At 50 feet, the crashing whitewater hits with the force of an avalanche, tossing humans like ragdolls in a washing machine.
“It’s like being in a major car accident that keeps going for 15 to 40 seconds—while trying to hold your breath,” Roper says. “Your limbs are flying in every direction since the violence is so radical.”
Today, the record for the largest wave ever paddled into stands at 63 feet, but, dangerous or not, Roper is determined to top it.
“My mission is to paddle into the biggest wave ever surfed,” he says.
