“It feels like it was yesterday,” Jojo Roper said when I asked him to recall one of the bigger swells he and many Maverick’s regulars had ever seen, even though it happened nearly six months ago. December 2024 was a whirlwind for the San Diego surfer, and may have destroyed his adrenal glands, but it was a period of intensity he’ll remember for the rest of his life.
Roper spent multiple days paddling glassy Jaws before heading to Oahu for his first-ever appearance at the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. It was his first time he’d been invited, and he and the rest of the field were left awestruck as Waimea Bay detonated all day.
“I was so content and so stoked after the Eddie that I wondered if I even needed to go to Maverick’s,” he said. “My cup was full.”
But Roper is a man prepared. He had already lined things up on the mainland weeks before he left for Hawaii. He’d driven his jet ski from San Diego to Half Moon Bay, along with his wetsuit and tow equipment. So he boarded his 11:30 p.m. redeye and followed the Northwest swell that had hammered Hawaii over to California.“I just realized, this could be the craziest Maverick’s ever,” he said. “If I woke up in Hawaii the next day all tired, I’d just be wishing I was there.”
This wasn’t the first time Roper had surfed the infamous wave on the end of a swell bender. During a 24-hour span in March 2024, he flew from Fiji to Los Angeles, drove to San Diego, hopped on a red eye to San Francisco, barely slept, and paddled into a tall Maverick’s peak that landed him the 2024 Big Wave Challenge Men’s Paddle Award. “I just can’t miss big waves,” he laughed. “I’ve somehow become that guy who chases swells and doesn’t sleep.”
Related: From Todos, To Maverick’s and Palm Springs, Jojo Roper’s Doing Winter Right
Still rubbing the lack of sleep from his eyes on the morning of December 23, 2024, he and John Mel shared the jet ski as they hurried over Blackhand Reef. They arrived at something neither had seen at Maverick’s before — peaks bowling up and whitewater appearing where they shouldn’t.
“I remember getting two waves then heading back out on the rope and going, ‘Holy shit, that wave was huge,’” Roper said. “It was just so different. It was doing the Maverick’s bowl thing out to sea, which was trippy. There are lineups out there, and this was like another dimension. We’ve kinda brushed that, like the December the year before was giant, and that was the biggest I’d ever towed it. So we had some perception of it. And over the years, you get more comfortable the more time you spend there. But you learn fast if you know what you’re looking at. Some would go deep and inside, and they’d stand so top to bottom.”
Roper towed John Mel in the morning, then with the Mavs legend himself, Peter Mel, in the afternoon. He reckons the wave playing above, which is entered into the 2025 Big Wave Challenge, was his third or fourth of the day. A tall brute that spat and let him off in front of the other cheering tow teams. “I texted Frank (Quirite), ‘Is this photoshopped?’ I thought he was messing with us.”
Jack Sandler/Big Wave Challenge
Interestingly, Roper reckons some of the biggest waves of the day, including his Alo Slebir’s, happened in the same hour. With the long period 25-second interval of coursing through the water, the ocean took some breathers before roaring again.
“I felt like you could call it a winter after that,” he said. “But it had only just begun.”
As this story shows, Roper is as dedicated a big-wave surfer as you’ll find today. And he’s still invested in his roots. Roper recently signed a deal with Quiksilver but remains a shop guy at heart. He still works regularly at his family’s repair and glassing factory, Joe Roper’s Surfboard Repair in San Diego, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary next month.
“I pretty much live in the shop unless there’s a swell,” he said. “It doesn’t change much for me. This is our family business, and it’s my business. No matter how much money I’m making surfing, I’m still going to be here running the show. I follow big surf when it comes, probably more than most, and I’m very fortunate to do that and happy about it. But day to day I’m working my ass off with a machine in my hand. And I have no problem with that. That’s just me.”
Things are calm on the front for now, so consider hitting up the Ropers if you need some foam fixed in San Diego. But if a low-pressure system pops up on the charts, chances are he’s already on a red-eye.