I had run a fish-processing plant in Alaska for 17 years. I was a single dad at the tail end of my kids' time at home. We had a pretty big house, three acres, a horse in the yard. You appreciate it, realizing I'll never live in a nicer house than this again. But I realized I didn't need this since all the kids were gone. 

So I started looking for a boat, just to move on as a single guy. I watched boats for like three years on different websites, seeing what they're selling for, how long they last, and then this one, The Milo, popped up.

It's a government buyback boat, meaning it’s a fishing boat that cannot ever fish again. Unless you have a specialized idea what to do with it, they're worthless. (I’ve paid more for a used pickup truck.) These guys from San Francisco had The Milo tied up and were renting it as an apartment for some Stanford students.

I flew down to San Francisco during a record heat wave. It was like in the upper 90s. I crawled around, and the engine was just all dark and dingy, and the little light bulbs were barely lit. In two days I was able to get everything working.

I didn't have the surf boat idea in mind at that point. It just morphed very organically. One of my surf buddies, Scott Dickerson, was a talented photographer and had a little Alaska surfing website, and we would go out with the boat and we found some pretty good waves within access of our home port in Homer. 

Scott started getting contacted by companies asking if we'd take their ambassadors out. Our very first paid trip was with Red Bull. Then Scott started getting contacted by civilian folks—Doc Reneker was probably the first one of those—and it started looking like we could make this into enough of a business that could help pay for cruising around discovering waves. 

When I was making my living off of the coastline here in the fishing business, the job was to race from point A to point B. Then all of a sudden, with the surf boat, the job was not to do that, but to take the time to explore all these little nooks and crannies to look for waves. I still have to work on that sometimes, force ourselves to go into that little bay and take a look. That's how we found most of the waves around the Aleutians.

A couple things surprised me in leading these surf expeditions. The enjoyment I've had sharing it with people totally took me by surprise. If you look at it on paper, you're taking people out, you gotta cater to them, but there's two things, business-wise with surfers: One is you don't have to kiss their asses, and two is you'll never really make any money off them. So it's kind of right up my alley. The only real problem with our business plan is that we'll never make any money off these guys and gals, but we sure have a pretty sweet lifestyle!

I’m from Hawaii and my philosophy is “live aloha.” Just be respectful to people around you, things around you. Be a good person. Be an asshole when you have to be.

My life revolves around family and surfing presently, and surfing plays the biggest role in my overall health—physical health, especially, and of course mental health. The Milo gives me a project even when we're not surfing, keeps me in touch with the world and different people. 

With the people that have taken the effort, the energy, the expense to come out with us, there's very little difference between age and skill level and sex. I don't know if it's Alaska or the boat or the combination of it, but it seems to place people on a pretty common denominator. The older guys are maybe a little more content to sit and read a book for a little bit longer, but not necessarily. If there's waves, they're suiting up and going in the water, just like the kiddos. Sometimes the kiddos will outthink themselves, wanting to wait another hour because the conditions might be better. 

I'm kind of a believer that if you like surfing and you see a wave out here, you should just suit up and go. I've surfed Alaska for 20 years now, and here the tide changes quite a bit. That perfect little peak you're on is only gonna last for three or four waves, and then it's gonna be just a little bit different. 

You're out there playing in nature in the most simple form, and it's just right now. Once that wave crashes and goes, it's never coming back, and you had the opportunity to join it for that brief little time. I think that's something special. There's very few things in the world that can match it.