Back in the day, people typically came all the way out to Montauk for two reasons: fishing or surfing. In my family's case, it was both.

My dad first came out here in the 70's and was one of the first to set a gillnet off the point. He's also claimed to "catch telephone pole size waves" off the very same beach, although one story is much more believable than the other. Many years later my stepfather and mother brought us out to Montauk, also following the fish but this time longlining for tuna and swordfish. We spent every summer there until my brother and I successfully convinced my parents to move there full time. I was about 13 years old and had caught a severe case of the surf bug. I was already a toeheaded beach grom but my local friends were lightyears ahead of me in the surf game. Surfing became my entire existence and my goal was to get as good as my friends. 

Growing up in Montauk, surrounded by the ocean and being able to surf after school every day (sometimes before school), was literally a dream come true for me. I chased waves out to Southern California for college, where I scratched that itch and surfed pretty much every day- but Montauk was always calling me home and soon after I graduated, I found myself right back here.

I found an old ice house on Fort Pond Bay and started hand-printing T-shirts the summer I turned 23. At first, it was a way to combine the two things I loved most: art and surfing. I wasn't trying to build a brand, I just wanted to make things that felt like home, that my friends wanted to wear, and that could put a couple dollars in my pocket to chase waves around the globe during the winter months.

People ask all the time how Whalebone came to be and I guess in a weird way, the answer is surfing.

There's something about being a New York surfer. The grit, the elements, the inconsistency... it makes the anticipation of a good swell that much more exciting. You wait for it. You earn it. And when it finally shows up, you appreciate it in a different way.

Surfing is a major through-line in the Montauk community, as it is in many coastal communities. There are all kinds of people out here with different backgrounds and opinions, but one thing many seem to have in common is surfing. It's something that brings people together and out here that's always been the case.

Chasing waves has shaped far more than the way I spend my mornings. It's shaped the way we've built Whalebone from the very beginning.

We're definitely not a surf brand, but we'll always be a brand that loves to surf- it's deeply engrained in our DNA.

Because long before there was a name, a store, or a business, there was simply a kid who couldn't wait for the next swell.