Imagine how different your local beach was 50 years ago.

Perhaps the coastline and the landscape are relatively the same, but what about the land development?

And imagine how much has changed

culturally. It's funny to think that the beach wasn't always a desirable place to live. In the 50s,

60s, 70s, commerce mainly happened in the cities and residential real estate got less

expensive the further you got from those jobs. Of course, all of that is flip-flopped now,

and today's guest has been seated in the nucleus of perhaps the most radically transformed

beach real estate of the past 50 years. He discovered surfing in California in the 60s, and then

landed on Kauai in 1970. We've heard lots of stories of surfers

traveling to Hawaii, but it's mainly Oahu in the 70s. Among them, there was a smaller subset

who would then venture to the wild and rural garden aisle of Kauai. I've heard stories of them

essentially living for free,

camping at the beach and eating off the land and sea. The only money you needed was for gas.

But of course, now the island boasts $20,000 a night Airbnbs. Any news story related to Kauai

in recent years has to do with Zuckerberg or another tech autocrat

building a futuristic quarter of a billion dollar compound. And for the decade prior to that,

the stories were about Hollywood celebrities who had relocated there from Malibu. So in today's

show, we're going to hear from Mark Sousen about the island community's transformation, his

journey navigating it as a Howley in the early days, and how he's developed his craft and business

as a board builder on a remote wave-rich island through those five decades. But before we do,

I am proud to reintroduce Florence as a partner of this show.

John John Florence has been developing and testing gear and equipment with the goal of extending

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