Beneath the Surface

Welcome to the 24th installment of the Beneath The Surface Podcast.  Sometimes things just don’t come to fruition. Even with the best intentions, some projects just don’t see the light of day. In this episode, Corey and Sean discuss one such project: the creation of the Rover (OG) / Wake SUP board and the video shoot surrounding it. Shot with Billy Rossini and friends in North Carolina, this was o...

Aaaand they’re back for another wild and crazy episode of the Beneath the Surface Podcast. In the 23rd installment,  Beneath the Surface Podcast: The Compound, Corey and Sean take us on a journey from Los Angeles, CA, to Fort Walton Beach, FL.  The stories take us through the course of Sean’s career spanning 26 years, from a punk rock photographer in the 1990’s to his work with BOTE in the present...

Welcome to the 22nd installment of the Beneath the Surface podcast, brought to you by lots of caffeine. In this week’s episode, Sean and Corey go behind the scenes of a National ADDY award-winning film Red & Brown , with one of the stars of the film, Mike Frenette, a.k.a. Red. In Beneath the Surface: Red & Brown, the guys get real about the impacts of the pandemic on the outdoor industry;...

Welcome to episode 21 of the Beneath the Surface Podcast. In this episode, join Corey and Sean as they revisit trips to the Florida Keys which happens to be one of their all-time favorite places.  In Beneath the Surface Podcast: Keys Reloaded, the guys reflect on the site where BOTE first launched and found out how badass one of their favorite products truly was, the Rover Micro Skiff. Making your...

In the 20th installment of the Beneath the Surface Podcast, Corey and Sean have a conversation with Rob McAbee, BOTE Creative Director and Founder of Bug Slinger™️ fly fishing gear. Rob started Bug Slinger in 2007, right around the time Corey and Magda founded BOTE. As the BOTE and Bug Slinger™️ brands grew within the outdoor industry, it was inevitable that the paddle board fishing-focused compan...

In episode 19 of the Beneath the Surface Podcast, BOTE Creative Director, Rob McAbee, is in the studio with Corey and Sean to give us the dirt on the creation of their 2016 video, A Western Flow.   When Rob gets the idea to float down Utah’s Green River for three days with a motley crew consisting of Sean, two off-the-grid extreme adventurers, and a few other characters,--all in the pursuit of sho...

In this episode, Corey and Sean team up with BOTE Creative Director Rob McAbee to talk about the first ever “BOTE Presents” trip. It was a product launch for The Grambler—a board that Rob envisioned as being a surf style board that wasn’t necessarily performance-based, but that would surf more like a longboard.  Sure enough, that’s what the Grambler became. A board forged in Florida, yet with a ch...

A lot of people think making pretty pictures is easy. In this episode, the 17th installment of the Beneath the Surface podcast, Corey and Sean set out to prove this theory wildly incorrect. To do so, they unveil the story behind the product launch of the LONO—BOTE’s revolutionary inflatable fishing kayak.  The backstory all has to do with a fish. The tarpon, to be exact. A long silver prehistoric-...

Welcome back to the Beneath the Surface Podcast. Hot off the mic is episode 16, going behind the scenes of BOTE Presents // Devils of the Deep: The Red Assassin. The film is centered around Cash McGuinnes, a ridiculous fictional character played by BOTE’s very own Sean Murphy. The short film is a spoof of all spoofs, inspired by River Monsters and taking place in the Florida Panhandle. Ever since...

In general, the Beneath the Surface podcast is often about boards, boats, and boatloads of memories. But what good is a paddle board without a place to paddle it? In this episode, Corey and Sean give us a hearty rundown of some of their favorite places to go paddling in Florida. Broken down by types of waterways—from springs and rivers, to bays and bayous—and also broken down by types of paddlers—...

In episode 14, Corey and Sean sit down to reflect on the past few months. In particular, how COVID 19 and the lockdown have affected them personally, the impact it has had on the business at BOTE, and the ripple effect that they have seen across the entire outdoor industry through first-hand accounts and stories shared with them from friends in the industry.  In short, the outdoor industry seems t...

Episode 13 of the Beneath the Surface Podcast is one that’ll pull at your heartstrings while making you want to take on the world as Corey and Sean talk about one of their biggest projects ever, Operation Phoenix. Bringing Josh Collins into the studio virtually, Corey and Sean take a walk down memory lane when BOTE got on board to support Josh in his long distance paddle boarding mission in 2015. ...

Corey and Sean are back again with episode 12 of the Beneath the Surface Podcast: Division No. 18. In this episode, we travel back in time to a trip dreamt up by BOTE Creative Director, Rob McAbee, as he and several members of the BOTE family venture off-the-grid. They are headed to a place known only as Division No. 18, but to most fishermen it’s known as one of the best places on earth to fish f...

Welcome back to the Beneath the Surface podcast. In this episode, Corey and Sean wax lyrical about fatherhood. Both are fathers of three (though Corey is a father to four if you count BOTE). Both are also businessmen and dedicated men of their craft. In this episode, they talk about that balance. They relive some of their best moments as working fathers, including some of the more infamous times t...

Next up on the Beneath the Surface Podcast, Corey and Sean welcome DarkRoom Guru, Pete Buzzelli, into the studio for their eighth episode: Ural.   It’s safe to say everyone at BOTE has a special tie to the beach, but they also have another common thread that feeds their need for adrenaline, and that’s motorcycles.  There’s always been motorcycle surf racks, allowing surfers to transport the tradit...

Corey and Sean are back for the ninth installment of the Beneath the Surface Podcast. The guys sit down with Chris Taloa, a native Hawaiian with a familiar face--you may recognize him from movies like Snakes on a Plane , Blue Crush , and Into the Blue --who embodies the BOTE lifestyle. In Beneath the Surface Podcast: Taloa, get to know one of our favorite people and the most badass inflatable padd...

In this episode, Corey and Sean welcome their first guest on the show, as they join forces with their legendary pal Pete Buzelli (or “Simple Pete” as Sean calls him) to talk about one of BOTE’s most iconic differentiators: the BOTE DarkRoom . More than just a space to make paddle boards, the DarkRoom quickly became a project with a purpose; a safe space to fail fast and fail often, yet also make a...

Coming at you direct from the middle of nowhere to the center of everywhere, it’s the Beneath the Surface Podcast with BOTE CEO and Co-Founder, Corey Cooper, along with world-renowned photographer and BOTE Director of Photography, Sean Murphy. In this week's episode, Sean and Corey tell tall tales of their first trip to Belize, meeting Jeff Speigel owner of Cayo Frances Fly & Farm, and ho...

Corey and Sean are back again with the sixth installment of the Beneath the Surface Podcast: Gatorproof. In this episode, they rehash what they describe as “the best shoot” of their lives. Back in 2016, to promote the launch of BOTE’s KULA Cooler, the guys teamed up with some friends (and some heroes) to make a mockumentary product launch video at an alligator farm in South Florida. The whole thin...

In the fifth installment of the Beneath the Surface Podcast, Corey and Sean bring Corey’s more sensible half, Chief Operations Officer and BOTE Co-Founder, Magda Cooper, into the studio. Wife to Corey, mother to their three children, and the female founder to the BOTE brand, we dive deep with Magda to find out how she manages the juggling act while keeping her sweet demeanor… just kidding, she’s a...

Corey and Sean are back at it again with the fourth installation of the Beneath the Surface Podcast: San Somewhere. When Sean approaches Corey in 2019 with a video narrative of paddle board surfing dogs down in Mexico, Corey responds the only way one should: “Sounds rad to me, man.” And Sean was off. In this podcast episode, Corey and Sean take you behind the camera of their 2019 video, San Somewh...

In the third installment of the Beneath the Surface Podcast, Sean and Corey discuss the inspiration behind the Rover. It’s a micro skiff. It’s a paddle board with a motor. It’s the Rover. In Beneath the Surface: Rover, Not Your Average Micro Skiff, Sean interviews Corey about the identity of the Rover. From the initial CAD renderings and testing the very first prototype in the Gulf of Mexico, to w...

Corey and Sean are back together for the second installment of the Beneath the Surface podcast, The Everglades: Without a Plan. This time, they talk us through the craziest SUP camping and long distance paddle adventure of a lifetime. Over the course of what should have taken five or six days, they paddled 100 miles from Everglades City to Flamingo in just four days. This podcast episode is not fo...

Coming at you direct from the middle of nowhere to the center of everywhere, it’s the Beneath the Surface Podcast with BOTE CEO and Co-Founder, Corey Cooper, along with world-renowned photographer and BOTE Director of Photography, Sean Murphy. In the pilot episode, Corey and Sean take a walk down memory lane, taking you behind the scenes to introduce you to names, places, and inspiration behind th...