Hail Mary

Over the last weekend I headed over to Oahu with an amazing swell on the way. I had hopes of some big days in the water. Unfortunately mother nature had different plans and as we all know her plans come first. The swell hit the island as forecasted. It was one of the largest south swells of the year so far and Sandies was big. The unfortunate curve ball that I was thrown was that the swell arrived with 25 knot winds. The winds were blowing out the surf and with the surf my hopes for any amazing images this weekend.

So now I know the question on everyones mind is "How did you get the images for this blog?"

Well shear desperation led me to get in the water on Monday. The winds were now 15 to 20 knots, better then 25 knots but still pretty strong. The surf was smaller and pretty sloppy from the wind, but it was my last day on Oahu and my last chance to shoot. So I went for the Hail Mary and got in the water well before the sun came up as you can see from the images above and below.

I was able to get in the right position quite a few times despite being sucked out to sea and down the beach by the current on numerous occasions.  The winds made it quite a challenge to get a clean image. On other occasions that I have entered the water with similar conditions I have been lucky to pull one or two images out of the session. On this morning despite the conditions I captured a multitude of cool images.

I got quite a few images before the sun came up over the horizon. When the sun finally made it over the horizon the color came and went in a matter of moments. I got very lucky and was able to snap a few frames in this perfect light before it was gone as you will see in the images below. 

After the sun cleared the clouds that were just above the horizon the light got very harsh and the winds picked up even more. So after a few more frames I got out of the water and was elated at the success of my Hail Mary. 

I don't normally get this many good shots when the conditions are good, so getting this many good shots on a day with such challenging conditions, made the whole weekend worth while.