Capturing the Moment

  The biggest swell of the winter has been pounding our north facing shores in Hawaii for the past two days. High winds yesterday made the surfing here in Oahu basically unsurfable, although I did get some reports that Jaws (Peahi) on Maui was going off. Seems like Laird Hamilton was back in action being towed into some giant waves at Jaws. The word is that he was being filmed as part of a movie in production...Point Break 2!   Heidi and I tried to drive to the North Shore yesterday afternoon but the the entire island must have had the same idea. The traffic was so slow that we couldn't make it to Waimea before sunset. Not to lose hope I woke up at 5am this morning and drove back to the North Shore to bring in the dawn with massive waves at Waimea Bay. I had my camera, tripod, and a mug of coffee on a nice cliff spot overlooking the surf. Who said four is a crowd? The church overlooking Waimea Dream Waves   The winds had died down a lot since the day b...

Me grabbing the rail at Honolua Some surfer getting shacked   What a way to ring in the new year! A week on Maui with old friends, borrowed camping gear, and a good winter swell brought out many smiles. We made sure to get in a couple of whale watches complete with muggings and breaches, and even managed a few dives at some of our favorite spots. Nate breaking the mystique Cutting hard at Honolua   There are a few spots on the island with big firework shows for new years eve but the real scene is in the local neighborhoods. Fireworks sell like crazy leading up to new years and it shows with explosions heard from noon onwards. I even heard a few the next morning. I checked a few times to see if Nate's car was on fire because of all the smoke. And despite her best efforts to fall asleep I still kissed Heidi at midnight thanks to some unbelievable explosions from the neighbors. Whale tails everywhere! Adult breaching Baby attempt   It was a n...

  After just returning home to Oahu after a wonderful surf adventure abroad I was amped to see some big waves in my backyard. Luck so happens the swell has been lighting up the North Shore here in Hawaii so after a relaxing morning on the south side Heidi and I jumped in the car and headed North.   We could tell the waves were big well before we got to Haleiwa. But when we got to the shore there were no surfers anywhere. Haleiwa, Pauena Point, Lanis, Pipe....nobody. We had seen a few big wave charges as we drove past Waimea Bay so we stopped back by after Pipe. Surfers had their big guns out for some huge sets that rolled through, and it only seemed to be getting bigger. I was impressed as a couple of women paddled out as well. Always good to see. As I snapped a couple of pictures I noticed a couple of guys paddling much shorter boards over towards the shorebreak. It turns out this was Kalani Chapman and Jamie O'Brien. From here on Jamie O'Brien stole the show. His b...

Titan Scorpionfish There are a lot of dive options here in Maui. We have easy beach entry dives, rough sea north shore dives, offshore pinnacles, shipwrecks, and a few caves and caverns as well. Many of these dives are hard to reach unless you go by boat, and then sea conditions along the North and East side of the island rarely permit good conditions. So I do most of my diving on the South and West sides. But every once in a while I make it off for some really adventurous dive like this one. Along the rugged recent lava flows along the south east shore of the island there is one dive that I have heard about since I moved out here at a place called Nu'u Bay. It is very far from anywhere, about halfway from Hana to Kula along the portion of the Hana Highway that goes past Hana and Seven Sacred Pools. The fastest way to get there is to travel up the volcano about 4,000ft to Kula and take the back road to Hana. Once it reaches sea level it's just a few more miles before re...