Capturing the Moment

   While the North Shore is flat calm and ripe for scuba diving, the South shoreline has all the waves for surfing. Waves churned up by winter storms thousands of miles away in the southern hemisphere make their way over the equator to land upon our shoreline here in Oahu.   I have been pleasantly surprised by the size of the swells this summer. While the forecasts call for 2ft surf there are head high waves with windless, glassy conditions. It makes me realize just how blocked Maui's southern shoreline is by Koho'olawe island nearby. It would take a really big swell to make Maui's best waves start to open up. And forget surfing in the middle of the day or the afternoon. The wind would fill in and make conditions very tough.   So I guess this means I better get these waves while I can. And while these swell was only a 2-3ft swell, I imagine at least one big one has yet to come. When it does I will be ready.    Heidi has been behind the lens fo...

Pete fighting the current The pancake cliffs     The winds were starting to kick up, throwing waves and spray onto our sturdy dive boat. I was out with Island Divers here on Oahu checking out a couple of offshore dive sites. After a successful exploration dive of a wreck called Big Barge (not even the instructor had been there before), we decided to fight the wind and head closer to the coast to dive a site called Sea Cave.     The water was again nice and clear, however the current was very strong. But we were planning a drift dive where we could go with the current and get picked up by the boat down the coast. Luckily the group was all advanced divers so we hit the water and immediately descended with no problems. We could see the opening to the sea cave above water but under water it was totally different. Pancaked rocks form a 60 foot deep cliff. At the very bottom of the cliff there was a wide opening which led into the sea cave. 75 feet into ...

  On a hunch I booked it down to Dumps yesterday after work just in case there were waves big enough to surf. Dumps is a beautiful wave with turquoise water that forms a steep left of shallow reef. It works on big south swells sent up from storms in the southern hemisphere so it is mainly a summer time wave. During the winter everyone flocks to the north shore to catch big waves sent down from big storms up near Japan and Alaska.   You can imagine my exuberance as I walked around the last corner of the path to Dumps just in time to see a set of three perfectly formed, head high lefts peeling into Dumps....and one guy out! I literally ran the rest of the way over the lava rocks to get to the entry before jumping in the water and furiously paddling out to the lineup. I couldn't believe my luck. The other surfer did say that was the biggest set he had seen yet, but luckily I was in for a lot of luck during this early south swell surf session!  Making friends in the lin...

Saddleback Butterfly Fish Hundreds of snorkelers kick over the coral reef at Five Graves, a.k.a. Turtle Town every day here in Maui. It is an amazing place to see turtles and lots of other popular reef fish. But almost none of these people will get a chance to see what is hiding down in the reef, camouflaging in, and lurking in the cracks and crevices. That was our mission as we donned scuba gear and headed in with my macro lens. And as always, Turtle Town did not disappoint. Longfin Anthias     Rare and timid Saddleback Butterflyfish perused the reef in tandem. They are one of the rarer butterflyfish species seen here in Maui and I had never been able to snap a good picture before as they are notoriously skittish. Moray eels stared out from cracks in the reef, baring their teeth and looking quite menacing. I have the utmost respect for their hunting abilities after watching a fish disappear before my eyes into a striking moray eel's mouth. Even so, I sometimes...

It has been a slow summer. So it has been until now that I have gotten out into some surf with my buddy's GoPro camera. It mounts on the front of the surfboard and has a super wide angle lens to capture a much larger area even at close range. Having the camera on the board also give you some idea of how big the wave is, although it can be misleading if I am the top of a wave vs at the bottom. The south swell was wrapping into the bay perfectly this morning. The wind was non-existent. And there were only a few other surfers out. A perfect combination.   The tide was low so I had to watch out for shallow coral when the waves would close out on me. I think I stayed in the waves a little longer than I normally would if I didn't have the camera attached. But if you don't have a pro photographer following you to each session the Go Pro can be a great addition. It also lets me critique my surfing style from an angle I have never seen before.