Capturing the Moment

  The Safari Explorer in the background with waves crashing artistically in the foreground. I took this picture from our small skiff that I was driving with our guests. Maybe I can blame El Nino for the unusual weather patterns out here in the Hawaiian Islands recently. But whatever it has been, 'unusual', is an understatement. I've been running expeditions from a small cruise ship around the islands for the past three weeks, and we have had big waves and winds the entire time. While that isn't in itself unusual, the directions the wind and waves have been coming from is highly unusual. The winds usually come from the Northeast so consistently that they are dubbed the 'trade winds.' Early traders used to rely on them to sail their merchant ships out to Hawaii. Then they would travel farther north to catch the 'westerlies' and ride them back to San Francisco area. The trade winds have been no where to be seen, so instead our usual calm protected western s...

  As I looked at the waves crashing along the scenic coastline of Lana'i, I hoped that my guests this week would be up for a bit of an extreme kayak. They bucked up to the challenge and we got some great pictures because of it. We dropped off our kayak group at a place called Armchair, right where the cliffs of the south side of Lana'i start to get very vertical and high. At some time prehistory a large part of the island landslided off into the deep channel leaving behind these awe-inspiring sea cliffs.    Waves would crash over rocks as we weaved in and around. The conditions were just right for the blowhole to fire off once every few minutes. It even casts a rainbow over the kayaks several times. One team paddled so close to it I thought their stern was going to actually go inside the lava tube...luckily they didn't and they just got splashed instead of flipped.   In the end it was a wonderful kayak on a beautiful day alongside an island that not many peop...

  Exploring new beaches for shells and sea glass led Heidi and me to some beautiful sights. The long stretch of sandy beach on the north shore where you will find the Bonzai Pipeline and Sunset surf breaks starts just after the ancient lava flow of Pupukea. In this corner of the beach where sand meets rock I have seen lots of shells and sea glass in the past. But the size of the waves aren't the only thing that changes along our north shore during the winter. An extra foot of sand now covered the shells and sea glass. I knew the sandbars off shore shift during the seasons but I was amazed to see the amount of change along this beach. While it didn't turn out to be good for sea shells, the new angle of the beach cause waves to rise up steeply before crashing onto the shore. I took a few pictures to try and capture the moment right before the waves toppled over. Whenever I caught it just right it was like an aquamarine window to the ocean beneath the wave. Heidi still ended...

East coast surf! Excitedly running to the surf in New Hampshire   A day after flying from Savannah to Vermont Heidi had planned a quick road trip out to the New Hampshire coast to see some friends and possibly score some surfable waves. We had driven down to the N.H. coast before and scored some pretty big waves as Hurricane Irene blew through so I was looking forward to going back.   It's always nice to see a big surf scene in other places and all of our friends here in Rye, N.H. are focused around the pulsing New Hampshire surf scene. Ryan and Tyler actually own the coolest surf shop on the strip called Summer Sessions. I am always impressed by how busy the shop is with surf camps, shoppers, phones ringing off the hook, and ladies only surf groups, but this time it was even more impressive. Ryan and Tyler have expanded with a surfing apparel shop in Portsmouth and a Juice Shack up the road. Even more daunting is the fact they currently employ around 50 employees...

  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...

Frigates Passage, Fiji View from the boat Long walls at Frigates    The big reason for coming to Waidroka, on the south east corner of the main Fijian island of Viti Levu, was to surf a wave way out at sea called Frigates. Frigates is a reef passage that picks up way more swell than any of the local breaks. It takes about an hour to drive out there by boat but it is usually worth the extra effort. We spent the last two days exploring Frigates above and below the waves, and sometimes right through them! Just under the surface- Frigates Checking out the wall at Frigates Twilight Cavern   The reason that Frigates has such massive waves is because the force of those waves from the south are totally unobstructed until they smash upon a huge wall rising from the depths here. Our mission today was to explore that wall. What we found is that instead of being a solid wall, it is pocked with deep canyons, swim throughs, and caverns. Light filters down thro...