Catch a wave!

Can we just talk for a second about big-wave surfing?


Not that I got to see it. That whole "work" thingand all. But this past week we had 25-40' waves with the occasional 50-footer.



Fifty foot waves, people.

Think about trying to ride the face of a moving five-story building that is trying to crash down on you the entire time you are harnessing its raw power. I have some serious respect for these guys.


This does not happen every day. Or even every year. There is a surf competition, named in memory of surfer Eddie Aikau, that they can only put on when they have consistent 25'+ waves. The last one was 4 years ago. This is big stuff for surfers.



So we didn't see the 50' waves. Work, remember? But Tuesday night we decided that even if we couldn't see the big ones, we wanted to drive up to the North Shore and check out whatever break we could see in the dark. Besides, there would be less traffic and more parking.





So we did. The Good.Sport and I loaded the pooch into the car and headed up. To see anything, we had to leave the headlights on to shed some light on the waves...but something about the oppressive darkness just makes the waves sound so much...bigger. So much...more powerful.





I am in awe of what happens at the intersection of land and sea, always have been...and even though we didn't see the BIG ones, you could feel something special in the air. Something different. Something more exciting.





It was nearly impossible to take decent photos, what with the need for a slow shutter speed and the whole pesky "moving" aspect of the water, but here's one of The Good.Sport taking it all in.

I'm still glad we went up there. We missed the competition (and the injuries a coworker of mine observed), but we still got to be a part of it in the most indirect way you can possibly imagine.

I hope it happens again. On a Saturday.

:)