Beautiful Day in Hawaii ne…

Good morning 3am.
Ala Moana waist high and good.
Diamond Head shoulder high and bumpy.
Strong trade winds at 30mph.
Sun, showers, and rainbows.
Going to surf and fly.
Have a wonderful day!

i was expecting the waves to be much smaller than yesterday but when we got out and started to see things, the waves were shoulder high and perfect!  we had a dream session for 30 minutes and then the dream was over.  it got smaller but still perfect for this beautiful Saturday morning in Hawaii…

just a year ago, we were still practicing the very basic fundamentals of proper surfing.  now that the fundamentals are proper, things are speeding up quickly.  this is when you start to feel the stoke of being a real surfer!

now we practice the most important turn, which is the bottom turn.  the first bottom turn will dictate the flow for the rest of the wave.  some people overlook it but if you master a good bottom turn, everything will start to flow a lot better.

and when things start to flow a lot better, you start to look like a real surfer.  and this is the perfect example of that!

as we were paddling in, i was thinking about how to spend the rest of this beautiful day.  i was already completely satisfied and it was still only 7am.  pretty cool…

working as a professional surf photographer for many years has taught me one important thing, “moments like this are priceless…”   here we have Jeannie Chesser getting the frontal shot from me, and the backside shot from Neal Miyake swimming on the left side of this photo.  

i’m pretty sure Neal got the good shot!  and want to say thanks to Neal for his hard work and passion he has for photography.  it’s not an easy job watching your friends ride super good waves while running you over all day.  haha.  

this day when i saw Neal out shooting, i told myself “ok, i’m going to connect with him no matter what.”  that was my job for 25 years so i knew what i had to do.  so when the sun comes out, i take off, look at where he was positioned, then make sure i do the turn close to him in the perfect spot.  i keep my knees bent, arms out, and look forward.  so yeah, i was posing for this shot.  haha.   thank you Neal for capturing this moment!