The night shift II

I won't be showing too many more summit sunset pictures for a while I think and suspect that my blog might go into a relatively quiet period for a couple of months. I'm not scheduled for the night shift again until the end of January and I'm taking a bit of leave during January as well - it's been almost a year since I last took any significant time away from work and am really looking forward to it!

In the meantime I'm now moving to the day shift and will still be visiting Mauna Kea's summit once in a while with the engineers and technicians but I have to admit the opportunities to take pictures up there are a little more limited during the day, but I'll see what I can do!

In fact I was hoping to take a bunch of photos today showing the massive surf that was forecast to hit us late today, but when I went down to the nearby cliffs the ocean was like a mill pond. North Oahu is forecast to be hit by an unbelievably massive surf overnight and over the next couple of days. Wave heights of up to 50-feet are expected and some reports seem to indicate the surf may be as high as 60-feet in some sets. That's truly hard to imagine. I've seen 25 to 30-foot waves and that was one of the most awesome sights I have seen - I can't quite picture what waves double that height might look like. There will be surfers out in that ocean violence as well, but only the most experienced. It looks good for the Eddie Aikau Quicksilver surf contest tomorrow, the most prestigious one in the world which is only held when the surf gets this big!

Down here on the Big Island we get shielded from these massive north west swells by the other islands but the forecast is still calling for some truly large surf, even for the cliffs near me - perhaps up to 20-foot waves. I'll have another look tomorrow evening when I get back from work and if I don't check in you might want to call the US Coast Guard!