For those who have seen it on my SecretShire page you will know what happened over the weekend for those who don't follow me there please do.

So what happened?
Well water is a powerful thing and we have all seen that with the hurricane weather pattern that has been in the news.

I'm building you up aren't I!!

I lost close to $5,000 worth of gear to the ocean, I went down to a favourite spot knowing the seas were going to be big and that I wanted to capture them.
I put gear down where I thought it was safe about 20-25 meters behind me where there was no sign of water on the rocks.
I edged myself closer to the water to capture some bigger waves as they crashed onto the shoreline about 5 meters or so below me.
That term rogue wave comes to mind because as I shot this image and watched is crash I turned and ran but not too quickly. The wave crashed and I got drenched up to my waist and thought oh well i can deal with that but the water kept going past me.
As I looked up and saw my gear with a small wall of water running toward it I panicked and ran as quick as I could to grab it. This all happened in slow motion as any knows who's had an experience like this, as I reached out to grab it but was nowhere near close enough I then thought what about me (not the song) but oh no I could go with it.

So a hard lesson to learn that's for sure, especially knowing that I changed my habits of working by the waters edge on that morning. My waist bag is usually around my waist, I rarely if ever take my tripod bag and my long lens I had with me would normally be over my shoulder.

As everyone who knows has said and I agree with, I am here to tell this tail which is the most important thing as well as having the photos to show for it as I still have the camera and the lens that was on it.

Thanks
Matthew...