Heavy freezing spray warnings come up in marine weather forecasts when the weatherman predicts the spray from waves will be freezing on boats at sea. Well, boats weren’t the only things encountering heavy freezing spray today on Cook Inlet in South central Alaska.
Mike McCune and Gart Curtis were surfing a heavy shore break near the village of Ninilchik in what the weatherman would certainly qualify as heavy freezing spray conditions. I haven’t edited the photos yet, but couldn’t wait to share this single shot of Mike surfing a vengeful looking wave with chunks of ice strewn across a frozen beach in the foreground. It looks like he’s really close to the beach. And that’s because he is, honestly my heart skipped a beat a few seconds afer this shot when the wave swallowed him as it crushed onto the steep ice covered incline of the beach.
Air temps were just below 10ºF. Winds were around 10-20mph and snow was blowing in all direction. More shots to come. In the meantime, if you want more, visit SurfAlaska.net for more alaska surfing photos.
Comments
14 responses to “Surfing a winter blizzard in Cook Inlet, Alaska”
Are you kidding me? That is insane!
So how do you protect your camera when the temps drop that low?
Love your work. Great stuff!
I’ll agree with you Jeremy. It certainly was a bit borderline feeling out today. It’s 11:40pm now and the storm is still raging pretty good, I’m just back home from pulling a friend out of the ditch . . .
Protecting the camera? no protection actually. I was shooting with a Canon 5DmII and the 24-70 2.8L for the day and didn’t actually even cary my camera bag or anything with my out of the car. I’ve always been impressed with what the DSLRs can handle for moisture. The two challenges today were blowing snow packing into the viewfinder (wind was at my back mostly) and when I got in the car for a couple minutes between surf spots the lens fogged up momentarily. Oh and actually when I first got out of the car there was some condensation/fog on the inside of the front element of the lens. That took about 5 minutes to dry off. Running the zoom back and forth to move air in and out of the lens seems to help dry out the air inside the lens. The battery had no problem shooting about 10GB of photos and a little video. It never even dropped off full actually.
There’s a rambling answer for you. Hope it helps. Thanks for the kind words.
Scott, Beautiful photography! Hello, I was introduced to your website on Facebook by your friend and mine, Randy. He has told me of many wonderful surfing up there in the subzero temp! I am not a surfer but have a recent passion for photography. I’d love to see more of your fabulous work near the future! Keep up the great work!
Hi Kana – Thanks for the note. I was just out surfing with Randy tonight!
You guys are nuts!
sick!
Thanks for the reply. That is good to hear. I hear horror stories now and then about what extreme temps and weather can do to a camera and lens and what you described is about as extreme as it gets.
Take care!
Hello, I had the pleasure of meeting “Iceman” and another Alaskan surfer while surfing an isolated pointbreak near my home in Mainland Mexico. It is humbling for me to look at your GREAT pics of surfing Alaska, ( I think water temp below 72 degrees is cold!) Keep the Stoke…
FARMER
Hi Farmer,
Thanks for the note. I’ll try to remember to tell Iceman you stopped by online. Thanks for the kind words.
Awesome
KKKKKKKKKrist it’s KKKKKKKKKold looking……..I hope you learn to rip cause just pussy surfing crazy conditions seems like the most ridiculious sessions of all time.
Geez Mike, ……Unbelievable!
Fantastic surf pics, I had to go put on an extra jumper just to view them. Great set of Images, reminded me of my favourite book The dogs of winter by Ken Numm.
This has got to be the height of insanity, the greatest of stupidity, & a definite disregard for human life. I wonder if anyone suffered from pneumonia, later. (I’m sure “brain dead” would be a terrific description).