Wet Pirate

We did it!  We finally filmed the scene we have been waiting for!  (see picture -- that's all water crashing behind me, not clouds) We spent this month in Hawaii filming life in the tide pools, along with several pirate scenes for our upcoming underwater video.  We wanted to film a scene of the pirate at a place called The End of The World, which is the site of one of the last Hawaiian battles on the Big Island.  It is a barren field of jagged, black lava rock riddled with the tombs of fallen warriors.  And to make it an even more dramatic location, the ocean here loves to put on a humbling display of power and fury.  During a big swell, when the surf is at its biggest, huge waves will explode against the lava rocks, sending walls of water 40 feet into the air.  The waves are amazing.

When we first arrived at the island, our friend Bryce Groark took us to The End of The World, and it was amazing.  The waves were huge.  So we figured we could go film the pirate there any time.  But then the water became more calm, and stayed pretty calm for a month.

During the last week of filming, the surf report finally said that a big swell was coming in.  So we went out to the site, and the waves were huge again!  I stood as the pirate, waiting for the waves to crash behind me.  Laura filmed, ran around taking photographs and spent a lot of time trying to protect the camera gear from getting too wet.  But finally, while she was filming, a beautiful rainbow appeared like it was pouring down on me.

It was great.  There were some tourists nearby, who were a bit confused why there was a pirate there in the first place.  You can see a video clip of this during the pirate song on our web site, under The Riddle in a Bottle movie. -- Robert Sams