This is an image of Will Skudin from Hurricane Earl in 2009. This photo was taken about .5 miles off the coast of Rhode Island just as the storm was making landfall. Without being present it’s nearly impossible to explain the conditions properly. Winds were blowing 45+ mph, pouring rain, large swells and chop, and absolutely no contact with anyone on land. No one even knew we were out there. At moments of heavy rain you couldn’t see land and as far as we knew, this wave hadn’t ever been surfed. I remember sitting on the jet ski trying to shoot photos when out of the corner of my eye I saw a large mass emerge from the water and I yelled “Whale!” but no one else had seen it. A few minutes later the mass emerged again and I saw that it wasn’t a whale…it was exposed reef about 20 yards from us on the ski. That means it was so shallow at that spot that the reef was exposed as the water drew off the reef to the waves. We had no idea what properties this wave had or what the shape of the reef was. Incredibly sketchy. They ran some of my photos and some video we took on the weather channel and other news stations in the following days.