This is Jake Marote and his pet goat Billy.

Billy is a baby.

They go everywhere together.

Jake is a local boy from Big Island. He lives on Oahu now and spends his free time adventuring and photographing the island. You can follow him on Instagram @jake_of_all_trades to check out his adventures.

Jake grew up surfing on Big Island and has lately been working on his surf photography.

He’s been shooting with Zak Noyle (staff photographer for SURFER Magazine and RVCA advocate) and is developing a tuned eye for shooting people in the barrel.

He shoots mostly with a GoPro and iPhone (in a Watershot housing), which just goes to show, it’s not about how expensive your gear is. If you are in the right place and right time, any camera can take a good photo.

Case in point.

Jake also fishes.

And, he bow hunts.

And that’s how he came to own a pet baby goat. He found this little guy while on a hunt. Yes, for goats. And yes, Jake realizes the irony.

But the mother had abandoned the baby and Jake decided to take it home and take care of it. The umbilical cord was still attached. The baby was a male and male goats are called billies so Jake name him Billy. (Females goats are called nannies.)

I met Jake through Instagram. Some of Jake’s friends had taken Billy for a hike up Koko Head and I ran into them. I took this photo and posted it to Instagram. A couple weeks later someone tagged Jake in my photo and that’s when I found out who the owner was.

I figured it would be fun to meet the goat and take photos of him. What resulted was a day of cute overload. Here, Billy is chewing on a dried up orange peel.

I went to meet up with Jake out a the Halona Blowhole Lookout. I figured it would be fun to take little Billy on a hike up to the Koko Crater Arch.

When Jake arrived the first thing he wanted to do was feed Billy. He found a farm supply store that sells goat milk formula and that’s what Billy has been living off of. That and orange peels.

When Billy saw the bottle he attacked it. I’ve never seen a goat drink milk so voraciously. I have also never seen a goat drink milk before this day.

He splattered milk all over his face and we were all like “awwwwwww.”

Then Billy went back to the orange peel.

Once we got over to the trail, Jake took off Billy’s leash and the goat just followed him around. Apparently goats are very loyal.

This goat is freakin’ cute dude.

It looks pretty soft here but he’s all fur and bones.

But his little chin is pretty soft. It’s hard to see because they are so small but his tiny baby goat horns are just starting to come out. You can feel them when you rub his head.

Billy is not trying to go for a kiss here, he’s trying to eat Christina’s hair.

Hello.

At one point, Jake left Billy with me and Christina and went to take this photo. With Jake gone, Billy started to cry and cry. It was cute for a minute but then it got annoying so I stuck my finger in his mouth.

He likes sucking and gnawing on fingers. It totally shut him up.

When Jake came back, Billy was all happy and stuff.

Billy is one of those goats who knows he’s cute.

Look at those tiny little hoofs.

We stayed up at the arch for an hour or so talking story and getting to know Jake. When we got down we walked off dramatically towards the horizon.

Bye Billy. I miss you.

See also:

• If you want to see two examples of Instagrammers who totally epitomize the outdoor Hawaii lifestyle, check out Jake (@jake_of_all_trades) and his adventure buddy Shaun (@2scoopsofaloha).
• If you want to see more photos of Billy, check out the tag #billybaahba on Instagram.
• See the Koko Crater Arch hike.

I’ve posted about the cliffs on this side of the island before in a post called “Oahu’s Unreal Coastline.” On this day’s outing, we went to check out another section of the coastline. The cliffs are easy to access as they are just a 40 minute hike away from a major road.

The strong wind and constant waves have created a landscape full of beautiful textures.

One of the highlights of the area is this little rock bridge.

This wind eroded rock is another highlight.

We walked around and explored the coastline.

WARNING: Please note that it is extremely dangerous to stand on rocks along any coastline in Hawaii. Rogue waves can crash on the shore and sweep you away. Do not attempt what you see in the photos on this website.

This section of the coast formed a bowl. The water would rush in sideways, swirl around and suck out exposing the rock and coral.

To the right in this photo, you can see a small cove.

These little guys were all over the place. They are hard to the touch.

I haven’t heard and couldn’t find any background information on this rock bridge. It appears to have been formed by erosion.

There’s a big crack in the middle of it so I would not recommend standing on it. If you do, you are doing so at your own risk. So, please do not stand on it.

If the bridge were to collapse, you would fall into this swirling death hole.

Of course, some are willing to test their luck.

After we finished checking out the bridge we walked along the cliffs a bit more.

The wind shaped ridges make some excellent benches so we sat for a while and had some snacks.

While we were walking back to the trail a truck had appeared on the cliffs.

We headed back to the car and called it a day. But I would return about a week later to take some more photos.

On my second outing to the rock bridge and cliffs I invited some Hawaii photographer friends. I wanted to come back and get some different shots of the rock bridge and I figured it would be fun to go with a small group.

Partly cloudy seems to be the best lighting conditions for this area.

As we hiked in I noticed there were little pukas (“puka” means “hole”) in the rock.

These guys are John Hook and Zak Noyle. If you haven’t already heard of him, Zak is a Hawaii born professional surf photographer. He currently works as a staff photographer for Surfer Magazine. If you’ve seen his profile video by Red Bull, you probably know this guy has a pretty fun job. John is taking portrait shots of Zak for his sponsorship profile.

As Zak was standing on the bridge (which I do not recommend you do), a huge wave hit the rocks and splashed all over him. The waves were much bigger on this day. Tom (myspacetom) was snapping away and got this crazy photo.

John decided to face the waves head on and take photos of them.

The reason I wanted to come back to these cliffs was to get this photo. I screwed on a neutral density filter to my lens and took some daytime long exposure photos.

The waves end up looking like clouds.

We then walked further down the coastline to check out the cliffs.

These cliffs were also majestic.

Each one of these naturally formed pedestals was screaming to be yoga-posed on.

Waves splashed up on the cliffs and as they drained, formed some nice textures.

One of the many nice things about adventuring with photographers is that you get to borrow their lenses. Dallas Nagata White let me borrow a telephoto lens to get this shot.

Then she walked to the edge of the cliff to pose for me and Tom.

We should have been concerned but Dallas looked pretty comfortable up there.

John ended up pretty close to the edge as well.

Walking back we passed through this field of trees. The white bark stood starkly against the lush green grass.

Check out the work of my companions on this day (all of whom are Hawaii photographers):

• Dallas Nagata White – www.dallasnagatawhite.com
• John Hook – www.johnhookphoto.com / handsomeunicorn.tumblr.com
• Jonas Maon – www.jonasmaon.com
• Samantha Hook – instagram.com/sticksxstonesjewelry
• Tom Anderson – instagram.com/myspacetom
• Zak Noyle – www.zaknoyle.com

See also:
I have two other stories that feature this strip of Oahu coastline.

• Oahu’s Unreal Coastline
• Hidden Cove

WARNING: Please note that it is extremely dangerous to stand on rocks along any coastline in Hawaii. Rogue waves can crash on the shore and sweep you away. Do not attempt what you see in the photos on this website.

A few weeks ago, I went on a trip to Big Island with a group of Hawaii photographers.

One of the photographers in our group, Dallas Nagata White, organized a private tour for us from the good folks at Kalapana Cultural Tours.

For the last couple months on the Big Island of Hawaii, the lava has been flowing into the ocean providing some unreal views.

This was the second day of our short trip to Big Island. On the first, we spent the night before braving freezing cold temperatures some 10,000 feet above sea level stargazing on Mauna Kea. On this evening we would be standing next to scorching hot Hawaii lava trying to keep our shoes from melting.

There are very few places on Earth where you can see lava in person. And even fewer where you can walk right up to it. Kalapana on the Big Island of Hawaii is the safest and easiest to access of these locations.

Remember though that no one is entitled to see lava when they come here. The location of the lava flow and amount of visible lava changes daily. If you do get to see flowing lava, you should consider yourself pretty lucky. You can however get an idea of how much lava there is by checking out the Hawaii lava status report on the Kalapana Cultural Tours Blog.

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We had some incredible surf conditions at Pipeline last month.

The waves were enormous and barreling.

The surf was extremely treacherous though. Some sets that came in were unsurfable.

But when it was good, it was really good.

Pipeline is known as the best wave in world because of the perfect shape of it’s barrels and the danger involved in surfing here. The water is shallow and if you take a bad fall you can easily get slammed into the reef.

For spectators (like myself), it’s one of the best surf breaks because the waves break so close to the shore. You can see the action without needing binoculars and you can feel the power of the waves as they pound the coastline. Not only that, but Pipeline is easy to get to. It’s located at a Ehukai Beach Park on Oahu’s North Shore.

I drove up to the North Shore on Friday, December 28 and Sunday, December 30 to watch waves. I spent several hours watching surfers get barreled in the monster surf. This post contains the best photos I got over those two days. It was quite a show. A real “only in Hawaii” experience.

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Haleakala Crater is a special place on Maui.

It’s at the top of the huge (and probably dormant) volcano that makes up the entire east side of Maui.

They say it feels like you’re on Mars up here.

I think there’s some truth to that.

The last time I went to Maui, I went hunting for waterfalls. On this trip my main interest was Haleakala. I’ve seen countless pictures of this place but the view of inside the crater in person is totally different.

It takes some time to drive up to Haleakala. 1 to 2 hours depending on where you’re coming from. But, in my opinion, to spend just a few hours at the top is worth the drive. We picked up some snacks and water and drove up in the afternoon. The plan was to stay until sunset.

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There are no doors on this helicopter.

Without doors your views of the island are unobstructed.

Photos come out crystal clear as you’re not shooting through a window.

What a way to see the island.

I recently took a helicopter tour of Oahu on Genesis Aviation. I didn’t know doors off helicopter tours existed until a couple months ago. That’s when I was chatting with a friend of mine who works as a concierge in Waikiki. He said it’s one of their most popular tours. He offered to set me up with a tour and a couple weeks ago we got to go.

This was my second time on a helicopter tour of Oahu. The first time was a few years back and before I had taken up photography as a hobby and started this blog. It was super fun but this time was way different. This time I had a DSLR and a very nice lens I rented from Hawaii Photo Rental. (I was shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II lens.) From the moment we took off I was snapping pics nonstop.

This tour is a photographer’s dream. But even if you’re not snapping photos, I have to imagine it’s still exhilarating.

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