I rarely get out in the water when it is raining.  I also rarely get out in the water on my birthday.  I made a huge mistake last year where I looked outside, saw it was a gloomy rainy morning, and said Nah.  I am going to stay home.  The next day I saw what I missed, which was the one of the biggest swells to hit La Jolla Cove in a couple of decades.  

This year didn't have that kind of swell, but it did rain all morning long.  Not hard, but consistent.  I knew I wasn't going to get in water for a couple of weeks so I thought I would make the most of the situation. 

My buddy, photographer Jeff Vasko and I met and checked a couple of spots.  We settled on Marine St in La Jolla.  It is one of our favorite spots and we were the only ones out because of the rain.  I was playing with different shutter speeds, different zooms and mostly trying to catch water bouncing off the ocean...

Here is what I came away with:

These are some of my favorite types of shots.. I will tell you even though these are smaller waves, I take a bit of a beating gettng them...

Its always fun to play with shutter speeds...

The textues that the rains create on the water were awesome!

This was one of my favorite shots.  I was able to get the drop perfectly in focus!

My focus was on point on this wave.  I loved all the texture on this wave.

I know gloomy waves are not the as pretty to look at as waves with perfect sunshine, but it is always good to change things up..