It was morning and Dan and I were going through our normal routines, I was having breakfast and Dan was walking around our house packing up a few of his things as we were getting ready to leave Hawaii in a few hours. The entire house just started shaking like crazy and both of us froze in our motions and stared at each other with a look of "what is happening right now and what do we do".

Just like that it stopped and we asked each other "did we just experience an earthquake?!"

We looked online and it turns out we felt the outside radius effects of a 4.0 magnitude earthquake that was concentrated in the nearby suburb of Pahoa. After doing some more research, I then learnt just how common that is to happen on the Big Island. The earthquake we experienced happened at 9.28am and there had already been 8 other earthquakes on the island in just that one day. We were lucky that we were fine and nothing happened, but it was a strange experience and one that I hope I won't ever experience by chance again.

This was our last day on the Big Island, and in Hawaii in general, so we packed up all our things, said goodbye to our cabin and went to visit a black sand beach that was nearby where we were staying. We took some photos by the palm trees above and proceeded to head down the extremely rocky and rocky terrain to the beach. Flip flops were a bad idea haha.

When we arrived at the beach, I couldn't believe my eyes - it was incredible. The waves were strong and crashing down on the lava rocks, the sand was jet black and the most wonderful thing I've seen. The water must have been clear, but because of the black sand, it was a brilliant shade of deep, vibrant blue. It was mesmerising. The locals were swimming nude and I couldn't keep my eyes off their heads bopping in and out of the water in the mass of this surreal landscape. We took some photos and retired on a rock to just watch the world around us. I think we must have spent at least an hour just watching the waves crash against the shore and just taking in the beauty that is Hawaii in one last time before we left.

I also have some exciting news because I've started sharing more fashion shoot behind the scenes videos + Lightroom & Photoshop Tutorials on my YouTube Channel! Be sure to subscribe as I upload 2 new videos every week x

all photos edited with my San Francisco Lightroom Preset | black and white photos edited with my Charcoal Lightroom Preset