I took 30 pictures at this spot, waiting for just the right wave to crash and roll onto the rocks. And 29 times I failed to capture the image I had in my head. I kept "chimping", hoping to see the right image and was luckily rewarded.

Catching a crashing wave or receding tide can be tricky. You need just the right shutter speed to capture the movement, but not make it overly blurry or overly crisp. Like the story of the three bears, it needs to be just right. In this case, just right was 1/4 sec. I tried other shots a little longer and a little shorter, experimenting and seeing how the scene changed but no other shutter speeds felt as right as this one.

Other technical specs:
f/9
ISO-400
Focal point was right about where the waves first hit the rocks, ~15 ft out.
Took it at 10mm with my Sigma 10-20mm, but ended up cropping the result because there was a distracting cloud at the very top edge.