There’s one major issue with getting an up close view of collapsing icebergs crashing into the sea off the coast of Greenland, and that’s keeping your pants dry when the angry wall of water that forms comes rushing toward you at high speeds. Jens Moller learned that lesson the hard way last week.

Moller held his camera steady on the iceberg after hearing it crack. The 23-year-old mechanical engineer was on board his uncle’s boat with an Australian tourist. Luckily, Moller’s uncle was wise enough to hit the accelerator and outrun the oncoming wall of whitewater before it rolled them…but it was close.

“I’ve never been this close to dying,” Moller said afterward.

Needless to say, we don’t recommend anyone try this, and Moller isn’t likely to again, but remarkably, he kept the camera directly on the subject even while his life was in danger, giving us the opportunity to grasp nature’s fury and his horror. Moller told CNN in a phone conversation that he wasn’t all that scared, because the wave didn’t look all that big in the viewfinder. Given that’s not the first time we’ve heard that explanation, perhaps those viewfinders should come with “Objects are bigger and closer than they appear” labels.

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