Australian pro surfer Mikey Wright has saved a woman who was being swept away by rough waves and strong currents in Hawaii.

Wright was relaxing on the foreshore when he spotted the woman struggling in the surf, and he did not hesitate to help her.

He jumped a fence and dived into the ocean, where sharp rocks posed a threat as well as the current.

The heroic scene was captured on camera and uploaded to Instagram by Wright, who uploaded it with the caption: 'Hold my beer'.

"As soon as I had a hold of her I just said hey, we're going to be ok. We're going to get in," Wright told BBC of the rescue.

Wright guided the woman to shore but in shallow waters a double set of large waves came crashing into them.

"I picked her up and kind of just jumped into the wave, copping the hit on my back," he said.

"We got pushed down into the rocks a bit. She'd already got scratches all down her body. And I got some down my back and across my arms.

"But in the situation we were in, russia we both got out pretty unscathed."

Wright said the woman's son came running down the beach, hugged him and thanked him for saving his mum.

The surfing community hailed Wright's heroism on Instagram.

"Who needs a cape when you have a mullet," former Aussie pro Jessi Miley-Dyer commented.