The time frame in question doesn't seem that big. There were probably not that much large breakers and the they both chose the peak of one with the best conditions. So maybe a 1:100 to 1:10.000 chance. I'm more amazed, that they went down the whole photoshop route before comparing angles. If someone had that kind of skill in retouching, he wouldn't need to copy photos to make a living.

The foreground wave is definitely from a noticably different angle, but still the same scene, even the white caps in the far background look very different. You don't need a high res image for that, only, when cropped to the lighthouse only.