Kazuma standup test + forecast

A few days ago I committed with the owner of the shop I work for to test his new Kazuma SUP board, since he wanted to order a few for the shop and wanted to know my opinion.


Finally I managed to go to the south shore and catch a few waves at Woody's with it. The board is 8.8 and 30 inches wide and it's quite easy for its size. The four fins give a nice grip in either steep sections or in the white water. It clearly doesn't glide much (too short and wide), but once on the wave it turns really nice. In other words, not quite a beginner board, but for sure a easy one for advanced not too heavy surfers.
Then I jumped on another Kazuma 9.2 by 27.5 inches wide and thinner rails. I liked it even better. On the wave it almost felt like a regular longboard... "well, at that point why not a regular longboard", a collegue commented. 'Zactly. For me SUP boards are too big and thanks to the stretching and yoga I've been doing, my back lately is allowing me to do plenty of regular surfing, so no need to give it a break with SUP...

What I now need (and I know I'm not alone) is a break from windsurfing! It's been windy and wavy for many days and it looks like there's no change in sight.
Actually the forecast looks really bad to me (depending on what you like, of course). A strong high pressure will setup north of the islands and the trades will be blowing hard. I don't see any major NW ground swell. Some wave models predict a big N swell on Thursday, but from the weather maps I check, I honestly can't see anything other than big windswell. Might get rainy too.

Not complaining, just informing. For sure it's going to be wavesailable. Seen the amount of pros at Hoo (the level in the water is unreal), I might need to give Uppers a try...

See ya!

wednesday 11 4

This day I only sat a few minutes trying to shoot from a different angle. I don't have a favorite shot, so here they are in chronological order.

Nico at the bottom.


Nico at the top.


Browzinho.


Josh Stone at the bottom.


Josh Stone at the top.


Israeli guy at the bottom.


Israeli guy at the top.


Camille at the bottom.


Camille at the top.


This one was buried in the internal memory of my camera.
May 19 2007, 6.03pm. Naples, Italy.


What a scare yesterday.
I was testing a non-dacron sail and forgot how those battens pop when the wind hits it from the other side. For some reasons, the way I tack I get three bangs: bang-bang-bang! Not used to such "rudeness" I fucked up the first few tacks and on one - I don't know what I hit - but I did hit something hard with the arch of my right foot. Quite painful, but nothing broken, I kept sailing on a slight pain for two hours.
Yesterday night though, the arch was swelling and very painful. I put lots of ice and this morning it's a lot better. Had to give up a morning surf sesh (there's waves on the south shore), but hopefully I'll be able to sail this afternoon.
There's still some fun waves to be ridden and tomorrow there will be a new NNW swell. 8 to 12 feet faces, uncle Pat says... and in uncle Pat we trust!

Fantastic long lasting wave sailing stretch indeed.

Great november start for this blog (1,265 unique readers on Tuesday!).


Thanks to all the readers for tuning in. Here are the advertising rates for a banner:
$50/month, or $45/month if you order 3 to 5 months upfront, or $40/month if you order 6 months or more upfront.

Oh, unfortunately I'm about to give up with the Hookipa Rockstar Contest. Even though I think it's a fun idea, the execution is almost impossible. I can't keep track of all the people that go on the rocks and the self claiming system is not working.
It would be nice to have a blackboard by the lifeguard tower on which the rockstar could write his/her name, but that is definitely not doable.
Maybe I could "hire" rockstar spotters and rely on their feedbacks...
Anyone has better suggestions?

awesome monday (and tuesday)

I'm running out of titles here...

You guys lucky. It's wednesday morning and once again I'm beat up from too much awesome sailing yesterday and I don't feel like going surfing. And even though I got a thousand projects, I'm going to delay them again and post the photos from Monday. Blogging, what an addiction... well, at least it looks like you guys are enjoying. Thanks for all the compliments in the comments and at the beach.

Let's start the show. Well, guess who gets the photo of the day? The usual Levi... (Mark will be stoked to be in the background!).


And now the rest of the bunch.
Mark Angulo.


Levi.


Mark in one of his crazy rotation. He's completely mad.


Levi.


Mark. Perfect wave 360 UNDER the lip.


Nice one, Anatol.


KP.


Levi. Love the simmetry in this shot: the photographer on the right is Jace Panebianco shooting for The Windsurfing Movie 2 and the one on the left is Erik Eader.


Kai K.


Browsinho, king of the goiter.


Browsinho.


Always happy, always smiling, always positive energy... and ripping hard! Nayra Alonso, what a girl!


Keith. Nice shorts, brah!


Get out of there, Nayra!


My client Lucas continues to score good shots. Is this the start of a professional photographer carrier for me? Nah, it's just one of the many ways I find to get a little extra cash (in a fun way) so that I can have even more time to play! Wonna have a (cheap!) photoshoot in Maui? The email is on the right...


Browsinho.


Kai Lenny.


Glenn finds a ramp.


Philippe too.


Quatro's shaper and top team rider together.


Browsinho.


My sessions report.
Monday wasn't good for me. In the morning I was testing a new board and struggled to tune in. In the evening I was just too tired and decided to cut it short and go for a beer.
Tuesday instead... did I say in the last post that Kanaha was now too soft of a wave for me? I take that immediately back. Classic Lowers winter conditions. Super fun mushy rollers to play with. It feels so good to go all the way up there on logo/mast high waves and hit the crumbling lip without any fear at all...
What a difference in steepness and power compared to Hookipa, where I'm quite nervous even if it's just head high.
I caught a wave around 6.10 and did three turns so good that I felt like Francisco Goya. Even though there was probably light for a couple of more waves, I decided that that was a feeling good enough to sail back in... good idea! Imagine if I caught those two more waves and did some typical GP's fuck-ups instead...

Forecast.
All of a sudden, the forecast looks great for the whole week. Here's the summary of the NOAA forecast: Outlook through Monday Nov 9: rough surf along north and exposed east facing shores will decline late tonight and Wednesday as the short period north swell subsides. A new north northwest swell will build on Wednesday, producing surf near the 15 foot advisory level along north facing shores Wednesday night and Thursday. Another north northwest swell will maintain moderate surf through Saturday, with a decline on Sunday and Monday. A small south swell is possible Thursday through the weekend.
Plenty trades too. If September was great and October sucked (for windsurfing, I mean), November sure had a good start...
I'm going to add that if you are in Baja, in a few days there will be a major NW swell... check out that fetch!


My car needed new backdoor support lifts. At the shop they were $110 each! A friend (thanks Frank!) pointed me to an online shop that had them for $25 each, new. How's that possible? Anyway, they just arrived and I will finally go back to using my plyers for more proper purposes... life gets better and better!


Almost forgot. Jammin Jones sends the link to his Paia Halloween photo album. Who's number 9?? And more importantly, where was I???!!

Awesome sunday

What a couple of gorgeous days we had here in Maui: big waves, wind and sun!

Sunday Hookipa was a great show with sets over mast high, very difficult conditions with a strong current that created big chops on the wave face. Nonetheless, a bunch a very good sailors were out there ripping it up.

Different sailors may excel in specific categories. For example Keith is the one that goes more vertical, Browsinho is incredibly consistent in sticking goiters, Mark Angulo is the craziest and so on... but if you ask any Hookipa sailor who they think the best is, I bet you will only hear one name: Levi Siver.
He sailed divinely and deserved the photo of the day.


Another good shot: Browsinho bottom turning on a monster.


From now on, chronological order.
After an early morning Kanaha session together, Nico called me to tell me that Hookipa was sailable and there were people out. He added:"there's also some good looking girls on the cliff. Take care of that..."


Done.


Levi.


Andres.


Levi.


Kai K.


Luke, just before...


...he went on the rocks.


Soon to be followed by Mr. Diffin.


And by Polo, also known as the argentinian Ligabue.


Levi.


I was shooting Lucas again. I think he's going to be happy about the return of his investment.


Not too bad for being his first time in Maui...


I'm sure this guy has some very good reason to protect his skin from the sun. Please believe me that I don't mean to make fun of him at all.
I just hope he has a good sense of humor when I say that every time I see him, I can't help myself but thinking of the sperms in "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask" ...


Here, 10 very fun minutes. Woody Allen: what a genius! Roll out the tongue!


Where were we? Camille.


Camille.


Jesse Brown.


Levi.


Levi.


Levi.


Jason.


Francisco Porcella had a slow start. My guess was Halloween hangover. But then he recovered...


Levi.


Levi.


And then he went over to Lanes to catch a couple of lefts...


... and practice that upwind taka thing.


Francisco P.


Kai K.


I also took a shitty short video.


My session report.
Yoga in the morning was great. 11 o'clock session at Kanaha was good only in the first half hour. Then it got choppy and crowded. Photoshoot session at Hookipa was awesome. Sunset session at Kanaha was good (even though not epic... is it that I need a more powerful wave now? Nah, it just wasn't epic...).
To top it off, I had dinner in front of Juventus - Napoli.
Here's how it went in the colorful comment of a very impartial napolitan commentator...


Yes, it was an awesome sunday indeed.

PS. I got plenty shots from today (Monday) too, but I feel like I need a break from blogging. See you guys in a few.

PPS. Sharon got some great photos too.

no yelling, but still great

I'm talking about Saturday, but it's actually my fault.
I knew the first sets of the new swell would have shown up at sunset and I should have chosen a different spot more down the coast. Instead, where I went out most sets were closing out and I had to kick out most of the times... no complains, still beautiful out there, live and learn.

Here's the photos I took at Hookipa from 2.30 to 3.30.
Brazilian friend of Brawsinho and blog reader Lucas hired me for a photoshoot. He gets the first photo of the day. He's now going to be a celebrity in Fortaleza, where it seems that a lot of windsurfers follow this blog. Thanks guys, sooner or later I'd like to come visit... gostaria falar portugues!



Julien in really good form. He likes low boom too...


Beautiful legged Anne Marie.


A couple of turns of old school, low boomed, most famous windsurfer in the world, legend Robby Naish.




Camille.


It's not a Halloween costume. It's Kay Lenny with a camera setup that I bet has seen Robby Seeger involved...


Nayra Alonso broke her mast and went on the rocks. To get a point she will need to claim it either with a comment on this blog or by telling me at the beach.


Levi.


Glenn was showing off his new Hot Sails Maui Bolt.


Having completely disregarded the Halloween celebrations I was up and ready on Sunday morning at 6.30am. I could have gone surfing, but seen the size I decided to save my energies for sailing. The NW buoy went up to 12 feet, 18 seconds from around 320. The Waimea buoy is still ramping up with 8 feet, 18 seconds, so here in Maui expect the swell to build throughout all day.

Just saw a monster set on the webcam at Pipeline in which third reef fethered and second reef broke. A couple of body boarders were trying to paddle out, they got pushed right back in. Here's what the surfline morning report says:
"WNW swell is going mental this morning with very few spots rideable and the outer reefs popping off. Surf is in the overhead to double overhead range with some easy sets in the 15-18 foot face value range".

Hookipa is going to be massive and with all these pros in town, I'm sure someone will venture out. It's going to be a great show.

bloody awesome. beautiful. you got to be kidding me. yaaaaaaaa.

You know those waves that when you kick out of them you just have to yell something out of your lungs? Specially when you're completely alone and you're not conditioned by the presence of others?

If you know what I'm talking about, you know how rare they are.
Well, today I had four of those. And listed in the title of this post are the short sentences I yelled out of my lungs when kicking out of them...

What an amazing day it was.

- surfing from 6.45 to 9.45.
- work from 10 to 2.
- photos at Hookipa from 2.30 to 3.30.
- windsurfing from 4 to 6.

The eight yoga lessons I took in the last three weeks are doing miracles and even though I clearly feel a bit shattered after a day like today, I feel very strong indeed.
It's a really good time to be me...

Hookipa was a great show since many non Maui resident pros are in town.
Photo of the day goes to Browsinho with a sick taka off the lip (or whatever that is called). He landed this one perfectly.


Here's the others in strict chronological order.
Mark Angulo.


Robby Swift bailing out a goiter.


Laurent.


Keith.


Upside down Swift.


When I told him about the rockstar contest, Browsinho excitedly accepted to enter:"I'm gonna win it", he said.
To all Hookipa sailors: you'll be stoked to be announced that you are officially in a windsurfing contest against Browsinho that you can actually win.


Francisco Porcella doing what he does best. (well, he's actually pretty good at getting barreled on a surfboard too)


Long time no see Jennifer Henderson at Hookipa. Sure she didn't forget how to sail it... nice legs, btw!


Camille.


Philippe.


Jason Polakow.


Manu.


9.45pm. Tomorrow, more waves. Sunday, even bigger. Life good. Very good. Goodnight.

PS. Both the NW and the Waimea buoys already had some readings of the new NW swell at around one foot. What's so exciting about it? It's the first time EVER that I read 25 seconds as the period...
Clearly those are just the small forerunners and the period will go down, but it's going to be a good one. Way more west of today's swell though. Today the direction was just right.

a little bit of more environment catastrophe and a little bit of boom height talk

More bad news for ocean lovers (and not). I saw this on Jeff's blog.



And this is the video that Windwiner linked in the comments:



Boom height.
Remember that sequence of me doing a couple of bottom and top turns and looking with the boom way too low in the shots right in the transition between the two? It's just two posts down.
I met Tormod and told him that I would have liked to check some sequences of the good guys to see if it happens to them too.
Didn't have to wait too long... he was nice enough to send me the link to some of the sequences he collected.
Let's have a look at:
- Keith Taboul
- Robby Naish 1

- Robby Naish 2
- Robby Naish 3

So, I was right. There is a moment in the transition between bottom and top turn in which the sailor is standing straight up (Robby's 1 and 3 in particular caught this moment perfectly) and has his arms bent so that the boom is quite close to the body. In this position, of course, the boom appears to be too low... but it's not.
In the bottom and top turns, as I said, in fact the sailor is coiled (sorry, using Kelly's words.. see below) like a cat and in the regular sailing the sailor is leaning upwind forming a triangle with mast, body and straight arms and so the boom is not upper belly high anymore, but between nipple and shoulder high as it should be.
Cool, I'll be happy to go back to exactly were I was putting my boom before Tormod took the sequence, because that one inch higher that I was trying didn't feel good at all.

Waves are up here in Maui and will be up for a while. The wind should be blowing today and the weekend, but right now (6am of Friday) it's calm and I'm going surfing. Let's see if I feel like trying a carving 360. Kelly Slater just explained me how... yeah, right.

Not too exciting weather maps in the next week in the north pacific. There will be a strong high pressure NW of Hawaii and that's a very bad (and unusual) place for it: north onshore winds will prevail and no major NW ground swells (there might be stormy N windswells though). Nice long lasting south swell around mid next week though. Could be worse... could be a lot worse!

a message in the waves that we keep ignoring + new rockstar contest sponsor + couple of videos

A few years ago I saw the wonderful movie "Hawaii - Message in the waves".

That film changed my life. Since then, the amount of plastic bottles I personally introduced in the environment has been zero. For many years I've been using my refillable metal bottles and that's something that everyone should do.
Plastic bottles are only a part of the problem of course, since every plastic object will eventually deteriorate in small bits, but they're so easily replaceable! That's why I'm pissed off when I see people (I'm talking also to you guys) buying huge amounts of them.
Same as the plastic bags, of course. So easy to replace with a reusable non plastic bag, but no many give a shit.
What's the problem? Well, if you don't have the time to watch the trailers on the movie website, here's a few pics that should be clear enough.


Shocked? How's this one? Those could be the tops and bits of a water or soda plastic bottles that you drank a few years ago... and yes, that WAS a bird. A beautiful albatross to be precise.


"Why in the world those stupid birds eat the plastic bits?", I hear someone saying...
Ever heard about the pacific gyre?
This video should answer your question.


More info here.

So pleeeaaaase, don't introduce plastic in the environment that is not strictly necessary.
Halloween is coming up. Just the other day I say a stupid plastic fake battery operated candle to put into a pumpkin. Now, already the fact that one uses a pumpkin for purposes other than eating it when there's people in the world that has nothing to eat should make everyone feel guilty... am I so strange?
But inserting an extremely unnecessary and polluting object in it, is just too much for me.
Nothing wrong with celebrating, just do it in a responsible (for the environment) way please: don't buy NEW plastic for your costume!

Hookipa Rockstar Contest update
I'd like to welcome yet another sponsor for the Hookipa Rockstar Contest: Cafe Mambo in Paia is kind enough to offer $50 certificate with the motivation that anybody that ends up plastered on the rocks needs a Margarita on the rocks to celebrate. They are hosting a scary karaoke night for Halloween.

Looks like there's more sponsors than contestants so far... Elena entered the contest with a rock visit last week. The problem of this contest is that not many people are aware of it (believe it or not, not all Hookipa sailors follow this blog), so please help me spread the word.
I'm also thinking of putting the biggest price for the winner and the other prices as a lottery for all the other contestants. Your name will be in the lottery as many times as you've gone on the rocks, but in this way everyone will have the possibility of winning something. All you have to do is to leave a comment on this blog or on the contest facebook page to claim your rockstar point.

Couple of videos.
Last summer I shot a video for some visitors. It was flat and they were not pros, but I was able to pull out 17 minutes of footage. Kind of boring at times, but not if you're in it!!! I uploaded the last song (which is Funeral by The band of horses... and I totally copied it from Bruno Sillac's video!). Here it is.

summer video from giampaolo cammarota on Vimeo.

Oh, if you really got nothing to do, here's the whole 17 minutes!

I'm about to receive the new amazing High Definition GoPro cameras... so email me if you want a nice video of your windsurfing vacation in Maui!

One more vid. Cookie (who is a french guy called Aurelien, but americans can't pronounce it, so someone nicknamed him Cookie... just like my name and GP) put together a few wipeouts of last Thursday at Hoookipa.

Des windsurfers se sont font gentiment corriger par leur maitre. from windsurfing fever on Vimeo.

As I said already in fact, Hookipa last week was pretty fun with clean waves and veeery offshore winds. This week the offshore wind continues but the waves are pretty much gone.
Pat Caldwell is forecasting rough big waves out of the NW for Thursday (12 to 14 feet faces) and Saturday (14 to 18 feet faces). I personally think that those sizes are a bit overestimated. What I agree with him, unfortunately, is that right after that, at the beginning of next week, we'll have strong onshore winds with big rough windswell, kind of like Sylt conditions... that must be karma!

Anyway, it's still Hawaii, one of most beautiful places on Earth. Let's keep it as such, using as little plastic as possible. Thanks.

Hang on, one more. Blog reader Rafn sends another video of surfing in Iceland! Bloody hell, those guys are good. Respect!!!

What a fantastic Sunday! (part 2)

Did I say I'll post part 2 the day after I posted part 1?!?
Shoots, I must have been busy!

Anyway, as usual, I got so much stuff to post about and little time. So for now all you get is a slide show of a nice two turns sequence that Tormod took of me that day. The action is lame compared to the pros, but it gives an idea of how much fun it was...

Let's have a look at this photo now.


One of the many things I like about the Superfreak is that it has the widest PVC window in the market. Most wave sails (like the one in the background for example) don't have a proper clear window anymore. Manufacturers assume that you can see through the X-Ply just as well, but I find it distracting.
On the other hand, I hate monofilm windows (well, I hate monofilm!), because they scratch easily and they get cloudy pretty quickly (and they're noisy!).
So PVC is my favorite choice for a window: it doesn't scratch as easily and if it gets temporarily cloudy (like if you rinse the sail off with fresh water - what an overrated thing! - and don't let it dry), you can wash it with soap and it will come out as new. It also gives a softer feel to the whole sail and that, as you probably know, is what I like.

Thanks again to Tormod for the photos. Check his blog he has some great shots of Francisco Porcella. Hookipa in fact has been quite good every day this week, with waves and veeery offshore wind. Lots of big aerials, I feel like mentioning Camille Juban's ones too. Gun sails had a fotoshoot and he was just going off.
Allright, off to surfing.

what a fantastic Sunday! (part 1)

This island is magic.



I've lived here for almost 8 years now and I'm still impressed (almost shocked, actually) by its beauty and by the all it has to offer to the ocean lovers (and not).

As I wrote in the previous post, Sunday morning I didn't wake up early enough to go dawn patrol on the south shore. So I went to check Hookipa and found that even though already windy, there were head high peaks to be surfed and one guy out. Evidently the out of season south swell was big enough to be known by everyone (or everyone in Maui reads my blog...), so I guessed that everyone was on the south shore.
Michelle called for a report and we decided to paddle out, just to say:"hey, we surfed The Point with only another guy out". Actually she ended up having some good fun catching the very first waves on her brand new 6.0.
I cut my session short to save my energies for windsurfing and managed to take a pic of her. Good style, shoulders right above the board and no one else in sight!


That's the other guy. Not a bad wave to be caught without any competition at all!


At 11am I hit the water with 72l and 4.5 together with a couple of other early sailors. The first hour was super fun: I caught tons of waves before the usual crowd showed up and the wind got even stronger and gustier. I quit at 12.30 and ate my lunch with the appetite of a hungry wolf.
Two different people happened to take photos of me, but I'll publish those tomorrow.

While I received an afternoon invitation to a free Ukulele festival at the MACC, I followed the call for more ocean action and drove Makena side. As usual, the kids were challenging the impressive shore break. Some of them, very, very close to the rocks on the east end of the beach.




I love this shot. Pure fun and joy to play with your buddies. So cool! Click on it to appreciate better.








And now the surfing. These are some of the best surfing shots I've ever taken. The light was beautiful and the stiff offshore wind created a huge white spray that stood out in contrast with the black lava rocks in the background. The water color was unreal. But that's too many words, I'll let the photos speak...















Well, the photos make it look epic, but it was super crowded and the SSW direction often didn't allow to make the whole wave. So there was a massive number of people dropping in along the way and sometimes that created some hairy situations. The following clip shows a small set.


Occasionally the wave opened up better and if you were lucky no one would drop in. That's the case of the photo on the very top. That's Michelle again, "everyone's best surfing buddy" as Juan once defined her.
Here's a little cronicle that wave. It was the last one of a big set, so the face was a bit frotty, but most people had already gone for (or got washed by) the previous waves. She did a big drop, a sweet bottom turn, the awesome top turn that I caught in the picture, then she trimmed the board halfway on the face of wave, got completely barreled on the final section and even came out of it.
A perfect 10 from the italian judge. Very good job sistah!
"best first day on a board ever!", she commented in a Skype chat we just had... I believe that!

Around 5pm I decided to go to Little Beach. Met a couple of friends, surfed the left over there, drank a beer, watched a great sunset, admired the fire dancers and the stars.

As I said: fantastic.