things I like about Maui

Here's how the waves looked from the Hookipa lookout this 7.40 am.

I took four photos and didn't have the courage to leave any of them out...









I was beat up from too much surfing yesterday and I went to Kanaha instead for a mellow SUP sesh.
Jay was so nice to let me try his Ku Nalu (the Ding King board). That is the board that so far is my favorite longboard for wavesailing in light wind. I hadn't tried it for standup yet... what an awesome board!
I could catch the smallest ripples effortless. It paddles so fast...
And it surfs pretty damn well too!
So far, the best multiuse board I tried, no doubt. I'll stop by Ding King and compliment Mark once more...

After lunch I went for an hour photo shoot sesh at Hoo. Here's 27 worthy shots.

Inspired by Eileen's comment on the last post, here's a few free thoughts...

Things I like about Maui:

- ocean activities (they deserve a whole sublist/discussion... see below)
- the weather. No shirt, only slippers and shorts. Fucking love that!
- the sunsets.
- the people (most of them)
- the laid-backness
- the road courtesy. Don't forget I come from Italy... Naples, to be precise... where the highway is a jungle!
- the smiles. Even though not everybody smiles, it's still the place where I've been where I see more smiles around. When I go back to Italy, I still have that attitude and I smile to everybody at the Fiumicino airport in Rome... they look at me thinking that I'm gay... well, that happens in San Francisco too...
- the vegetation
- the mountains: the Haleakala is often gourgeous at sunset and the west maui mountain at night looks just like the Vesuvio...
- the colors
- the air
- the fact that for most people surfing is the number one priority
- the birds that wake me up at sunrise
- taking photos from the hill at Hookipa
- the Kuau mart chicken... but only once in a while, because I'm vegetarian... ;-)
- the guy that sends kisses on the side of the road... I love him, I love him, I love him...
- the rainbows
- Hana
- whales, turtles, manta rays, flying fish, etc, etc...
- the north shore
- the south shore
- the east side
- the west side
- up, down, left, right... I fucking love it all!

Ocean activities sublist/discussion

- water temperature is bloddy perfect. I'm a pussy and I always get cold (it's because I have NO body fat...), so almost always I wear a light wetsuit. Nonetheless, I prefere that to a warmer temperature, that will blow my windsurfing calluses and will make me feel too hot and dehydrate me while surfing.
- with some exceptions, most waves are easy. Beach breaks are way steeper and more difficult. Point breaks have a very concentrated/crowded lineup. Instead, there's some reefs in Maui that are really mellow. And I love those ones just as much as the tougher ones. Kanaha is the best example.
- with some exceptions (the same as above), the surfing crowd is friendly.

Waves are seasonal all over the world, right? When it's winter in the northern hemisphere, there's storms and swells from the northern directions. When it's summer, the waves come mostly from the south, because it's winter down there. The hawaiian islands sit at about 20 degrees of north latitude sorrounded by a huge ocean. That means that if there's a storm somewhere in the Pacific, most times we'll get waves.
Of course in winter time the waves are bigger (less distance to travel), but summertime is not too shabby either. Now, let's talk about Maui's surfing conditions compared to Oahu and Kauai, for example.

The north shore of Oahu is a surfing Mecca. Pipeline, Sunset, Waimea, tens of world class waves... too bad most of those waves are too hard core for a guy that started surfing at 38 like me... and too bad that, being a surfing Mecca, the best surfers in the world live on the north shore, leaving few waves to catch for an average surfer like me...
Ok, ok, whatever. North shore of Oahu is better. The trade winds over there are offshore, so the conditions for surfing are better... I admit it. Let's leave it there for a moment.

Kauai, is pretty much the same. Heavy waves, hard core surfers, not as many breaks. Still, prolly better than Maui in winter time. So, where would you live if you were a surfer? In both cases on the north shore!

And what about summer time?
Driving time from Hanalei to Poipu is one and a half to two hours (depending on the traffic).
Driving time from Haleiwa to Honolulu is 50 minutes... plus the time you'll spend stuck on the highway to get to Waikiki.
Driving time from Paia to Thousand Peaks is 20/25 minutes!

AND-AND-AND... hear this: both Oahu and Kauai shouth shores get blown out if the trade winds are blowing strong (and summer time they are). In Maui it can be blowing 30+, you go to Lahaina and there's not a breath.
AND-AND-AND... what about windsurfing?!? Maui IS the windsurfing mecca of the world. And I love the alternating of windy periods to non windy ones. It's good for my body (use of different muscles) and good for my mind (never get bored to always do the same thing). Prolly it prevents me from becoming a very good surfer or windsurfer, but as I said many times... I'm only driven by the fun.
AND-AND-AND... those Maliko-Kanaha downwind runs (either on my one man canoe or on the standup board) are something really fun... the other islands don't have anything like that.
AND-AND-AND... thanks to the above described conditions and to my toys my QUOLI this year is 99% up to date.

And I wrote all this without stopping or thinking for a second. I mean, that's just the first things that came out!
I'm sure if I really want to think about it, I could add a lot of more stuff. But for tonight it's about time to go to sleep. Got to wake up with the birds tomorrow morning and go surfing.

Excuse me rest of the world if I enjoy my life so much.

PS. And let me add a little cherry on the cake... Jeff just called me saying that tomorrow we have a bunch of new Starboard longboards to try and photoshoot if the wind allows... how extreeemely cool is that?
PPS. If you don't have a phone number that correspond to the name Jeff in the contacts on my phone, don't even waste your time trying to call me tomorrow... ok?