how to be happy without a 94 million dollars boat

Quite a few nice shots in this post...

Let's start with this. You don't see often a yacht like that sailing off the north shore of Maui. You actually don't see any boat at all usually, since the ocean is always pretty rough. Evidently, the luxurious yacht La Masquerade can handle it...
The estimated cost of that boat is 94 million dollars. The estimated cost of the surfboard that kid is riding at Pavillions is a few hundred dollars and to me it looks way more fun and less polluting.


We'll go back to the surfing soon. Let me first report about a couple of super fun Kona sailing session at Lanes. This is Pascal, the owner of the place.


Sunday the waves were pretty small (big sets up to shoulder-head high). I got in the water at 11 and the first hour and a half it was four of us, all friends and that made it quite special. Yesterday, instead, it was blowing like stink in the early morning (Russ was fully powered on a 3.7). Fortunately I had to work till 1.30 and hit the water when the wind had dropped to slogging levels, which I like 100 times more than nuclear winds.
The waves were definitely bigger and I was having a serious blast, when a big set broke my mast.

There's a feature of the Superfreaks (actually of all the Hot Sails Maui sails) that I have a relationship of hate/love with.
It's a super strong webbing on the luff that prevents the damage to the sail in case of a broken mast. If everything is fine, I hate it (it does add a tiny little bit of weight and I'm quite anal about weight). But when it happens that I break the mast in the waves, get worked by a few of them, have to swim back to a rocky little cove, leave the sail for a while in the relentless shorebreak because I want to make sure that the board doesn't get dinged and still have my sail absolutely intact with no damage whatsoever... that's when the love sparkles!


Pascal was equally tired and happy for his long sessions. He mentioned a turn towards the end he was particularly happy with: "a nice cutback!". Cutback or top turn, that's a sick turn brah! Reminds me of that Chinook commercial.


This is at Hookipa, on a wave to come in. Falling on it would mean quite a swim, since there was pretty much no wind on the inside. That shows that for him doing an aerial like that is probably like doing a chop hop for an average windsurfer.


Back to the surfing.


Paia fireman Pat Fukuda is one of Maui's finest longboarders. He rips.


This might be one of the Walsh brothers, but now I'm not sure.


Michael Stuart is a tall guy, but he knows how to bend his knees to tack in a possible barrel.


With the offshore wind, there were barrels everywhere.


Everywhere.


Forecast.
Windsurfers crack me up. "Hey, windguru shows the trade winds coming back soon!"
Allright, let me explain you guys a thing. The trade winds are generated by a high pressure that sits north of the island. No high pressure, no trade winds... by definition.
The spell of NE wind that is forecasted for around Thursday will be caused by the pass of a front associated with a low pressure and will be, IMO, more onshore and lighter than the regular trades. So, lower your expectations you guys.
This is the weather map of the 4th. That huge low will sit there for a while and send a long lasting giant westerly swell. California and Baja will go off big.


The WNW direction in Maui will receive serious blockage from the other islands. It will be interesting to see what the different spots and islands will get. Kauai will have giant surf. Oahu probably smaller, but still very big. Kanaha might end up being pretty small. Lanes... who knows. Anyway, Kona winds are forecasted also for today (Tuesday). I work till 1.30. After that, I'll be in the water practicing my port tack wavesailing... god knows if I need that!

The weather is still unreal and life is as good as it gets. Even (actually specially) without a 94 million dollars boat.