big Hookipa

The big swell arrived and it sure wasn't disappointing.

The westerly direction made for sailable conditions at Hookipa, so after work and before my sunset session, I went to take some photos in a 45 minutes photo shoot. I shot from inside my car on the lookout at Lanes, because I was watching the Pipeline contest on my phone...

This is my favorite shot.
Looks like Francisco Goya's trademark bottom turn (notice the little fade in the trail), but I also love the color and smoothness of the waves.


Here are the other pics in chronological order.
Levi.


Not sure who this is, but look at the wake of the board... that was a bumpy one!


A lot smoother face for Bernd.


Same wave, a few seconds later.
On another wave, Bernd did an amazing aerial that I missed. Jimmie got it, but he didn't put it up because he hopes to sell the shot to the magazines. Nonethelss, his gallery is worth checking out...


Oh, there we go! My friend Chico got a shot of it from the water level!
Check out his gallery (I guess you have to be friend with him to see it though...).


And here's another photo of the same aerial taken from Globalshots Vinnie Amato's gallery.


Congratulations Bernd, that was a magic aerial!
Wait, just found a video of that! Thanks Giora!


Uff... how was that?! Back to my shots now.
Mark Angulo attacking the lip of a over mast high wave...


... and catching some air.


This is KP on a much smaller final section of a wave. Great style, nonetheless.


And that's the price he had to pay to go all the way to the end section. He got stuck inside for a few minutes. Absolutely no bid deal for a guy like him. Lots of other people on the rocks, instead.


Levi.


Gun Sail... not sure, but could be Nicola Spadea.


Honestly, the Hookipa show was better than the Pipeline one! But I just don't like to miss out on things...


Beautiful bottom turn. Looks like Browsinho.


In the meantime, Jaws was going off and a bunch of crazy surfers were paddling into it. This is Marcio Freire (who has been paddling into Jaws since at least 2008) in a photo taken by Mike Neal. Here's Mike's whole gallery.



More action today. The swell went down in size here in Maui. The buoys are still up and the direction didn't change much, so I'm gonna blame the decrease in the period for that. The longer the period, the more the waves can wrap around land points, islands, etc.
A clear example of that are tsunamis (periods in the order of minutes). Remember the one that hit after the earthquake in Chile a year ago? The direction of the waves was SE and the biggest waves were recorded at the Kahului harbor...

The Pipe contest is still on and John John Florence just won his round 3 heat with a total of 19.20 points. He looks unstoppable.