gnarly

The conditions at Hookipa were gnarly today.




Maybe not exactly as the definition 1 of the Urban Dictionary, but still gnarly for me.
In other words, I might well be one of the kooks the definition talks about...

These kooks have no idea what GNARLY is. Gnarly is when you've gone beyond radical, beyond extreme, it's balls out danger, & or perfection, & or skill or all of that combined.

-Nobody can shred like that guy, he's fuckin gnarly.
-That chick has prefect tits, she's fucking gnarly.
-Pipeline in the winter is fucking GNARLY!

Here's my, as usual, most objective report.
Waves were head to logo high, with occasional mast/mast and a half sets. Every 10/15 minutes or so.
The swell was very west and that always creates a strong current in the channel and, as a direct consequence, e big chop on the whole section in front of the rocks (which is the safe one if you want to kick out in the channel).
The wind was very offshore and as such very gusty. The wind on the face of the wave was pretty much twice as strong as anywhere else.
The tide was 0 feet and it was very shallow.

The one above is a set that caught Drew and Ferdinando (two very experienced and skilled sailors) by surprise.
Where Drew is, it's "only" mast high. But where Ferdinando is (he's dropping his mast in the water towards the wave... as one is supposed to do in his less than enviable position), it's way more than that.

I might be a kook, but I sailed in that shit for 40 minutes, I caught two waves, I didn't have to swim too much and I didn't break anything.
I didn't have fun either... because that was fucking gnarly!

Dr. Drew enjoying his lunch break the way he likes best

ex Maui grom Riley Coon came back from a mainland college. He still rips. BTW, that is my same board. I have no excuse not to do that. Just gimme the time... you learn a bit slower when you're 49.

stripes

after this bottom turn, Masa did a top turn just as good

that's later on the same wave (a rare ridable one). He went on the rocks later.

These are the shots from yesterday 2 12.

I doubt I will ever be able to do that instead. But you never know... Morgan.

Mark bottom turns towards a sweet looking one

Cookie contorsion

not a huge fan of tatoos, but I really dig that one

Big wave charger Griffin Freysinger. We tought windsurfing together. Good times.

Well, I also have some SUP photos from a session a few days ago taken with my fantastic Gopro Hero 2.
The time stamp is wrong (forgot to set the date), so I don't even remember when this was. Two days ago, three days ago, four days ago? I have no idea. That's how good this winter has been...
What I remember, is that it was kinda windy and the conditions were less than ideal.
That's how spoiled we are overe here...

one wall

another wall

a turn on a wall

if I was a loser, I would post this photo claiming a radical lay back snap

sorry, no bullshit on this blog

Maui is firing and I'm loving it!