Friday, December 05, 2014

12 5 14 morning call

4am main swell buoy readings:

NW
7.8ft @ 15s from 341° (NNW)
4.4ft @ 13s from 359° (N)
3.1ft @ 10s from 13° (NNE)
1.7ft @ 5s from 66° (ENE)

Waimea
5.4ft @ 13s from 351° (N)
4.4ft @ 16s from 333° (NNW)
2ft @ 10s from 6° (N)

Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's north shore)
6.2ft @ 13s from 359° (N)
4.1ft @ 16s from 340° (NNW)
2.5ft @ 6s from 53° (ENE)
1.8ft @ 5s from 65° (ENE)

West lanai Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's south shore)
1.4ft @ 13s from 288° (WNW)
0.9ft @ 9s from 201° (SSW)
0.9ft @ 5s from 195° (SSW)
0.9ft @ 18s from 312° (NW)

I wish I could say one swell after the other, instead it's more like one swell on top of the other.
But that's still better than no swells!
I was hoping the new NNW swell would be a bit late and I could surf one of my favorite spots at one of my favorite sizes for it (those 6f 13s from the N), instead there's already 4f 16s from 340 on top of it and that might make it a lot more challenging. And the second one is going to get bigger quickly, as you can gather from the NW and Waimea buoy readings.
I will have to go look and see. In the end, nothing can replace the visual observation of the spot(s).
That's why I also usually add the pic from Hookipa. Sorry, I'm a bit late today, but it's coming up soon.

That also gives me the opportunity to answer a reader comment at the beach that went like this:"GP, we don't have your knowledge of what's good for where. You have to tell us where to go!".
I understand that, but here's two very good reasons for me not to do that:
1) we are all so extremely different as individuals and surfers in terms of skills, boards and preferences. My choice would not be good for most of all readers. That's also the reason why I don't really go surfing with friends. The few times I do, I end up regretting... friends are in the lineup anyway!
2) I definitely do not want to see all the readers in the same spot I choose! Surfing sucks when it's crowded, we all know that.
So, use this blog to build your own knowledge and start learning what spot works with what and you'll be scoring more sessions. That's the main reason why I do this.

Clarified that, let's have a look at today's weather map that shows two beautiful lows. I call this the sad clown face map and it's my favorite. The two lows are the eyes and the mouth is a high that hopefully (like in this case) is not too open. When the high is bigger, the clown would be screaming and that's not a good sign, because a big high would block the development of the lows and increase the trade winds. So remember, sad clown better than screaming clown!

The low to the right was responsible for the NNW swell arriving today.
The one to the left will be responsible for a NW swell arriving later in the week.
 

Let's have a look at the Maui north shore forecast that I stole from Surfline (link n.15  on the right).
There's at least three pulses in the 12f range for Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Oh, I'm off all those three days next week, but I'm never too excited about a 12f swell. I don't surf Jaws and waves so big reduce greatly the number of surfable spots on the north shore, which means you got to drive more.

Talking about which, I think I set a personal record two days ago. The distance in miles between the spot I surfed in the morning and the one I surfed in the afternoon was 58!
Can easily be beaten by surfing Koki beach in Hana and then Honolua... that would be 86.

 
Anyway, today the sunset beach contest will be fun to watch, and let's hope those 12f swells won't be too big for Pipe, which starts on the 8th.
 
Trade winds too light for windsurfing/kiting, wax your boards you wind propelled people, put your head down and paddle hard!

Have fun in the sun everyone!

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