11 16 15 morning call

Beautiful sunny and very windy day yesterday.

The more the wind goes easterly (hence side-offshore on the north shore), the less rain it's gonna produce for the stretch of coastline from Hookipa to Kanaha.
Still enough though to make rainbows (Maui somehow seem to not even need rain for that!).

Tons of windsurfers out at Hookipa, this is Andres Martinez. Both photos by Jimmie Hepp.


But IMO, the category of ocean lovers that is enjoying the most this crazy wind conditions is the SUP downwinders. For them, the stronger the better, pretty much with no exception.

Below is the graph of yesterday's wind at the iWindsurf sensor down the coast. Many Kanaha windsurfers use that without knowing that it actually is down at the harbor and the wind there has a different direction, since it has already initiated the bend inside the valley between the two mountains.

Nonetheless, I often see windsurfers on the beach at Kanaha checking out the readings of this sensor instead of just looking at the ocean in front of them to decide what sail to use. They crack me up, I have to admit.
Anyway, gusts up to 45 mph and pretty "steady" all day because of the lack of rain squalls.


Let's keep talking wind so we get it out of the way, below is the MC2km map for today at noon.
Even more easterly (starting to have a pinch of south in it), which, as we said, usually means: strong, gusty, not as rainy. In this map, the wind line has barely reached Kanaha. It's a very common situation in which that spot might be calm in the morning and eventually sailable in the afternoon.

And that is because the trades generating high pressure is moving to the east (about time!) and we are now sitting at the edge of it.
The low WNW of us is slowly doing the same and today finally there is a fetch associated to it that will make some waves for the Haleiwa contest. Notice how west it still is for Maui and how close to the islands it is. That will bring the travel time down to a couple of days, with less size decay.
It should be picking up pretty quickly throughout the day on Wednesday. In Maui too, but with a slower start due to the initial westerly direction. As the fetch will move east on the map, the waves will come from a more NW direction and hit us more directly.
As usual, the buoys will tell the whole story.

Nice fetch down south too, unfortunately New Zealand will stop most of the energy.

Here's the buoy readings at 7am (for a change at the end of the call).
NW
7.7ft @ 10s from 112° (ESE)           

6.5ft @ 8s from 104° (ESE)

0.8ft @ 17s from 45° (NE)
 

Waimea
4.9ft @ 9s from 41° (NE)

1.7ft @ 8s from 33° (NE)

1.6ft @ 6s from 32° (NE)

1ft @ 18s from 320° (NW) (this is the remnant of that small 20s reading from yesterday, hence I don't think it's gonna build at all. It's not the forerunners of Wednesday's swell, which will for sure appear first at the NW buoy. Check yesterday's call for details).

Pauwela

8.4ft @ 10s from 72° (ENE)

3.8ft @ 5s from 76° (ENE)

 

Barbers

2.8ft @ 7s from 134° (SE)           

2ft @ 8s from 151° (SSE)

1.4ft @ 11s from 178° (S)

 

Mostly windswell in Maui, still pretty high and from a direction that will travel pretty parallel to the north shore. With this kind of wind, it's almost obvious to go surf to an easterly facing spot, since it's gonna be glassy in the morning. Not gonna mention it, but come on... just look at the map!
Not much going on south instead.