1 19 16 morning call

House arrest SUP session down the coast was very fun yesterday.
Still plenty size in the waves, as the buoy never really went below 8f 13s. It actually got bigger because of a change in the direction of the swell that I will highlight in the graph later in the post.

As predicted, some surfers were out at Hookipa too. This is last year's PWA world champ Browsinho. Photo by Jimmie Hepp.

After my 3 hours long session (during which I snapped 2 leashes) and before work, I went to take photos of a east side spot that was looking not perfect, but pretty fun. The local surfers always make it look good.







Found a bunch of good videos to share.
First one shows Kelly Slater (still on Maui), Dusty Payne and a couple of local surfers at the Bay.
I love how Kelly reads it. Those fades on the bottom turns are just lovely.


This is Waimea Bay on big Friday January 15. Makes you wonder why they didn't run the Eddy.


This instead is the video coverage of one of the accidents happened in that already mythical Jan 15.
I watched it a few times and here's my unrequested, unnecessary and unqualified opinion. He took off so deep that the only way he could have made that section was to put it the board on the rail right away. Unfortunately he didn't manage to do so and at that point he still had the "safe" option to straighten out towards the beach. But his instinct told him to try a bottom turn anyway and he got nailed by that heavy lip. Not criticizing (would never dare!), just analyzing. Would love to hear his opinion.
Best luck to Nathan for a quick recovery.


And if a wave like that can break your femur, what bones can a lip like that break if it lands on you? All of them is the answer.
Photo by Ben Thouard. No need to mention the break. There's only one in the world that has a lip that looks like an anteater.


On the three buoys graphs I put two arrows to show the change in the direction I was talking about at the beginning of the post. That's when the swell went more north and hit the coast west of Kanaha better. I'm sure it filled better in the west side too and Honolua must be getting a very long stretch of epic waves. I wonder if the crowd is less these days because of that.
At 4am Pauwela reads:
5.7ft @ 13s from 333° (NNW)

2.6ft @ 12s from 331° (NNW)

2.5ft @ 9s from 18° (NNE)

0.8ft @ 22s from 9° (N)

At that size I'd be surfing Hookipa, instead I'll do more house arrest sweeping.

Wind map shows a close and strong NW fetch that will make the surf go up into the warning levels again by Wednesday afternoon. I already mention that the wind will not be favorable in this occasion, since it will blow from the NNE. We'll talk about it more tomorrow.
The WNW one is slowly coming off Japan and will provide the next swell for Sunday/Monday/Tuesday, before another XL swell will hit on next Wednesday. Non stop this January. That's nothing new, that's how it is supposed to be and it always is. What's been extraordinary so far has been the complete lack of wind (which was not the case in December and which is about to temporary change).


Wind map also shows the tropical storm Victor with a small fetch of wind oriented towards us.
It's been in that place long enough for us to eventually receive some energy from it.
Below the South Pacific weather maps of January 12 that shows a nice fetch SE of New Zealand and we should be receiving energy from that one too. As a matter of fact, Barbers does register 1.3ft @ 16s from 191° (SSW) at 4am.
I haven't been going to the south shore at all, but I heard reports of waves in the Lahaina area. As usual most uninformed people immediately thought about the wrap of the NW swell (which was most likely the case on Friday/Saturday). Not sure now since I haven't seen it and it doesn't really matter, what counts is that there's waves.
Check the webcam before going is my usual pretty basic suggestion.


MC2km maps at noon shows the start of the onshores. Get down to the beach before that!


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I'm putting a lot of time into it, if you feel like supporting the blog a good way would be to buy advertising banners. Price is $50/month or $125/3 months. Thanks for reading and spreading the word in the lineups.