Too bad I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked to (read: on a regular surfboard), but I was out there on my SUP so I'm not gonna complain about it. Well.. just a little bit.
I'm just going to point out how limiting the practice of just one discipline can be. Limiting in terms of spots you can surf and turns you can do.
Unless you're Dave Kalama (who can put on the rail anything), or unless you're Kai Lenny or his buddies (who ride boards that are half the volume of common mortals), the rails and overall volume of a SUP board are, by nature, much bigger than a regular surfboard.
That can be an advantage in small surf or mushy waves. And it is.
As a matter of fact, before this injury I was pretty much limiting my SUP action to two spots:
- Thousand peaks with my 6.6 low rocker SUP fish
- Kanaha on my higher rocker 7.4 Starboard P.O.D.
Now that I have to SUP surf all the times, I'm struggling to find the right conditions for it. Take yesterday, for example. Waves at Kanaha were a bit too small so I launched in my backyard. The rights were too fast and closy (ah, if I could only drop a few sand bags here and there to shape that reef a bit better!), so I moved to Lanes.
Caught a few fun lefts, but the speed at which you get to the bottom when you drop on a overhead steep wave like that is just too much for my skill and board to allow me to put it on the rail the way I want.
So yes I'm out of jail, but at house arrest until I can get back on a shortboard.
Talking about which, here's a few pics that I took after my session. They all illustrate well the rail surfing I'm talking about.
Marlow Lewis.
This could be Tanner Hendrickson.
Will Hunt.
A new pulse is forecasted to hit today. Here's what the NOAA guys say for Oahu (wave faces):"Surf along north facing shores will be 7 to 10 feet through tonight, rising to 14 to 18 feet on Friday."
By looking at the fetches of the last three days I would have to agree with them. But I don't see it at the NW buoy yet. It could be that, as Pat Caldwell speculates, the bulges of large swell are aimed highest at targets NE of Hawaii. And I agree on that too.
Nonetheless, I would have expected to see something more at the buoys by now. But even if the waves won't pick up during the day, the graphs show that they should stay at least the same size as they were yesterday at sunset.
Pauwela reads 4.4ft @ 12s from 323° (NW) at 4am and that is fun size at Hookipa.
-----update with the 7am readings------------
Well the 7am readings do show a little better the increase at the NW buoy so we can expect the waves to rise a bit in the late afternoon in Maui. Tricky call though, because of the reason explained above.
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Wind map shows again a long, strong and wide fetch that is going to get even closer to us causing the wind to blow Kona on Saturday and the next extra large swell to hit on Sunday. Surfline calls for the peak of it at 16f 15s from 330 at 8am. That means plenty action at Jaws, the outer reefs, and Honolua Bay.
Notice also a proper out of season fetch down SE of New Zealand with another Tasman one ready to replace it. South swell next weekend, no complaints about that.
MC2km at noon shows the wind that it shows: pretty much none. Onshores will pick up in the afternoon.
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