I started the day with an early longboard session that was unexpectedly very fun. By the end of it, around 9, I had caught a few shoulder/head high forerunners. Sometimes those forerunners show up and then the swell kind of sits back before really starting to increase.
That was the case yesterday and I got lucky and I was pretty spot on with the size guess: head high at noon and well overhead at sunset I said, and this is sailor Heike Reimann enjoying the afternoon windsurfing conditions that looked extremely fun. Photo by Jimmie Hepp.
I'm trigger fingered and can't windsurf so I opted for a second surf session. When I parked at Hookipa around 3ish, it was the middle of a wind lull. I jumped in the water right away and by the time I got to the lineup it was blowing 20+. I caught one wave in an hour while watching my friends ripping. Oh well, at least I got a good workout by constantly paddling against the wind.
Double starring for Heike, who took this gopro snapshot from the top of the mast at Kanaha a few days ago. I love how you can't see behind the wave and that makes it look a bit surreal.
Buoy graphs confirm the guessed traveling time. The same (qualitatively, but with different numbers of course) rise observed at the NW buoy, happened in Maui 12-14 hours later.
Notice how the direction went under the 300 degrees at the NW buoy. Not at the Pauwela one, of course, you'll never see anything more west than 310ish, because the waves have already been refracted by the upstream islands.
As a matter of fact, at 6am Pauwela reads:
5.3ft @ 15s from 315° (NW)
4.5ft @ 9s from 87° (E)
3.3ft @ 6s from 70° (ENE)
Without the windswell (and the wind), 5f 15s would be a lot of fun, we just got back to the normal Maui conditions after having been spoiled by an outstanding stretch of glassiness.
NW graph looks pretty steady, just coming down a second or two in the period and that is exactly what the swell is going to do in Maui too. Quite a bit smaller than yesterday at sunset though, because of the turn to the west in the direction. Which brings up a whole new point of discussion that I will try to elaborate on maybe at mid morning, since I got to go surf now. Come back later for that.
Without the windswell (and the wind), 5f 15s would be a lot of fun, we just got back to the normal Maui conditions after having been spoiled by an outstanding stretch of glassiness.
NW graph looks pretty steady, just coming down a second or two in the period and that is exactly what the swell is going to do in Maui too. Quite a bit smaller than yesterday at sunset though, because of the turn to the west in the direction. Which brings up a whole new point of discussion that I will try to elaborate on maybe at mid morning, since I got to go surf now. Come back later for that.
I do have time to report a decent shore break in Kihei (left), but absolutely nothing at Makena (right).
Small, weak, scattered fetches all around us. None of them will actually do anything noticeable.
Evil high pressure still NW of us, slowly moving east. Gonna bring disgusting sideon conditions as soon as tomorrow. The word disgusting and the three stars on Windguru go usually together for me.
After having missed that Pali storm that generated that amazing SW swell one/two months ago, I now try keep an eye on all tropical storms I see on the map. There's one almost on top of Fiji that is too compact/far to do anything for us, but we'll follow its evolution anyway. Do not book a last minute trip to Fiji right now and if you are about to leave for one, you might want to consider canceling it.
We're still orphans of MC2km, the is the windity closeup at noon and it shows plenty wind from a direction that is still acceptable. With the ground swell still lingering, it should be another fun day of wind related sports.
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