Tuesday, February 16, 2016

2 16 16 morning call

Yesterday started with an unexpectedly fun session at Paia Bay. It was light offshore, waist to shoulder high. I caught 20 waves in 2 hours and got a couple of shoulder coverups. Looked like somewhere else. The power of a light offshore wind.

Later I went to take some photos at Hookipa. Actually, after I took this first shot of kiter Steve Sadler, I was so inspired by his rail game that I went to check the surfing options again. Of course, it wasn't as good as early, so I returned and shot for an hour before work.


Levi with his characteristic super fast bottom turn.


Different wave, but nice contortionism off the top.


This photo instead has nothing to do with yesterday. Other than the fact that it's when I saw it on Instagram. Surfer Steve Hadley on a Campbell Brothers Surfboards 5 fin bonzer that was called the "Bumble Bee" model. Remarkable photo by Jason Hall with one of those first waterproof point and shoot cameras that came out.



And this is a mesmerizing video of Tahiti. Not new, someone might have seen it already, but it's worth a re-watch. I especially like the tow surfers getting detonated at the very end... and the ones that shockingly make it instead.

Teahupo'o, Du Ciel from SURFING Magazine on Vimeo.

The NW buoy still reads 6.6ft @ 13s from 303° (WNW) from the swell that has been with us for the last two days, and that means that it's going to be with us also today! Slowly coming down, but still there. Conditions will be WAY less clean though.

Let's see why by checking what Pauwela reads at 5am.
4.3ft @ 14s from 313° (NW) are going to be mixed with 8.2ft @ 10s from 34° (NE) and you can imagine what that is going to look like. Add the wind on top of it and you have a bit of a mess. At least at Hookipa. Might still be fun somewhere else, but you need to be creative in your spot search.

Wind map shows little fetches here and there, but more than anything it shows the big H that has taken control of the Pacific. Let's not panic just yet, we're still in winter and there are going to be more swells.


The problem is going to be the wind direction though. The Windguru table shows onshores for the next 10 days.


Btw, I like that on IE sometimes the swell prediction doesn't show on it, so it's less distracting. Windguru is the last place on earth where I would check the waves, since it only shows the "biggest" swell and that can be extremely confusing/misleading. If there's 7f 6s and 6f 20s at the same time, for example, it would only show the first one. Which is smaller when it breaks on the reef. We're talking  chest high versus double overhead kind of smaller.

Surfline's Offshore Swell tab is my favorite instead, since it shows the prediction with graphs which is exactly how they show the buoy readings too. Overlapping graphs are the closest way to graphically represent overlapping swell. Their Regional Forecast Dashboard tab is completely useless instead IMO, but it makes for some "WOW!" inducing social media shares when it shows 70f at Jaws...

Another thing I like about Surfline is their "features". This one is all about Maui and it doesn't have any Jaws photos!

And with MC2km still down, here's a windity closeup trying to gather the wind direction for the day.
It looks a lot better than expected and as a matter of fact, iWindsurf.com shows a reading of 11mph from 78 degrees at Hookipa at 6.30am.




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