10 20 16 morning call

Yesterday morning I first wasted half an hour trying to surf windy windswell at The Point (btw, the score I give is for The Point/Middles. Pavillions might be better, specially if we're talking windswell, but I rarely even look at it) and then I went to Lahaina where I scored an expected delightful session.

The waves were waist to shoulder high (as specified in the 10am beach report... got to check the blog often if you want to luck into one of those updates!) and very fun for everyone. For me they were even more fun, since I was comparing them to the pretty poor conditions (the 1.8 was kinda generous) I had just experienced on the north shore.

My Little Rascal and the wave I surfed confirmed to be a perfect match and the old man riding them did pretty damn good too.
On a couple of waves I hit the lip three times. In 15 years that I've lived here, I never hit the lip three times in a row on the same wave at Hookipa. And the chances that I never will are overly high. That's why I don't mind driving over there... 'cause hitting lips is fun!

Enough of that, I have no action shots, but a very worthy backup option: we got the foils in at Hi-Tech!


Here's the designer Alex Aguera during a clinic we had at the shop last week.



And more importantly, here's the designer Alex Aguera having a blast in onshore, mushy, slopy conditions on the south shore of Maui. Does he make it look fun or what?


You remember what happened when the SUP boards started crowding lineups that were up to then populated by mostly longboards? All the longboarders (the ones that didn't join the SUP crew, at least) complained about how their favorite spot was now ruined by the presence of all those Standups.
The same thing is going to happen with the foil, IMO.
There will be a lot of SUP surfers that will complain about how their favorite spot is now crowded with all those guys on the foil...

It's in the nature of things. We keep inventing new ways of having fun in the water and this is just going to be yet another one!
They retail for $1650, we received 20, we sold already 3 and Steve has at least 8 people on the waiting list that he hasn't found the time to call yet. In other words, don't wait too long, those things are going to sell.
If you go to Hi-Tech to check them out because you read this post, please let them know that.

Back to the Lahaina session, where were those waves coming from and why was it up to shoulder high with readings at the Lanai buoy of only 1.4f 14s? As usual, the answer is in the wind maps.
Below is the one from Oct 12, 7 days before yesterday.
Here's what Pat Caldwell wrote yesterday afternoon:
A gale low east of the north island of New Zealand 10/11-13 tracked steadily east and aimed highest seas SE of Hawaii. The pacioos/cdip Lanai and Oahu south shore buoys show low energy in the 10-14 second bands. This event should be short-lived.

I disagree with that (that is an extremely rare event!). In the map below, I circled two fetches. The one on the right is that one Pat is talking about. But I think yesterday's waves were coming from the one on the left in the Tasman Sea. The readings at the Lanai buoy were in fact consistently from a SSW direction (not the ones at the Barbers buoy, I admit). But more than that, what makes me believe what I just wrote is the fact that readings of 1.4f 14s from a southerly direction usually don't mean much more than knee to waist high anywhere in Maui. Yesterday's one made for shoulder high sets because they had a bit of west in it and were not blocked by Kahoolawe.

It feels almost like a blasphemy to question what Pat Caldwell says and we'll never know who's right and where these waves came from, what counts is that I scored. And the eventual blog readers that followed my beach reports.


4-5am significant buoy readings:
Lanai
1.2ft @ 14s from 209° (SSW)           

0.9ft @ 13s from 195° (SSW)

Barbers
2ft @ 11s from 174° (S)

 

South with a bit of east at Barbers, south with a bit of west at Lanai, Pat and I might actually be both right. Who cares, check the webcam if you like small, clean waves instead of bigger, wind blown ones. I just did and today it looks much smaller than yesterday, but the morning high tide might be killing it. Just saying.

NW
4.2ft @ 14s from 325° (NW)

Waimea
1.8ft @ 16s from 316° (NW)

Pauwela

5.1ft @ 8s from 69° (ENE)    

1.1ft @ 16s from 328° (NW)

 

New NW swell on the rise all day. The NW buoy was offline half of the day yesterday, so the graph is not easy to read, but we'll try anyway. As you can see from the light blue line, the swell went from 2f 17s to 4f 14s from 6pm to midnight. Even without knowing anything about the fetch (which instead you guys do, don't you? And if you don't remember it, scroll down to Sunday's the 16th morning call), you can deduce from that that the fetch was small and this swell is not going to be particularly big or long lasting.
But a similar increase will happen at the Pauwela buoy throughout the day, so we can expect to see some lines amongst the also mounting windswell.

 

Current wind map shows a new low pressure system just coming out of Asia. Because of the blocking action of the High pressure, it will track north and that will greatly limit the potential for producing surf for Hawaii. Normally the lows follow the jet stream in an easterly path and whenever the jet stream has a dip towards us, the lows get closer to the islands and generate the giant surf. Too early for that, got to wait winter time for that. Let's not forget we're still in Autumn, so sometimes we get big swells, sometimes (like the last two days) we don't and overall there's more wind. Let's also not forget that this year is a La Nina one, and that usually brings stronger high pressures and more wind.

I also circled the windswell fetch and a southerly one which could keep the southern shores from going flat thanks to the angular spreading of the swell it will generate.

 

MC2km page (or DNS whatever the problem is) still down, I don't feel like using the windguru table again, it's gonna be windy. It's been windy all of October that's why yesterday's break on the west side felt so good!