Tuesday, May 31, 2016

9am lahaina side is inconsistent knee to belly occasionally chest high.

5.30am lahaina side looked the usual knee to belly high. I'll be more precise in the update after my session.

5 31 16 morning call

I lost the count of the hours I spent in the water yesterday, but I remember the sessions: four. The first one was at Hookipa that was pretty clean.

Fast waves though, it was hard to make sections.

The other three were at thousand peaks that was good all day. I rode all kinds of board, from an early Craigslist score of a 5.10 twin keel glassed on fins Smith fish to a 9.4 single fin Tudor nose rider from the shop (gonna buy that board whenever it will for sale). In this photo, I'm riding the longboard and I somehow managed to hit that close out lip and come down with it.


Plenty nice little walls like this, if you avoided the closeouts.


South Pacific map still shows a strong Tasman Sea fetch, which means more waves today. It's been a long lasting stretch of surf on the Lahaina side.


3am significant buoy readings.
NW
4.7ft @ 6s from 39° (NE)           
2.5ft @ 10s from 319° (NW)
 
Pauwela
2.4ft @ 6s from 351° (N)           
2.1ft @ 7s from 24° (NNE)
2.1ft @ 11s from 330° (NW)
2ft @ 8s from 76° (ENE)
 
Lanai
2.4ft @ 14s from 184° (S)
 
Still some NW and N energy at the Pauwela buoy will make for some waves at Hookipa. Better hit it early, since the noon wind map below shows some trades later on.
But I'm going south again (I have a lesson at 9.30), so expect a report later in the morning.


North Pacific map shows a close NNE fetch (responsible for the 6 and 7s readings at Pauwela) and a distant NW one.


South Pacific map shows a decent fetch SE of New Zealand that is going to get better tomorrow. Good south swell in a week.

Monday, May 30, 2016

10am peaks is thigh to belly high, clean and crowded

6.30am Hookipa is waist to chest high and clean.

5 30 16 morning call

A peaceful thousand peaks SUP early session was my water action yesterday as I had to work in the morning and cook a massive minestrone for a bbq in the afternoon.

I don't have action shots, so I stole one from the WSL photo website (photo by Ed Sloane). Competition is under way for the ladies at Cloudbreak (down to the quarters). Bethany Hamilton can't use her arm to slow down in the barrel and that of course makes it way more difficult. Like if catching the wave and standing up and ripping hard turns without an arm wasn't difficult enough.



4am significant buoy readings.
NW
3.9ft @ 12s from 313° (NW)

Waimea
1.8ft @ 13s from 314° (NW)

Pauwela
3.1ft @ 8s from 78° (ENE)
1.8ft @ 14s from 334° (NNW)

Lanai
2.4ft @ 14s from 196° (SSW)

Barbers
3.5ft @ 14s from 158° (SSE)

Finally the expected small NW swell is showing at the buoys. Nothing to be particularly excited about, but the north shore has been flat for days, so that'll be a good change for the people who are tired to drive to the south shore. Should help spread out the crowd a bit better too. Too bad that after a windless morning, the noon map below shows a light NE wind that will ruin whatever will be in the water on the north shore.


Still good readings at the south facing buoys. The only way I can try to justify the difference in the directions is that the Lanai and Barbers buoys are both pretty close to land and both might feel the influence of the surrounding bottom. I have noticed a difference in the direction many times.
--8am update: it could have also been a glitch of Barbers, since the 8am reading is 3.7ft @ 13s from 228° (SW).--
The important thing is that there is still energy.
In fact, the South Pacific map of 7 days ago (23rd) had a strong fetch in the Tasman Sea which translates in continuous wave action on the south shore.



North Pacific map shows small/weak fetches.


South Pacific shows a couple of fetches to keep the flatness away.


And I have one more board for sale: a 5.8x19.5x2.5 Lost Round Nose Fish. A classic.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

8.30am previous report was a bit generous, peaks is more like knee to occasional belly high and glassy. Getting crowded.

6.30am peaks is thigh to occasional chest high and glassy. Got to work at 9, not driving to lahaina, but it looks good on the webcam

5 29 16 morning call

Another double Lahaina side session day for me. The photo below is from the early morning one.

The mid morning one was at Thousand Peaks on the SUP and once again that was the most fun. What I like about those is the complete lack of the urge to perform that I somehow manage to put into my head when I have a high performance shortboard under my feet. I need to work on that aspect and make even the shortboard sessions a bit more zen.

Anyway, conditions were fun all morning for the third day in a row of this Tasman swell. Before of which, they were fun because of the previous swells, so if you've not been going that way, you've been missing out on some fun.


South Pacific map of 7 days ago (22nd) shows another Tasman sea fetch, so we should have more energy from that direction (confirmed by the Lanai buoy reading below).


4am significant buoy readings:
Pauwela
3.8ft @ 8s from 76° (ENE)

Lanai
2ft @ 14s from 205° (SSW)

Barbers
2.1ft @ 15s from 164° (SSE)                      
1.5ft @ 12s from 205° (SSW)

Nothing on the north shore yet, but there might be something later on today and tomorrow.
Still a couple of feet 14s from the Tasman swell at the Lanai buoy, looks like Lahaina is the spot again. Interesting different direction at the Barbers buoy. Could be from that fetch east of New Zealand from 8 days ago (map on yesterday's call).

Wind map at noon shows very little wind everywhere. Gonna be a hot day.


North Pacific shows the couple of lows that are killing the trades and their related fetches that won't make much waves for us, but hopefully enough to keep the flatness away in a few days.


Tiny insignificant fetch down south. It should get better in the next few days.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

9.30am lahaina side has inconsistent sets up to shoulder high. Clean conditions with just an onshore texture. Choke people everywhere.

5 28 16 morning call

First Lahaina session yesterday was fun. This guy got some board pop out of his pumping action.


Still shoulder high sets.


Second session at Thousand Peaks on the SUP was even more fun.


4am significan buoy readings
Waimea
2.1ft @ 10s from 358° (N)

Pauwela
4.1ft @ 8s from 79° (ENE)

Lanai
2ft @ 15s from 215° (SW)

Barbers
2.4ft @ 14s from 197° (SSW)

2f 10s from N at Waimea would make for small waves on the north shore, but Pauwela seems to only feel the windswell (which won't do much instead at that size and direction). Maybe the northerly energy will show up later, you guys should check the buoys/webcam later in the day to verify that, otherwise I'll call for a pretty flat day at Hookipa, at least to start with.

Lanai and Barbers still reading a couple of feet of southerly energy. The south swell have slow starts but also slow ends, so we'll see that energy for a few more days.
The South Pacific map of 7 days ago (21st) looks pretty good with a part of the fetch west and a part east of New Zealand. You can understand how much better it would be if New Zealand wasn't there, but it is. It would be better also if Kahoolawe wasn't there, but it is.

The reason I'm now posting the maps of 7 days earlier is to give you guys (and me!) an idea of what the fetch generating an eventual south swell looked like. BUT, it doesn't mean that what we're surfing is always coming from that exact moment in time. We know that waves travel at a speed that depends on the period. We also know that waves change their period when they travel. So knowing exactly what day and time a particular wave was generated is impossible.

Also because a wave is not generated in only one moment, of course. If a fetch stays in a favorable position (oriented towards Hawaii) for a few days, the waves that were generated at the back of the fetch will keep building their height as they travel through the fetch.
In other words, those maps are just a ROUGH indication of how the fetch looked like.
Much more important is what the buoys read and I can live with 2f 15s, so this morning I'm going again Lahaina side (and I work in the afternoon again). Expect reports later in the day.


The wind should be pretty light island wide. This is the noon map.


North Pacific totally dead other than a weak windswell fetch.


South Pacific not offering much either. Those two fetches are not well oriented/situated.

Friday, May 27, 2016

9.30am lahaina side has inconsistent sets up to shoulder high. Clean conditions everywhere.

6am Hookipa was flat, lahaina side knee to chest high. Overall it seemed less energy than yesterday. I'll be more precise in the update after my session. Clean conditions everywhere.

5 27 16 morning call

Double Lahaina session for me yesterday, the morning one beating the afternoon post work one by far. It's hard to surf the same break with onshore conditions when in the morning you had it pristine. I quickly took the photo below at Oluwalu to show the clean conditions around 8. The start of the swell was probably the best part of it.


3am significan buoy readings.

Waimea          
0.5ft @ 12s from 283° (WNW)
0.5ft @ 18s from 266° (W)

Pauwela
3.2ft @ 7s from 75° (ENE)

Lanai
1.7ft @ 18s from 213° (SW)
1.5ft @ 13s from 195° (SSW)

Barbers
1.7ft @ 17s from 217° (SW)
1.3ft @ 12s from 189° (S)

A hint of energy from the west at the Waimea buoy, but from that direction we shouldn't get anything. Pauwela only has marginal windswell, so Hookipa will be mostly flat today.
Lanai and Barbers reading long period energy from the SW and shorter period smaller size from the south. That's the reflection of the wind map of 7 days ago (20th) below that shows the two generating fetches. I'd rather have only one swell in the water, but the second smaller one might add a bit of consistency. I'm going Lahaina side again and I work in the afternoon, expect reports later in the morning.
Easterly wind at noon.


North Pacific only offering a weak windswell fetch.


South Pacific hanging in there with a couple of fetches to keep the flatness at bay.


Thursday, May 26, 2016

8.30am lahaina has inconsistent long period sets of various sizes. I've seen a head high one.
Clean conditions.

5.30am lahaina side looked pretty small in the darkness. That makes sense since the old swell is on the decline and the new one will take all day to fill in. I did see a couple of lines though, so stay tuned for an update after my session.

5 26 16 morning call

I was in the water at dawn in Lahaina yesterday and between 6 and 6.30 there was a moment with perfect wind (very light offshore), tide, size and direction. The combination of that made for some of the most beautiful belly high waves I've ever seen. Fortunately I didn't have the gopro with me, because a photo would have not been able to render the perfection and the beauty. There was not a single drop of water out of place.

Maybe I under called the size a bit (I like to stay on the conservative side on my calls), there were occasional shoulder high sets, and the conditions stayed pristine for most of the morning.

After my session, I taught a SUP lesson, then took a nap and then went out again at another break. A moderate SW wind picked up (island wide, I heard) and that kicked everybody out but me. There's always something positive out of everything.

Including the lesson, I spent a total of 6 hours in the water. It was a good day. I don't have any pictures, so I'm linking this Surfline feature that shows some perfect Indonesian waves.

In the past couple of days, I posted the 7 days old South Pacific wind map (if you guys don't remember them, just scroll down to those posts). Those maps showed a decent fetch Tuesday and a much weaker one Wednesday. So why was yesterday bigger than the day before?
Because the waves had 13s period. The fetch was 4,100 nm away and 13s waves take 8 days to get here. That's why Wednesday was bigger than Tuesday.

3am significant buoy readings.

Pauwela
3.6ft @ 8s from 72° (ENE)

Lanai
1.9ft @ 13s from 191° (SSW)

Barbers
2.2ft @ 13s from 199° (SSW)                      
0.6ft @ 20s from 218° (SW)
 
Here's what Pat Caldwell says about the new SW swell we're forecasted to start seeing today:"
A storm-force low pressure tracked NE in the Tasman sea 5/19-20 with seas building above 40 feet west of New Zealand. Gales behind a front pushed into the sub-tropics, and fresh to strong breezes well into the tropics 5/21-22.
The pacioos/cdip american samoa buoy showed a steady rise 5/23 from both the long-period remote swell of 14-22 seconds and the closer post-frontal, shorter-period swell of 10-14 seconds. The time series of swell height, summed up for all wave periods greater than 10 seconds, had a Christmas tree signature centered on Monday night with peak heights to 7 feet. The heights and dominant wave periods have steadily dropped 5/24-25.
Surf in Hawaii from Tasman sources rarely surpasses the seasonal average, except for cases such as this where the source winds of high magnitude push further northward. For the highest Tasman events in Hawaii, the heights fall into a bracket just a notch above the average for top exposures. The Tasman direction has limited surf potential and large error bars on the local surf estimate due to shadowing by SW Pacific islands.
Long period swell of 17-22 seconds is expected to fill in locally overnight Wednesday through Thursday. Inconsistent arrival of the largest sets is typical during the onset stage. The event should be filled in by Friday when it is predicted to peak from 200-220 degrees. It should drop near the seasonal average by Saturday morning, and steadily drop below average into Sunday. Background tiny to small breakers from 208-220 degrees could linger on Monday 5/30. "


Below is the South Pacific map of 7 days ago, showing the start of the strong Tasman sea fetch that generated those 40 feet seas. It's gonna get closer to us the day after, but we'll analyze that tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'll base my call on the buoy readings. Still a couple of feet 13s at Lanai from the east of New Zealand fetch of the 17-18th, and that's exactly what was in the water yesterday. And Barbers feels the forerunners of the south west swell with a promising 0.6ft @ 20s from 218° (SW).
The onset of the new swell will be painfully slow as usual, but Lahaina is the spot again for today, also considering that the windswell on the north shore has gone down to minimal levels.
I'm going early again, expect a report later.


Wind will be coming from a quite offshore direction.



Wind map doesn't show any significant fetch.


South Pacific either. Bad day of wave generation for Hawaii.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

7.30am lahaina side knee high. Long wait for the sets, but it can be up to belly high

5.30am lahaina side knee to occasional thigh high, clean everywhere

5 25 16 morning call

Double Lahaina session for me yesterday, no action shots, here's how the west side sunset looked like. Photo by Jimmie Hepp.


3am significant buoy readings:
Pauwela
4.5ft @ 8s from 57° (ENE)

Lanai
2.1ft @ 13s from 193° (SSW)

South Pacific map of 7 days ago (18th) looks pretty mediocre, but I like the Lanai reading, so guess what... I'm going Lahaina side again. I have a lesson at 7.30 and of course I'll hit the water at 5.30 and get 1.5h of glassy surfing by myself first. Small waves? Doesn't matter. It's great traning (when you put your weight in the wrong spot on a small wave, the board just stops) and I just love being out there at dawn.


Wind map at noon below.



North Pacific wind map shows (from the left):
- a moderate NW fetch
- a weak NNW fetch
- a windswell fetch

Could be a lot worse. What I like is that those lows will kill the trades a bit, so the small waves that we should receive from them should be kinda clean.


Tasman sea taking a little break, but only for us. That's still waves being made for Fiji down there.


Here's a canoe paddle crossing to Lanai organized in October by my friend Patti Cadiz.

And here's a lovely little video featuring legendary Derek Hynd and his philosophy. If you like his frictionless sliding, check out this other one.

The man & the sea - Reelers Entry from Andrew Kaineder on Vimeo.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

6.30am Hookipa had waist high windswell kinda clean. Lahaina side coming in at knee high with occasional bigger sets, clean everywhere.

5 24 16 morning call

I had the whole day yesterday and yet the only session I found was able to find was the SUP lesson I taught on the south shore. This is my student catching his first successful wave of his life (and screaming the whole way for happiness). His natural low stance helped, the paddle is too high up in the air, but pretty damn good overall!


I got on the Hana hwy later directed to Koki, but had to take a nap halfway and drove back after it.
Pavils looked fun late afternoon, but with at least 30 people.



3-4am significant buoy readings

Pauwela 4.7ft @ 8s from 61° (ENE)

Lanai 1.6ft @ 14s from 194° (SSW)

Barbers 2ft @ 14s from 203° (SSW)


This early morning the wind should be fairly light on the whole north shore, before it manages to make the turn around Pauwela point, so surfing the windswell (better on a east facing break, but watch out for the man-o-wars) is an option.
I think I'll go for the longer period/longer wait south swell instead.
Below is the map of 7 days ago (May 17) and it looks pretty good.


Below is the graph of the Samoa buoy this morning. As you can see, it's feeling the Fiji swell and yesterday it went from 2 to 6 feet in 12 hours. Not a huge reading by any means, and it seems to have peaked already... where do those 16f 16s go?! But it's some energy that should arrive in Maui in 3 days, which is Thursday (just 1f 20s forecasted from Surfline though).


Here's a brief paragraph (which I'm gonna include in the usual NW buoy to Maui travel time and shadowing angles post for easy future reference) about travelling times from Samoa and swell directions.

The Samoa buoy (S on the map, F stands for Fiji instead) is located at 14.265 S 170.494 W which is at an angle of 202 degrees SSW of Maui and at a distance of 2,222 nm. Below are the travelling times of swells coming from that direction.

20sec--30kts-- 74hrs (3days)

17sec--26kts-- 85hrs (3.5 days)

14sec--21kts--106 hrs (4.5 days)

11sec--17kts--130 hrs (5.5 days)


As you can see, there's a narrow path between the New Zealand's north island and Fiji that is unobstructed. The direction of that path is 210. There's also more scattered paths west of Fiji. You can understand how the energy of a swell coming from the Tasman sea will always be reduced by the interaction with all this land masses.
As a matter of fact, the biggest south swells for Hawaii, usually come from just east of New Zealand, an area which is between 200 and 180 degrees south of us. No obstacles there and easier to forecast too.



Noon wind map shows pretty offshore direction.



North Pacific shows sign of life on today's map. In addition to the usual windswell fetch and the NNW weak one that was there already yesterday, we now have a distant proper NW fetch. Should get better the next few days and Surfline calls for 3f 12s from 318 on Monday.


South Pacific still shows strong activity in the Tasman sea. That's another big swell for Fiji. Let's hope it doesn't go flat when the contest will be there!



WSL has acquired Kelly's wave. Here's a nice article in which I especially enjoyed the Kelly's interview part.

More photos from the epic Cloudbreak swell  here  and here.

Last but not least, here's a video of shaper Keith Taboul and his riders. The 5.10 KT I'm selling was shaped for Kain Daly. Check out how good he is.

KT SURFBOARDS from TAKE SHELTER PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.