Reading the wave is obviously one of the most important aspects of a successful ride, and one of the most difficult to teach. It takes a lot of practice and the more waves you observe, the better you'll be at it. Here's a tip.
You have to aim to take off in the section that will offer the ideal degree of steepness that will allow you to catch the wave without being too steep. That depends on:
- the surfer's skill
- the board (the bigger it is, the less steep the wave it needs to be)
Unfortunately, there's not a red X on that spot of the wave, so you have to guess when the wave is approaching and paddle towards it.
The windsurfing was extremely fun, since the light sideoff wind made for some really clean inside sections. Unfortunately I got a little unlucky at the end with a combination of zero wind on the inside and a 10 waves set that sent me on the rocks. Thanks to a very poor floating through the rocks action, I even managed to slam my face on a rock. No big deal, a few scratches and a bit of swollen eye is not going to keep me out of the water. Below are a couple of shots of my first wave by Jimmie Hepp taken from this gallery.
3am significant buoy readings
South shore
No direct southerly energy registered by the buoys, but I taught my lesson yesterday in perfect knee to thigh high waves. Check the webcams if you wonna go.
North shore
NW101
5.6ft @ 11s from 299° (WNW)
4.8ft @ 10s from 292° (WNW)
Hanalei
6.2ft @ 10s from 318° (NW)
Waimea
4.4ft @ 12s from 318° (NW)
Pauwela
3.6ft @ 9s from 65° (ENE)
3ft @ 11s from 327° (NW)
2.8ft @ 5s from 75° (ENE)
2.6ft @ 13s from 339° (NNW)
The graphs of the four reported buoys below shows:
1) as predicted, there was a slight bump in the size yesterday also at Pauwela
2) a new bump happened at the NW101 buoy as indicated by the red arrow, so we should expect that to propagate through the islands. I do see the Hanalei graph going up a bit, so that's a good sign. In Maui it won't be anything major because the original direction of the swell is still less than 300, but there will be chest to head high waves with some bigger sets at the usual wave magnet sections of the reef at Hookipa, like Green Trees or The Point.
2) a new bump happened at the NW101 buoy as indicated by the red arrow, so we should expect that to propagate through the islands. I do see the Hanalei graph going up a bit, so that's a good sign. In Maui it won't be anything major because the original direction of the swell is still less than 300, but there will be chest to head high waves with some bigger sets at the usual wave magnet sections of the reef at Hookipa, like Green Trees or The Point.
Current wind map shows:
1) a new westerly fetch coming off Japan again. When the "Tokyo express" (as Pat Caldwell indicates a lowering of the jet stream to that area), it usually lasts a few days.
2) the fetch associated with the next westy that is forecasted to be 12.5 16s from 312 (after refraction) by Surfline at 8am Thursday. 8f 18s from 314 already at 8pm on Wednesday, so if that happens, there should be already massive waves at sunset tomorrow.
NAM3km map at 7am shows great light offshore conditions for the north shore.
1pm map shows much more wind, that's why I chose today to schedule a SUP downwind guide. Should be fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment