Saturday 5 27 17 morning call

Gorgeous day of surfing on the south shore yesterday, with a couple of fun sessions for me. Here's photos from three different spots.






3am significant buoy readings
North shore
Pauwela
3.1ft @ 8s from 17° (NNE)           

2.2ft @ 9s from 22° (NNE)

0.5ft @ 14s from 60° (ENE)

0.3ft @ 16s from 343° (NNW)

Let's get rid of the north shore first, since today it should be all about the south, even though I admit that Hookipa looked awfully fun with a longboard yesterday at sunset: really clean waist to chest. I believe that's what 3f 8s will do today too. No beach report from me as I plan on leaving home in the dark, but that is definitely a possible option if you don't feel like driving.

South shore

Thanks to Jason Hall, today we have a graphic representation of the those outer buoys I've been using lately. As you can see, unlike the local south facing ones (Lanai and Barbers, offline at the moment), they are exposed to all kind of swells that will influence each other in the readings, in particular the direction. For example, the W buoy complete readings are:

4.2ft @ 8s from 33° (NE)

3.5ft @ 15s from 173° (S)

Now try to picture the buoy being rocked four feet up and down every 8s along a NE-SW axis. At the same time, the buoy is registering a much less consistent 15s 3.5f swell coming from the south and that makes the direction detection a lot harder. In other words, I never trust the direction registered at the outer buoys as 100% precise. A confirmation of that is offered by the other two boys, which instead register a bit of west in the same swell.

Anyway, 4f 15-16s are solid numbers (totally in line with the latest Surfline forecast) and today and tomorrow should be two days of relatively big waves on any south facing shore.


I always like to analyze the fetches that created a swell. In this case, we'll first read Pat Caldwell's description of what happened back a week ago:
A complex pattern of low pressure in the New Zealand vicinity 5/17-21 had strongest winds to the S to SE of New Zealand 5/18-19. The limiting factor for the source was proximity to New Zealand which made the fetch width narrow. A captured fetch was set up as post-frontal winds pushed parallel to New Zealand to the NNE 5/19-21, with near gales reaching into the subtropics. The combined fetch length from 65°S to near 30°N was near 2000 nm.

And then we'll have a look at the fetches of the three days of main wave generation: 19 (it was Friday), 20 and 21.


As predicted long ago, another great aspect of today will be the lack of strong trades. Some waves will benefit from that, some won't. Below is the 2pm map of the Maui Surf Report customized model on Meteogram that actually shows ESE winds up at Pauwela Point. Notice the light onshores at Maalaea, if that really happens, it would be a bummer for the famous wave which today should offer some action, even though a very early morning report I received said that there's not much there...


Not much wave energy generated in the North Pacific for us today.


And not much down south either. All those strong fetches are aming at the South American continent.


Morning sky and another glorious day in Hawaii is on its way. 


Watch out the minus half foot tide at 10.06am in Lahaina. I don't understand all the big fuss made by the media about the "king" tide of these days (never heard that before). The highest tide swings (confusingly called Spring tides) happen each lunar cycle in coincidence with full and/or new moons (that's when Moon, Earth and Sun are lined up).
In Hawaii, they normally are about 2 feet, but in Spring and Autumn they can reach a total of 3 feet. And that happens each single year.

In coincidence with a relatively big swell, some of the ocean water can occasionally overflow the highway on the Lahaina side and slow down the traffic, but since it happens in the afternoon, that's not gonna be a big deal: the traffic is going to be slow anyway!



Massive day of surf constests in the Lahaina area. We have:
1) the Kimo longboard contest at Mala Warf (minimum 9feet, single fin and and no leash)
2) the HSA contest at Breakwall.
Here's the tentative heat order of the second one.