I started out with SUP foil surfing in some lovely conditions on the south shore shown by the above photo by Jason Hall.
I continued with an unplanned nose riding solo session in Lahaina.
And I ended in full glory with a very planned windfoiling session in North Kihei.
Below is the unedited video of 14 minutes of continuous foiling action. If you got absolutely nothing better to do and no plans for the rest of the day, you can try to watch it all and find the beauty of it. It was pretty easy to do that for me, but I'm the one who was on the other side of the board, so I could easily recollect how majestic the whole experience was.
I had at least 6 more minutes to go when I overfoiled (I was overpowered on a 3.0), came down and decided to quit the filming. That means that in just one reach out and one in, I got to practice the foiling feeling for 40 minutes. The equivalent of, what do you think, a whole month of SUP surfing? Probably more than that, but the point is that if you are a windsurfer and you want to learn how to SUP or surf foil, do yourself a favor and learn how to windfoil first.
The skill you'll learn will not transfer 100%, but it will transfer a good 75%. Enough to completely skip what's been called "the scary phase" of the learning curve. That's my experience, at least.
If I inspire just one of you to give this thing a try, I'd be stoked. Enjoy the view.
3-4am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
1ft @ 17s from 188° (S)
SW
0.8ft @ 17s from 45° (NE) -- wrong direction indication
SE
1.7ft @ 17s from 142° (SE)
Lovely long period energy at the outer buoys. The 45° indication at the SW buoy is obviously wrong, but so are the ones at the other two buoys. We know that this swell comes from the Tasman Sea. That's where the fetch was in the maps of Sept 19 and 20 (the ones on the left and center in the collage below).
I have a lesson at 7.30, but I'll try to hit the water at 6 for a short session before that, so stay tuned for the beach report.
Remember: Tasman Sea swells are very inconsistent by nature.
North shore
NW101
3.5ft @ 9s from 324° (NW)
Waimea
2.5ft @ 9s from 348° (NNW)
Pauwela
3.4ft @ 8s from 62° (ENE)
2.2ft @ 11s from 334° (NNW)
Below is the collage of the fetches maps of Sept 23, 24 and 25. They show the fetch that made the NW energy we have on tap on the north shore today. The waves should be bigger than yesterday. I won't be able to check Hookipa, but my guess is belly to shoulder high with occasional head high sets.
Wind map at noon shows windfoiling potential both on the north shore and in north Kihei. I have a feeling that the wind will actually be stronger than that. I hope I'm wrong.
North Pacific shows the same very weak NW fetch of yesterday. The wind in it is barely 20 knots, so the waves it will generate will be of a short period that won't grow much more than 8-9 seconds by the time they reach Maui... if they ever make it. We'll see in 3 days. Notice how this fetch is weaker and a little more distant than the one in the collage above, which means the waves will be smaller.
The fetches map on the right shows a wide dark blue area that indicated 20 knots winds oriented towards us. In this case the distance is too much for those little waves to make to our shores, so I haven't even circled that area. 4th day in a row without wave generation from the south.
Morning sky pretty damn clear again.
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