weather map of Dec 29th. As you can see comparing it to the ones below, the fetch has moved west at roughly 600nm per day, which is the speed at which those waves were travelling (thanks to Pat Caldwell for the info). That means that the winds have been pushing the same waves for three days, following them over the ocean. This situation is called "captured" fetch, and it's one of the key ingredients for big swells. The tow crew will be probably at Jaws wit thir stinky jet skis and the other outer reefs. You know where to find me...

Weather map of Dec 28th. Look at that fetch of extreme winds NE of Japan! They are building seas heading our way!

Weather map of Dec 27th. The low on the right is the one that generated the NW swell we are surfing right now and then moved east and is sending huge waves to the west coast. The one on the left is the new monster low responsible for the new NW swell that will arrive Friday. See above maps and you'll understand why it's gonna be giant surf again...

well, to be a secret spot it's quite easy to be guessed...

today, I surfed Hookipa. It was pretty damn big. I caught two waves and that was enough...
then, at sunset, I surfed a secret spot on the north shore (photo above) where, instead, it was waiste high with two shoulder high bombs when almost dark... I just wanted to practice a little shortboarding and I ended up having a hell lot of fun.

when the only thing you have to fix your board is UV-reacting resin and it's noon in sunny Kahului, you come up with stuff like this...

Monday 12 26. Great waves thanks to a large NW swell. I surfed Kanaha in the morning and at sunset. The second session was absolutely epic. Glassy, beautiful colors, all friends around. Meanwhile, many tow-iners scored Jaws, but I don't really care about that. Sharon, instead, scored the harbor. She saw Laird launching the jet ski there and pulling into a rogue wave that suddenly filled in, just to warm up. She even sent me a picture of that... What? It doesn't look like the harbor? The thing is that the wave is so big that covers the cruise ship in the background...
Anyways, this Christmas in Maui is unbelievable. Not a cloud, not a puff of wind, only tons of swells. Not too shabby.

This was the West Maui Mountain from the Haleakala highway this morning. Look at the smoke of the sugar factory going up perfectly straight and guess how the surf session was at Kanaha... OK, let me give you a clue: :-))))))))))))))))

Monday and Tuesday I scored some very fun waves in the harbor. Everywhere else was too big and disorganized, but not there.
Colorwise, this is a damn good one. Surfwise, not too shabby either...

yes, the background is not too nice (actually I kind of like it), but the cut back is!

Two very different ways to enjoy life. Cruising the Hawaiian islands on a big cruise ship and surfing in the Kahului harbor. I personally prefer the latter. But not only a little. Like 100 to 1! Thanks to the old Hawaiians for inventing surfing. The coolest thing in the world. In my humble opinion, of course.

One of the signs says:"no dumping"... On the way to Kanaha you can see things like this. Another example? Wild chikens living in the bush, crossing right in front of your car with a very bad timing... Hey they're chikens, they're not supposed to know how to cross a road! And they're probably not the smartest animal on heart. Still, it's pretty cool to still see some wild life in a place were the bad impact of the humans is quite evident... Better than the tire in the photo. I'm tired of tires. Is that a joke? I don't know, it's so hard to make jokes in a foreign language... Forgive me.

Robby Seeger chats with Kai Lenny after the session documented hereafter. You don't think it's a picture blog-worthy? Wait and see the one below...

Actually, the photo above was the excuse to turn on my left and shoot this one!!!

Lanes Dec 18 2005, unknown sailor. There we go, it's show time again. Josh Stone went out very early and said that his 4.4 was way too big. The waves... you can see by yourself. Very, very difficult.
Well, since it's all relative, I had my extreme emotions too. I waited patiently for the Kona wind to slow down a notch and I scored one hour at 4.30pm at Kanaha with the longboard and a 5.0. Not as big as Lanes, of course, but still freaking scary... I am extremely happy to have been out there. With me, sailing on a short board Dave Osborne and surfing on his longboard Jeff Henderson (who earlier sailed Kanaha on a 3.7!). I believe we will all remember the beauty of those waves.

look at the size of the chop on the face of that wave shredded by the extreme wind! Not easy, but uncle Robby Naish knows how...

beautiful top turn by Robby Seeger. In my opinion, he's the King of Lanes.

Polakow gets some air

classic Polakow slash

Levi plays tricks on an upwinder at the point

these waves look even bigger because the only sail up is the little one of Kai Lenny... well, they look just as big as they must have looked to him. How old is he? 13?!?! I barely knew how to ride a bycicle when I was 13...

Robby Seeger looked quite confortable in these extreme conditions

I don't know who he is, but I know that that wave is big!

Seeger chased by a waterfall

I don't know who this is, but he must have smoked something... he looks pretty high!

Robby goes out. It's always a thrill to take a photo of a sail with US1111 on... The legend is alive and kicking.

Hookipa 12 14. I got there at 5 and I saw Stone, Aguera, Polakow and Ordonez coming out of the water. "Damn, I missed some good photo opportunities!", I thought. But a few more pros were still in the water... This is Levi Siver.

I could not understand what those comets were, once I saw this photo on the screen of my computer, when I finally recalled that it was lightly raining and very windy when I took it. And I used the flash. So I believe those are the drops of rain caught in their fall. Some of them go upright? Not too surprising... must have been a strong gust...
Quity trippy anyway, uh?

This house in Makawao is the winner of tonight's Chistmas ornaments hunting session. Unbelievable. With the money they spend on electricity for that shit they could easily buy a few good meals for a starving child in Africa... Is this a fucked up world or what?

Sunday 12 12. Again, I wanted to stay away from the Hookipa zoo and I choosed to go to Launiupoko. Sunny, knee high waves, peace, fun. This guy seems to be enjoying too... Hey I need a feedback from the old blog users. As explained a few pics later, I'm using a different technique to upload photos. Do you guys think that opening the blog and/or the photos is slower than before? Is the watermelon photo slower to open than the others (it's a 800KB file. the other photos are less then 200KB)? Please post a comment to this post and let me know your feedback.

Hanamanou bay on Dec 1st. I was tired of the unfriendly crowd at Hookipa. It was small and closing out, but I had it all for me... What a beautiful place!

It was a big day at Kanaha on Monday Dec 5th. Thank god this is not my board...

Watermelon kissing action at taro dude's house

This is an experiment. The damn sw to upload the photos on the blog is still not working, so I'm trying "manually". The photo shows the incredible conditions that, once again, Hookipa offered on Wednesday nov 30. It's a bit old, but, again, this is an experiment... Hey, I just checked it. Not too bad. Actually the photo size is even bigger, especially when you click on it, that may mean that I may run out of space soon... we'll see. So now I can post again...

dammit!

The damn sw to upload the photos is not working again. Sorry, I have no idea why. In the meantime, just stick to the forecast. Friday we'll have a giant swell coming from WNW. Start thinking where to go surf... Forget about Hookipa and Kanaha. West side? Waiehu side? Harbor? Hanamanou? La Perouse?? Oh well, maybe it's not going to be that big in Maui, since from that direction we get the block of: Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai and Lanai. Basically only Kahoolawe and Big Island won't block it...
Am I complaining? Not at all. Maui is still no ka oi.

Crazy rails

This post shows the crazy rails of my windsurf boards.

Tuesday morning epic conditions at Hookipa. I I took a few pics and I got in the water to catch a few of those beauties. Light offshore wind, sunny, lots of turtles, quite a few bikinis and some damn big sets coming thru once in a while. It doesn't get much better than this. Oh my... I made some of the best drops ever. Stoked!

Tuesday morning Hookipa. This girl was ripping at Pavils. How that bikini stays on in the wipe outs, it is a mystery for me...

The big north shell continues. This guy is getting barreled in the Kahului harbor on Monday morning.

What a week! Here are the highlights:

Monday 21. I surfed Hookipa. It was small, but glassy and even the monk seal showed up in the line up

Tuesday 22. Hookipa surf again. A photo with the beautiful conditions can be found a few photos below.

Wednesday 23. I surfed a little peak in front of kite beach (I had a surf lesson there). My friends told me that the surf at lowers was were nice at sunset under a light rain, but I was busy getting a massage...

Thursday 24. One of those days... I surfed lower Kanaha in the morning. A little bumpy, but a lot of fun. Later on the wind picked up and I went out on my 12.6 and a 5.0. A lot of people, but a lot of fun too at lowers first and uppers later. The last hour it became epic. The wind went down and most of the "regular" windsurfers left the scene, leaving it to me on the longboard and a few pros. Among these, Mariano Estevill and F200 (I think he's Leo Ray) were really ripping. The waves were logo high and got so glassy and perfectly peeling... I think it was the best longboard sailing session I ever had. But I say that quite often...

Friday 25. classic winter Kanaha conditions. Not a puff of wind all day (still I was able to teach windsurfing to a few beginners). I surfed three hours at sunset and I just loved it. The last half hour, again, epic conditions with the light of the sunset creating incredible colors on the glassy surface of the waves. Jesus, I love winter in Hawaii!

Saturday 26. it gets better very day... Still waves and Kona wind. Tired after yesterday's ession, I chose a mellow session at Sand Piles (see photo above). In the afternoon I sailed lower Kanaha with a 5.5 and my 12.6 longboard and it was epic conditions again. Ask any of the 10 surfers that were out! They could not believe how fast I was going on that huge board all the way thru the break on the lip of the water wall. The Kona wind, in fact, holds the the wave a lot longer and I could make some sections that looked impossible... Plus, going down the line on a Kona wind, means rideing the waves front side on goofy stance... in other words, my favorite conditions! I was so close to the lip that a couple of times I hit it loudly with the clue of the sail. So freaking cool! At sunset I quickly checked the surf at Hookipa and it was unreal. I saw a guy getting barreled at the point for at least 30 yards! Thanks to the light offshore wind, the waves were so incredibly clean that it look like some place else...

Sunday 11 27. It's raining hard in Maui on this Sunday morning. Being the world champion of always finding the good aspect of everything, I am very happy about that. For the following reasons: 1) I need some rest!! 2) I can finally catch up with some computer work... and you guys are lucky, because I have the time to write all this shit... don't get used to it, though! It will take another heavy rainy day for this to happen again... 3) Last, but not least, right while I'm writeing this, I'm watching the web broadcast of the triple crown surf contest at Sunset Beach in Oahu (http://www.triplecrownofsurfing.com). Makua Rothman just scored a 9.33 getting heavily barreled at his home break. And the best news is that in Oahu is sunny, so I hope it's going to clear up here too in the afternoon. There's a big, a bit disorganized N swell. The harbor might be the call. That's all for now. Do you understand now why I'm the happiest man in the world? Aloha.

ops! This one colse out on me at Sand piles.

this girl has been on a strict taro burger diet...

covered!

radical body board action at Ledges

these three young girls kept me company on the Hookipa hill while I was taking photos... lucky me!

nice surfing conditions at Hookipa on Nov 22

think about this while you stuff yourself of turkey...

The Fao (Food and Agricoltural Organitation of the United Nations) just published its annual report called "The state of food insecurity". You can download it at: http://download.repubblica.it/pdf/food2005.pdf
If you don't have time to read it, let me just summarize it in one sentence: every year 6 millions children in the world die of hunger.
Just because we were lucky to be born in a rich country doens't mean that we cannot try to help the poorest people or at least respect their struggles. Think about a little charity donation every month (unicef.org or whatever you like).
Be more careful when you buy/cook food, because at the same time you will throw away your leftovers, some children will be dieing for lack of food! And you could have given the money you spent on your leftovers for charity.
Think about it while you stuff yourself of turkey (quite an unhealthy food, by the way) at Thanksgiving...

longboard sailing. Thanks to Jeff Henderson for the inspiration and those incredible Hot Sails Superfreak!

longboard backwind sailing. That's about all the freestyle I can do...

oh, finally the software to upload photos is working again! Here are a bunch of photos that I wanted to post since a few days. This first one is me and Nico sitting on the boards at Sprecks.

This pussycat likes my board... Al cat-pone.