Thursday, February 15, 2007

Tropical energy games day 1

I'm injured, so I get to watch this contest at Hookipa... at least good timing!

A few words on this event. Organized by Tristan Boxford, the program is open to all water sports.
Surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, SUP surfing, tow surfing, tandem surfing, hawaiian outrigger canoe surfing. Whatever the conditions will be good for. Mostly invitations only, but this morning they were accepting subscriptions at the beach. For the surfing contest, at least.
This morning they started at 10.30 with surfing.
A solid 12 feet hawaiian NW swell hit the island just in time. Many waves were in the triple overhead range, like this one.


I got there late, so that's the only good photo of the quarter finals I got.
Here's the board.


The surf contest will continue tomorrow at 7.30.
Around noon the wind picked up a notch (how was it down at Kanaha? you bastards...) and the kite competition started.
It took them a while before they were ready, so they could only do one heat. The wind got really light and most of the kitesurfers of this heat ended up being rescued by the jet ski.
Here's Pet Cabrinha hitting a lip.


And here's a kite on the rocks.


I always hated to deal with the lines on the beach... imagine in this situation. Good luck with those tangles...


After the contest, a few surfers challenged the tough conditions (Lanes looked pretty good, actually). Here's my favorite surfer of the day.


Tonight there's a concert of the guitarist David Nelson. He played in a few Grateful Dead records, so I assume it's that kind of music.
I've never really been into that kind of music...
It's 25 bucks...
Tomorrow I don't want to miss the start of the surfing contest...

mmm... not too sure about this concert... I'll go for an icecream in Paia and then I'll see...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for your blog! It's great to able to keep an eye on the "water" life on Maui. You made the choice of moving to Maui .. I made the choice of moving to France to have a better quality of life (8 week vacation) .. and I always wonder whether I should have moved to Maui instead! I've been there every years for 8 years (was living in CA).
Your blog might help me move to Maui some day .. meanwhile I certainly enjoy reading you. Keep the good work!
I'll be back on your island in May :)
--Pascal.

Anonymous said...

well at least you can keep us updated on the games. a bit weird i thought - it's like the exclusive club showing off to each other.

anyway, as you saw at ho'okipa the sets were very inconsistent but when they came (got nailed a few good times and gave up just before noon). but I digress, so without hesitation I went to Kanaha in the afternoon as it was supposed to be bigger than the morning. but with so much west, there was only a head high set every 20+ minutes and light on shore wind. so you missed nothing, even canadian jeff will tell you the same. I didn't even bother to paddle out. hope that makes you feel a bit better!

cammar said...

Pascal,
to find your inner peace you don't necessarely need a nice place... but it helps!
Let me know if you need accomodation and/or a car: cammar@xxxcammar.net (drop the xxx).

Meesh, the show off/ego factor is huge! But, I'm injured and I got something to watch...
You sure I missed nothing at Kanaha? Don't forget I can sail on a longboard... I had an enthusiast report from another canadian sailor...

Ponobill said...

I had a great time at Kanaha yesterday, standup surfing in the morning, and when the wind came up a little I did lowers on the longboard with a 6.3 superfreak. Just enough wind to waterstart and the waves got BIG. I was talking to Teddy about the Laird boards and he told me Jaws would be going off in the late afternoon and Hamilton was going to be there with Don King, the surf photog. I had to leave at three anyway 'cause we had a dinner engagement over in Kihei so we stopped off at Jaws to watch.

I hear it's old news, but he did Jaws on his standup board. I got some pictures on my blog (www.ponohuse.com/ponoblog but they kind of suck 'cause all I had was the point and shoot with me. But it was awesome to watch. Diane dragged me away after half an hour. I would have been there until they quit.

Sorry to hear you got injured. I'll drop by the contest today on my way to the beach to say hi.

Bill

Unknown said...

Hi there, reading your blog an seeing all the good pics is a pleasure from here - here in good old cold germany. It is freezing, but no snow.... and I would like to be on vacation at Maui right now. Well I think I'll have to change my plans an try to go to hawaii again. Thanx for your blog !!!!
Greeting from Germany