windswell

Another day of fun wavesailing at Hookipa. The windswell held, even though not quite as big as yesterday, but still... it's summer time in Maui, I'll take it!

First photo of the day is Michi that must have had a big sail, since he was going pretty high in his backloops.


Philippe didn't go as high, but he took a foot off... not easy.


Now I understand the whole concept behind the Crossfire... it's to help the photographers! This is Jace.


Notoriously, Jake spends summer time in the Gorge. Unless there's waves at Hookipa, I guess... mmm, how does that work?


Luke got this sail from his multi-sponsored brother Levi and tried to take all the stickers off. "They just wouldn't come off, so I decided to spray paint it"...


Andres got in the water a bit late, but still in time for a few rolls.


Anatol trying to destroy his rig.


Griffin had to do some extra work today because I forgot my cell phone home. I'll reward him with a photo.


Aerials were difficult today because the wind was a bit onshore. But Pascal is a master in that department.


I love this photo. A windsurfers does a radical jump while a couple of standuppers enjoy their downwinder. It's a big ocean and there's room and fun for everybody.


What did I just say? Let me take that back...
This is the result of an INTENTIONAL collision.
No matter what happened before, shit like that should not happen. We're out there to have fun, not to fight!
Oh, forgot... we're human beings...


Here's the Mokapu point buoy reading as of Tuesday afternoon.


The windswell is still up, but the wind is supposed to get lighter. Maybe one more day? We'll see...

the goold old days when I used to jump

I feel like doing a lil' update here, otherwise I would give wrong information out...
As soon as I wrote "boring and flat conditions here", a sw swell hit at just over 2 feet 18 seconds at the Lanai buoy and the windswell went up to 8 feet 8 seconds at the Mokapu buoy... good, I'll have to write that more often!!

I heard the south shore was surfable, but I sailed Hookipa instead. It was a lot of fun with sets up to shoulder high. Wind extremely up and down with the squalls. That's when you need a floaty wave board... I had some really good rides on some glassy ones towards the end...
Tomorrow the windswell should be a notch bigger, so I think I'll choose wave sailing again (and save some gas)...
Aloha.

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Boring windy and flat conditions here.

After a good start of the summer season, the south swells don't seem to be able anymore to get over the threshold of two feet at the buoy (that's a Maui threshold, Oahu is fun with that size...).
So not much to ride on the south shore and absolutely no wave sailing on the north shore.
Sure, if you're into jumps, you'll find a little ramp here and there. Here's Andres in a few backloops. I took the photos at Hookipa from inside the car... didn't even feel like stepping out.




I don't do jumps anymore (maybe some table top attempts, once in a while), because my body can't take them... too old and beat up. But I used to!
Look what I found going through some really old photos that I scanned last time I went back home...




The first one should be Barbados, the second one Tenerife, no idea of the year.
I got so many old shots, I should make a post with them...

PS. Just received from a SF bay sailor called Sergey an idea for a GoPro mount that I'm happy to share. Here's how it looks in action.

the road to La Perouse will close August 1st... for two years!!!!

...when Michelle told me I couldn't believe it.

But here is the news. It looks pretty damn official.
I'm not sure what kind of land natural resources these guys are talking about (it's all lava rocks over there), but if the problem is that the great number of snorkelers and kayakers are damaging the reef, then just forbid that... for god's sake!

Starting August 1st one of the best waves in Maui will not be accessible anymore.


Nothing pisses me off more than laws that prevent people from surfing.

PS. FYI: it's sunday night and I have a flu and a fever. I don't think we will play at the Cafe Marc Aurel tomorrow...

PPS. Just received an email from photographer Ray Mangan. Happy to puiblish the content:

Sometimes it is easy to forget how spoiled we are living on Maui. Hop in a car, and within 15 minutes you can be at any number of world class windsurfing beaches, but what we are forgetting is that sometimes the journey can be just as a rewarding as the destination.
Specially if you're doing the journey with Ashley, I add...


While it might be hard to "go on a windsurf trip," without leaving the island, we sure did try. After 45 minutes of driving, and an hour of hiking, we arrived to our destination, and though the conditions weren't what most of us would call "epic" we made the most of it and thats what counts.

Here's the photos.

fun windswell + Charles' article

9 feet 8 seconds from around 50-60 degress at the Mokapu point bouy... now, that's a good windswell!
Too bad it's going to go down quickly (just like the wind speed) during the weekend, but it should pick up again around wednesday.

And that's how Hookipa looked like today. Thanks to Harry Wievel for these shots of me and Diony. I don't have to say who's who, since you guys can easily recognize my clearly superior wave riding style...








Let me thank another photographer and point out an article of Charles Oreve (don't miss the beauty section of his website): a nice memory of a fun day surfing small waves with Jeff.
You can find it at pag. 64-65 of the online magazine Corduroy Lines.
Famous Maui bloggist... I guess I should give up the idea of being known as a famous Maui playboy...

Oh, almost forgot!!! Harry sent me also this one. It's a spectacular italian ass in vacation in Maui...
My reply to his email was:"trust me: if they were all like that, I would have never left!"


Other stuff.
Here's a couple of links of interesting nature photos from La Repubblica:
- a shark saved after having half swallowed a human built rod
- a leopard attacking and killing a crocodile

Lastly (and in this case leastly too), looks like my music friends Corinne, Tony and I are going to play a couple of songs to Ryan's open mike at the Cafe Marc Aurel on Market St. in Wailuku this Monday the 21st.
Don't come for us, 'cause we suck... but do come for Ryan and his drummer: they're pretty good and they open the mike at 7pm sharp.
If you fancy a sandwich, they have a good one called "The italian grinder"...

the kingdom of the light offshore

I went over to Oahu for a few days to see a friend who was there for a surf contest. We surfed intensly every day at the Ala Moana breaks.
This is the view from the condo he rented (well actually from the fire exit... the condo wasn't quite as ocean front!).






The quality and size of the waves were so much better than Maui's south shore. I knew that already, but it was still a big surprise. It's the kingdom of the light offshore wind. I'm sure that when it blows over 25 it gets blown out over there too, but we got four perfect days in a row.






Surfing in front of the skyscrapers of a big city is weird. At first I didn't like it, "it would look better with some green hills" I thought. But then I had to admit that it had a special feel (and they must act as a wind shield too!).
Wait a moment, what's going on... that weird wave is coming from the beach!!!


Optical illusion... here's the lineup getting ready to duck dive... love this photo!


And when the sunset came for the first time...
Oh my god, what a trip. Believe it or not, even the skyscrapers change color at sunset and it gets increasingly surreal until it gets dark and... they turn the lights on! The almost full moon was out and we ended all evening sessions very, very late.





Even going left (that'll be east, away from the rising moon) was fine, because the face of the wave was reflecting the light of the town. Unreal.
If I lived over there I would surf mostly at night...

Despite the age, big belly and speedo, this guy had a great seventy's style...


Sure, it was crowded. Sure in the weekend it was very crowded. But no bad energy in the water. The level of the surfers was pretty high (I guess the beginners have plenty other breaks in front of Waikiki) and most of the times respectful of the priority rules. Plenty bikinis too.







Here's a few more pics.






Back in Maui I went to the south shore to check the waves. I looked at them and I didn't even go out... what a difference... what a difference!
Allright, let's see how long it takes me to get used again... no complaints, no problem, I'm still happy...

PS. Sorry for the consistently blue sky in the photos... annoying, uh?

S.H.A.R.K. Attack!

I think I have a photo in me...

That's what I thought around 6.20 at Hookipa, after a sweet 4th of July wave sailing session, while watching Diony (last windsurfer out) ripping in the beautiful sunset light.

Well, looks like I actually had two photos in me... whatcha think?




Four days in a row of surfing on the south shore, with more south swells lined up for next week...
A super fun wave sailing session at Hookipa, with slightly onshore 5.0 steady wind, instead of the usual ugly 4.5 super gusty summer trades...
God, I'm loving this summer!

great June

Lil' update, just to point out that some of the swells we saw (in particular, last week's one) were just the angular spreading of bigger swells aimed to south and central america. As you can see on Surfline, they saw a record June over there too.

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It's been a while... what the hell have I been doing?

Surfing, surfing and surfing.
If this summer would end right now it would still be the best one of the last few years... and there's still plenty more south swells to come. It feels great after the grim (surfwise) winter we just had.

Take yesterday, for example, when a new Tasman swell hit. I timed it right and for a few hours, on the rise of one of the highest tides of the year, the spot I was surfing got pretty much epic. After that, I went for a lunch and nap to Launiupoko and took a few pics.


The following sequence is dedicated to those friends that I called after my first session:"hey get your ass down here, it's going off"...


Unfortunately, by the time they made to the south shore, the tide started to go out, a little onshore wind picked up, I don't know what else happened, but the conditions were not even remotely as good as these ones...


Oh well, it happens...


Palm trees section.




Bums section.




Birds section.






And a few more surfing ones... training for Makaha?


I like the palms in the background. Pools must have been really, really good...


Holy cow, look at that wave!


Different styles.


Today, thanks to the lack of trade winds and to the clouds on the south shore (both very unusual for the summer), it was glassy all day. A tad smaller, but still a lot of fun. Oh, I almost got knocked out by a beginner standupper out of control... I was shooting with the GoPro and it's on the clip, stay tuned!