The crew at Poor Boyz believed in advertising on this blog and bought a month of banner space (see right)... thanks!!!
They also offered a DVD copy that I will assign to the best blog reader submitted windsurfing photo. My email address is on the right, please resize your photo and do not send files bigger than 300k! One photo per reader. The dateline for submitting the photo is Saturday. The winner will get a free copy of TWMII dvd and, of course, the photo published on this blog (I may actually publish more than one... we'll see).
If you're in Maui and you like windsurfing (and/or skiing), you just can't miss out!
Exactly one week ago I had a fantastic day of surfing.
The video below is made by clips taken in the morning session. Then in the late afternoon, I went out again on my SUP (too tired to lay down paddle) and stayed out till dark thanks to an amazing full moon that rose just by sunset time. Later on the same day, I gathered with some friends and we played some music with guitars and ukuleles. I got intrigued by a chord progression of a song called "One night stand" and, not knowing at all the original, I played those four chords with my own rhythm, strumming and I even improvised some words.
My surfing, on a board that was snapped in two pieces and I put together all by myself, with a melody that I made and that I played and sang in a video that I filmed and edited... almost everything I can do is in this video! :)
All I hope is that you guys can get some of my stoke out of it... Enjoy.
A few details. 1) the chord progression is: G Bm C Dm7. Actually the original had a Bm7 instead of a Bm, but my fingers are too fat for that...
2) fellow surfers, please note how many times I look left AND right when I paddle for my first wave. That is to make sure that I'm in the right place at the right time and to check what the wave is doing, but ALSO to make sure that no one else is going to paddle for that wave, so that I won't drop in on anybody.
Also, notice how often I check the inside to make sure I can avoid the surfers paddling out. When you surf, you need to have 360 degrees of awareness. By having spotted way in advance the girl paddling out in front of me, I was able to decide my line, throw a decent (for my standards) cut back at sec. 22 and go around her without being a danger for her and without having her ruining my line.
3) if you want to learn how to nose ride, DO NOT imitate what I do on my second wave. Rather read what Dave Kalama says in this post on his blog...
Aloha.
PS. One field in which my creativity didn't sparkle, is DSLR photography. I'm selling this Canon 20D with EF-S 18-55 lens with battery charger, manuals, original SW, extra book, extra dvd, extra case for $300. Email is on the right.
The annual Paia Bay Invitational was held, as tradition, yesterday on Thanksgiving day.
Ian and Danny are the true heart of this fun event and big thanks go to them for gathering a bunch of friends to spend a day at the beach in a really fun way (and for offering a delicious dinner afterwards!).
Of course GP ended up in a heat with three ladies... In particular, Michelle and Olga are some of the people I'm most happy to meet in the lineup, so it was like surfing with my favorite surfing buddies. They both deservingly (and easily!) advanced without bruising my non existing ego a bit. Good job girls!
The judging panel.
Ulli showed off his head stance right away.
Beautiful contestant paddles out.
Michelle showed off her hairy fanny kit.
The contest was won by Thomas, followed by Craig, Tatiana and Michelle. Unfortunately I couldn't stay all day and watch the rest of the event, since I had to go take photos at Hookipa (not a bad job anyway). It was worth it, because I got a few good ones of Andrea.
This is Nils.
Andrea again.
Keith.
Nils.
Mark.
Looks like Andres shaped himself another AM board...
Looks like it works too!
Paolino Mazzoni makes the blog!
Ferdinando.
Patrick.
After the photoshoot (and a mini nap at home), I felt like going sailing myself and entered the water at Hookipa around 4.30ish right after a major squall. Everybody knows that that's when the wind drops, but I always like the challenge of the light wind and I just needed to get wet. Well I sure achieved that, since when I got to the waves (i.e. after 10 seconds I launched) the wind completely died leaving me floating on the inside. Upwind of the launching beach, the current pulls upwind and so I ended up getting ingloriously out of the water at Pavillions. I'm surprised they didn't throw turkey at me... Thanks to Alex and Andrea who came to help me.
Next 7 days weather maps look pretty grim to me. So far this La Nina winter has been delightful, but, other than a compact and relatively near low that should send a moderate short lived NNW swell for Tuesday/Wednesday, next week will see a dominance by high pressures blocking any other kind of ground swell from the northern hemisphere.
Last post was the celebration of a epic week of glassy surf.
Now the trades are back (though kinda light... the way I like them) and this post is the celebration of an epic day of glassy wave sailing (at least that's what it was for me).
Hookipa looked beautiful, but the light wind made it difficult to rip hard for the "average" Hookipa sailor. So in the final cut of the photo selection, only the hard core guys made it.
First photo I took: Mark at its best.
Second photo of the list: Mark pushes it again.
Third photo of the list: Mark pushed it too much. It's part of the game...
Jesse.
Jesse.
Keith.
Prior.
Elena is always out there.
Levi aerial wave 360 perfectly landed on the face of the wave. He did a nice top turn before that and that wave would have been a 10 on my sheet. I also missed a huge aerial from him.
Prior always fun to watch.
Mark.
Skyler.
The second Triple Crown contest started at Sunset Beach yesterday. This is the heat that saw both Maui surfers Hank Gaskell and Albee Layer advance.
The contest is off today, but the Paia Bay Invitational is on. No idea when it starts, so I better get going...
No wait, this is another nice video sent by John (thanks!).
Despite its ease of use, taking the GoPro out is always a tiny little mini-burden: got to have it ready, mount it, activate it, check it, etc... But to get a shot like this is just priceless.
These photos are from yesterday, yet another day of awesome glassy surf here in Maui.
At 6:30 am, together with a couple of fellow surfers, I was at Kanaha waiting for the gate keepers to open the park. They arrived at 6:34, 4 minutes after the official park opening time. There's two ways for a tax payer to can look at that: 1) Damn, those county workers are always late! 2) Wow, those county workers are quite on time! I guess it depends on where you lived and what standards you're used to. I totally went for number two.
This is the first wave I caught after the sun got out from the slopes of the Haleakala. The light was just magic.
Not a bad wave either. I tilted the photo to straighten the horizon and show the angle I gave my trusty Starboard 7.4 in that top turn.
Three minutes later another gem. The shadow of the board on my legs tells how low the sun was in the cloudless sky.
Renata was another happy surfer.
One more.
As you can see from the different light, it's now later in the morning and I moved to Uppers. Lowers in fact got crowded and I wanted to see how the board performed in overhead waves. BTW, at 8am I was supposed to take part to a staff meeting at the shop. It was a meeting more oriented to the sales people (instead I work at the rentals), nonetheless I am very grateful to the shop owner and managers not to give me a single ounce of shit for not going to it... it's great to work in such a relaxed environment! That right was awesome.
Despite the complete lack of glide (which is something caused by the extremely short length), I was able to catch some waves even at the outer reef! Not exactly the conditions the board was designed for, but I had tons of fun. Yep, definitely not a good day for GP to go to a staff meeting...
Stylish lil cuttie.
The sun-headed god rescues a broken board.
Hang on!
I have some video clips from the day before (on my longboard this time) and I hopefully will find some time to put together a little video.
In the meantime, today the wind came back to the north shore after exactly a week of absence. A bunch of desperate windsurfers crowded the waters of Hookipa. I stopped by quickly and took one single shot of Andrea, who showed interest in buying a cd of photos from me. When I saw him on a wave, my camera was off and in the case. I don't know how I pulled this one off.
Talking about windsurfing, here's the trailer of The Windsurfing Movie II.
After watching it, I realized that I personally know each single sailor that appears in it. Not sure why, but that feels kind of cool. It's like having professional videographers make a movie with your friends as protagonists... Good to see you smiling Baptiste!
There should be a Maui premiere of the WMII together with the ski movie Revolver on December 4th. I'll keep you posted on that.
In the meantime, the surf movie Innersection will be showed this Friday Nov 26 at the MACC. Co-starring my next door neighbor Matt Meola. There we go again...
And since this is an SUP related post, I'm going to link again the latest blog sponsor: supadvisor.com.
Instead of the forecast, this time I'm going to tell you a very weird dream I had last night. My buddy Griffin was telling me that the forecast was for three weeks of strong wind and we both were freaking out about it. As soon as I woke up, I went online and checked the forecast to make sure that that wasn't true...
That's how much I (and him, I guess) liked this week of glassy surf. Well, pretty much just as much as I liked the light wind late afternoon wave sailing session I had today.
Man, I just love this place...
PS. OMG, I almost forgot! You guys have to watch this... this guy is completely nuts!
PPS. Highly probable start of the second contest of the Triple Crown of Surfing at Sunset beach tomorrow morning.
PPPS. The PWA Cabo Verde event didn't see any competition because of lack of wind/waves. Victor Fernandez has been proclaimed "world champion" in the wave discipline. With all the respect for Victor, who is an amazing sailor, nominating someone world champion based on the results of two contests (Pozo and Denmark) makes me laugh.
What a lovely stretch of glassy surf we had! East swell, south swell, west swell and now northwest swell... I surfed them all and had very little time left to post.
Today (Sunday) I had a day off and after yet another very fun surf session, I busted out my beach chair to watch live the Haleiwa contest with a wireless little modem plugged into my laptop (still experimenting with mobile internet solutions) and to catch up with the blogging.
Didn't take many photos in the last few days, these are from Friday.
Connie is a very happy surfer. Always smiling, always enjoying the conditions, even when they are not ideal. One of those persons I'm always happy to see in the water. Not so happy to see when she works (she's a ER nurse).
And I just found out she's Albee Layer's mum! Who's Albee Layer? Here's a video to get to know him.
Back to the beach. That's the kind of photographer I need.
Alex catches one.
My buddy Nino left after a month stay. He sucked up the island energy as much as one possible can, improving his surfing and windsurfing skills greatly. He bought my old 4.7 Superfreak. Battens in his hands and sail folded in the bag... That's the kind of souvenir a guy like him needed for himself.
Last Monday there were some epic sailing conditions. I couldn't make it to Hookipa, so I'm going to grab photos from a couple of photographers. Here's Jimmie Hepps's section, out of this gallery.
Graham Ezzy. This aerial is insane.
This is a german guy called Chris.
He was renting gear from the shop I work for and he was so stoked about the gear and the service that he sent me this email (with Jimmie's photo attached):
Aloha Giampaolo and Team,
first of all I would like to thank you that you and your team which is so kind and skilled. We have looked at the various surfrentalplaces in Maui before we decided us for you guys and have had the right feeling with you guys. Your equipment is well maintained and really good for all different conditions.
I have used your shops 4.7. Goya Guru Sail and the 75 Liter quatro doublefin on monday, 15 2010 in the unforgettable Big Monday conditions at Hookipa.
In the center of the bay i caught a great wave which I was already following from far outside that was epic. The whitewater on the right hand side and behind of me shows that it was an unforgettable one and some spectators said that it was the wave of the day that I've surfed. It was a good chance to test our divewatches in serious sailing conditions.
Check the attached photo and keep on being Giampaolo the charming and attentive italian Grandmaster at Hi-Tech Surf Sports,
Surf's up,
Chris
Thanks Chris for the kind words, we do have some killer gear at HiTech.
Back to the pros, looks like Jesse Brown put up a show.
For this Mutant's sequence, I have to thank Jommy photos. This is the gallery of that day.
Last but not least, a big thanks to SUPadvisor.com that just bought a month of banner space. Check it out!
PS. Congrats to Joel Parkinson who just won the Haleiwa contest (like 3 seconds ago). Second Triple Crown of Surfing contest is at Sunset and it will start on Wednesday morning. But, WAY more important than that, the annual Paia Bay invitational will take place on Thanksgiving day. It's going to be very windy and I'm forecasting the usual shitty conditions, but who cares... we're all shitty surfers anyway! :)
Born and raised in Italy, I became an engineer and worked 11 years in the IT industry. Sick of that, in 2001 I wanted to take a year off and spend it in Maui, the best windsurfing spot in the world. Not only I'm still here (in Maui), but I also got into surfing. And the stoke is flying high. Life is too short to work 8 hours a day...
