good bye six pack...

Courtesy of that long lasting south swell, when I left for Italy I was in top shape and with a remarkable six pack...












...which is clearly gone now!

PS. Assuming everyone knows already about the NY ASP contest, I feel like mentioning that finally a PWA contest (the Klittmoller one) is being covered by some kind of live webcast.
'Bout time!
No live scores, but decent commentary by Skye and Swift (at least when I tuned in). I still can't really watch it though, because the conditions are horrible...

Ok ok, I'll take that back. Conditions were horrible compared ideal sideoff Cabo Verde kinda things, but, thanks to the fact that there were big (although messy) waves AND competent commentators, the webcast was still enjoyable.
Tons of things to improve to get to the amazing level of the ASP webcasts, but finally there was something that can be called webcast!!! Thanks a lot for that.

PPS. Next ASP contest is at Trestles and I'll watch that live. Cheers to that!

PPPS. Considering the amount of milk derivatives in those photos above, it's actually a good thing I won't be able to attend the Maui Vegetarian Society of Thursday September 15 at the Kaunoa Senior Center and learn how much harm I did to myself.

Its title is: "DAIRY: ESSENTIAL NUTRITION OR HEALTH SABOTEUR?"
In the abstract you can read: Joseph Keon, author of Whitewash: The Disturbing Truth about Cow's Milk and Your Health, will show how North Americans unwittingly sabotage their health every day by drinking milk, how our obsession with calcium is unwarranted, and that the inclusion of dairy products in the diet may increase the risk of serious diseases, including prostate, breast, and ovarian cancers, Crohn¹s disease, and osteoporosis.
Oh well, I can always watch it later online on the VSH website: http://www.vsh.org/

what a swell!

I hate when people exaggerates about the size of the waves, but I have to admit that this last swell has been quite unique.

The series of storms that generated it, kept building seas on top of already built seas and that made for some exceptional energy packed into the waves, expecially the over 20 seconds period ones. Not even on the north shore we see stuff like that often.

The funny thing is that it wasn't record big everywhere. I guess it depends on the direction, as usual.

For example, McGregor's was way bigger in an early south swell we had in 2004. Here's an article of mine published by surfersvillage. Unfortunately, the photos got lost...

La Perouse was massive, that's for sure.
I heard scary stories from very experienced surfers...
I heard of no paddle takeoffs from Albee and Marcio going right and getting massive barrels...
I heard of kiters challenging spots couple of miles upwind of it...
I heard of people getting washed in the bushes on the beach at Dumps...

Anyway, I linked Jimmie's gallery of Tuesday in the last post. Here's Wednesday's.

On Tuesday, not only I surfed 5 different spots, but I found the time to take some pictures. This is the spot I wanted to surf first, but when I pulled in the parking lot at 5.45am there were already 30 cars... little I knew there was a longboard contest. It wasn't big at all, but it was peeling nicely... if I had a longboard with me I would have entered the contest just to surf two heats of 40 minutes together with 5 other guys...
Here's a young competitor hanging five.

But then he lost his board (contest rules: at least 9 feet board, single fin and no leash) and had to negotiate ankle deep water and sharp reef for half an hour...

Maalaea wasn't big either (at least I've seen it a lot bigger), but it was big enough to make some damage.

And this is your blog author doing what he does best: kooking out!

Allright, and a decent top turn.

Here's a youtube video of Ala Moana Bowls.


Biggest in 10 years? Not sure about that...
This was three years ago when I went there for two months... btw, that is my most seen video (almost 70k views). Bit depressing, considering that I put a lot more effort in the others...


I love this picture of a lady being told off by a lifeguard at the Wedge... taken from this slideshow.


Monday I'm off to Italy. What a great way to leave... completely surfed out. I know I will miss out on some waves, but that's almost inevitable in Maui... there's another nice south swell in a week and the north shore will see some action too.
Tired as I am now, I can only look forward for my 5pm massage right now...

Cheers!