I have to admit, it took me quite a bit of time to figure out what was going on at the buoys yesterday. It was a beautiful pulse that started at 18s in the morning and held to 15s all day, but it was definitely not in the Hookipa Surfline forecast (maybe they assumed it was too west?). I had to check the Kauai forecast to understand what it was. Anyway, whatever it was, it was beautiful.
Early morning surfing kinda sucked (too many closeouts, Hookipa doesn't really like 18s for surfing..., plenty chop coming from the east because of the mini windswell two days of afternoon wind created and plenty backwash coming from the beach), but windsurfing was really, really good.
Surfing at sunset looked good too.
I will not hesitate calling the hour between 4 and 5pm epic. The wind turned more offshore, most of the people left (it was relatively crowded until then) and there were consistent logo high sets.
I sure still love windsurfing when the conditions are like that! I just became more selective... that's what age does to me. Women and waves, same thing.
The photo of Jimmie Hepp that I picked shows French sailor Manuel on a head high smooth section.
As I was saying, today could be a memorable day. Below is the graph of three buoys.
I underlined in red the readings belonging to the new big swell.
almost 20f at 19s at the NW buoy is a reading that I have trouble matching in my (unfortunately poor) historical memory.
That is huge. And coming from a straight west direction.
Waimea got almost 4f 22s, Maui barely a foot 25s. That's how a big swell start. But that means, not much in the morning. The longer the period, the faster the waves travel and 20s waves travel real fast, so do expect to start seeing sets in the second part of the morning, but the big bang for Maui will be in the late afternoon.
Let's not forget about the leftovers of yesterday's swell! Gonna be fun surfing at dawn, since there's no wind as I type this call. Expect a photo soon.
Wind: below is the two models at the bottom of the windguru page.
The NAM says no, the HRW says yes.
Before speaking, GP likes to take a look at the wind map below.
Holy smoke, that's a huge fetch NW of us! The big swell is today and tomorrow, but after that it sure isn't going flat!!! Plenty days of outer reef action (for the ones that like that) ahead of us.
The local circulation is still ESE which I believe is a good direction for windsurfing at Jaws, so that's what I'm calling: Jason Polakow and his capable buddies out there with their sails. Provided there's not too many regular surfers. Does Jaws have a 10 man rule too? :)
What can I say else. It's a MASSIVE swell from a straight west direction.
I personally have no idea of how big the north shore is going to get, but judging from yesterday's swell that peaked around 5-6f 15s from W and created some DOH lines at Hookipa), I believe it's gonna be huge.
They called the Jaws contest off and the photos from Thursday morning will show that they were totally wrong.
Get creative with the spot you're gonna surf in the afternoon. You might see waves in spots that you haven't seen yet.
But be careful, because the rise will be steep. I'll post as many updates as I can. No sorry, as many updates as I feel like. :)
Have fun in the sun everyone!
PS. All the sources for this post are permanently linked in the links section on the right of this blog.
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